Dissecting the Neural Mechanisms Mediating Empathy Jean Decety Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Chicago, USA Abstract Empathy is thought to play a key role in motivating prosocial behavior, guiding our preferences and behavioral responses, and providing the affective and motivational base for moral development. While these abilities have traditionally been examined using behavioral methods, recent work in evolutionary biology, developmental and cognitive neuroscience has begun to shed light on the neural circuitry that instantiate them. The purpose of this article is to critically examine the current knowledge in the field of affective neuroscience and provide an integrative and comprehensive view of the computational mechanisms that underlie empathy. This framework is of general interest and relevance for theory as well as for assisting future research in the domains of affective developmental neuroscience and psychopathology. Keywords affective neuroscience, amygdala, empathy, orbitofrontal cortex, shared neural circuits, sympathy, theory of mind Emotion Review Vol. 3, No. 1 (January 2011) 92–108 © 2011 SAGE Publications and The International Society for Research on Emotion ISSN 1754-0739 DOI: 10.1177/1754073910374662 er.sagepub.com Suppose you are on a plane during a long red-eye flight. Just seated next to you a father is holding his 6-month-old baby, and while you’re trying to relax and get some sleep, the baby is screaming almost continuously. What your reaction would be? You may be compassionate or concerned for the baby girl and her dad, upset and annoyed because you cannot sleep, or maybe angry at yourself because you’re aware of being irritated and you are thinking that babies do not belong on airplanes. If only you had noise-canceling headphones! You may benefit by appraising the situation, taking the perspective of that baby, imagining what is like to have earache from changes in cabin pressure, and down-regulating your negative and aversive feel- ings towards that baby, or imagining if you were in the shoes of her father, how concerned you would be for the baby and embarrassed for troubling other passengers. Would your reac- tion be different if you were a parent of a baby? This example illustrates the complexity of the emotions and the range of reac- tions one may experience when exposed to another’s distress depending on various intrapersonal (e.g., moods, goals, disposi- tions) and situational factors. It also shows that our ability to appreciate and understand the emotions of others does not auto- matically lead to prosocial behavior, caring and concern, and does not necessarily ensure the benevolence that characterizes the lay concept of empathy. Empathy is something that needs to be regulated. People who never show empathy as well as people who are too sensitive to the feelings and thoughts of others can- not be socially adapted. Empathy and sympathy play crucial roles in much of human social interaction and are necessary components for healthy coexistence. Sympathy is thought to be a proxy for motivating prosocial behavior, guiding our preferences and behavioral responses, and providing the affective and motivational base for moral development (Eisenberg & Eggum, 2009). Empathy is not unique to humans as many of the biological mechanisms are shared with other mammalian species, including the processes involved in intergroup relations that modulate its expression. However, humans are special in the sense that high-level cogni- tive abilities such as executive function, language and theory of mind are layered on top of phylogenetically older social and emotional capacities (Stone, 2006). These evolutionarily newer aspects of information processing expand the range of behaviors that can be driven by empathy for the best (like caring for and helping outgroup members or even individuals from different species) but also for the worst (such as cruelty and dehumaniza- tion). Furthermore, various psychopathologies are marked by empathy deficits. For instance, a key feature that distinguishes Author note: The writing of this article was supported by a grant (BCS-0718480) from the National Science Foundation. Corresponding author: Jean Decety, University of Chicago, Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, 5848 S. University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Email: decety@uchicago.edu ARTICLE at UNIV OF CHICAGO LIBRARY on July 26, 2014 emr.sagepub.com Downloaded from