Animals are often presumed to lack moral agency insofar as they lack the capacities for reflection or the ability to understand their motivating reasons for acting. In this paper, I argue that animals are in some cases morally responsible. First, I outline conditions of moral action, drawing from a quality of will account of moral responsibility. Second, I review recent empirical research on the capacities needed for moral action in humans and show that animals also have such capacities. I conclude (...) that though it may be difficult to engage in the practice of holding animals morally responsible, given the communication barrier and lack of mutual understanding, some animals nevertheless act in ways for which they are morally responsible. (shrink)

The extent to which individuals with a variety of cultural backgrounds differ in empathic responsiveness is unknown. This article describes the differences in trait empathy in one independent and one interdependent society (i.e., the US and Iran, respectively). The analysis of data collected from self-reported questionnaires answered by 326 adults indicated a significant difference in the cognitive component of empathy concerning participants’ affiliation to either egocentric or socio-centric society: Iranian participants with interdependent cultural norms, reported higher cognitive empathy compared to (...) American participants who share independent cultural norms. In line with previous studies, gender differences were observed in all subscales of questionnaires, except the Empathy Quotient (EQ). Female participants demonstrated more empathy than males in both samples. Implications for understanding the cross-cultural differences of various components of empathy are discussed. (shrink)

Autism has been defined as a disorder of social cognition, interaction and communication where ritualistic, repetitive behaviors are commonly observed. But how should we understand the behavioral and cognitive differences that have been the main focus of so much autism research? Can high-level cognitive processes and behaviors be identified as the core issues people with autism face, or do these characteristics perhaps often rather reflect individual attempts to cope with underlying physiological issues? Much research presented in this volume will point (...) to the latter possibility, i.e. that people on the autism spectrum cope with issues at much lower physiological levels pertaining not only to Central Nervous Systems (CNS) function, but also to peripheral and autonomic systems (PNS, ANS) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013). The question that we pursue in this chapter is what might be fruitful ways of gaining objective measures of the large-scale systemic and heterogeneous effects of early atypical neurodevelopment; how to track their evolution over time and how to identify critical changes along the continuum of human development and aging. We suggest that the study of movement variability—very broadly conceived as including all minute fluctuations in bodily rhythms and their rates of change over time (coined micro-movements (Figure 1A-B) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013))—offers a uniquely valuable and entirely objectively quantifiable lens to better assess, understand and track not only autism but cognitive development and degeneration in general. This chapter presents the rationale firstly behind this focus on micro-movements and secondly behind the choice of specific kinds of data collection and statistical metrics as tools of analysis (Figure 1C). In brief the proposal is that the micro-movements (defined in Part I – Chapter 1), obtained using various time scales applied to different physiological data-types (Figure 1), contain information about layered influences and temporal adaptations, transformations and integrations across anatomically semi-independent subsystems that crosstalk and interact. Further, the notion of sensorimotor re-afference is used to highlight the fact that these layered micro-motions are sensed and that this sensory feedback plays a crucial role in the generation and control of movements in the first place. In other words, the measurements of various motoric and rhythmic variations provide an access point not only to the “motor systems”, but also access to much broader central and peripheral sensorimotor and regulatory systems. Lastly, we posit that this new lens can also be used to capture influences from systems of multiple entry points or collaborative control and regulation, such as those that emerge during dyadic social interactions. (shrink)

It has long been known that psychopathology can influence social perception, but a 2D framework of mind perception provides the opportunity for an integrative understanding of some disorders. We examined the covariation of mind perception with three subclinical syndromes—autism-spectrum disorder, schizotypy, and psychopathy—and found that each presents a unique mind-perception profile. Autism-spectrum disorder involves reduced perception of agency in adult humans. Schizotypy involves increased perception of both agency and experience in entities generally thought to lack minds. Psychopathy involves reduced perception (...) of experience in adult humans, children, and animals. Disorders are differentially linked with the over- or underperception of agency and experience in a way that helps explain their real-world consequences. (shrink)

The objective of the present research was two-fold: to provide a new definition of ethical competence, and to clarify the influence of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality on ethical competence. The present research provides a comprehensive overview about recent approaches and empirically explores the interconnections of these constructs. 366 German undergraduate students were examined in a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality with moral judgment competence and (...) counterproductive work behavior as indicators of moral judgment and behavior. We found self-transcendence values to be related to both, high levels of empathy and ethical competence, in contrast to self-enhancement values. Multiple mediation analysis revealed unique effects of empathy on ethical competence through values as mediators. Affective empathy transmitted its effect on ethical competence through benevolence, conformity, tradition, power, and hedonism. Most importantly, perspective taking lost its predictive power when investigated alongside affective empathy dimensions. These results converge to an important role of affective empathy, in particular empathic concern, with regard to personal values and ethical competence. Furthermore, the five-factor model of personality explained variance in measures of ethical competence. Our research suggests that organizational decision makers should consider the role of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model in their human resource management in order to select employees with high ethical competence. (shrink)

Dream-enacting behaviors are behavioral expressions of forceful dream images often occurring during sleep-to-wakefulness transitions. We propose that DEBs reflect brain activity underlying social cognition, in particular, motor-affective resonance generated by the mirror neuron system. We developed a Mirror Behavior Questionnaire to assess some dimensions of mirror behaviors and investigated relationships between MBQ scores and DEBs in a large of university undergraduate cohort. MBQ scores were normally distributed and described by a four-factor structure . DEB scores correlated positively with MBQ total (...) and factor scores even with social desirability, somnambulism and somniloquy controlled. Emotion-specific DEB items correlated with corresponding emotion-specific MBQ items, especially crying and smiling. Results provide preliminary evidence for cross-state relationships between propensities for dream-enacting and mirror behaviors—especially behaviors involving motor-affective resonance—and our suggestion that motor-affective resonance mediates dream-enactment imagery during sleep and emotional empathy during waking. (shrink)

Eye movements during false-belief tasks can reveal an individual's capacity to implicitly monitor others' mental states (theory of mind - ToM). It has been suggested, based on the results of a single-trial-experiment, that this ability is impaired in those with a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD), despite neurotypical-like performance on explicit ToM measures. However, given there are known attention differences and visual hypersensitivities in ASD it is important to establish whether such impairments are evident over time. In addition, investigating implicit (...) ToM using a repeated trial approach allows an assessment of whether learning processes can reduce the ASD impairment in this ability, as is the case with explicit ToM. Here we investigated the temporal profile of implicit ToM in individuals with ASD and a control group. Despite similar performance on explicit ToM measures, ASD-diagnosed individuals showed no evidence of implicit false-belief tracking even over a one-hour period and many trials, whereas control participants did. These findings demonstrate that the systems involved in implicit and explicit ToM are distinct and hint that impaired implicit false-belief tracking may play an important role in ASD. Further, they indicate that learning processes do not alleviate this impairment across the presentation of multiple trials. (shrink)

Recent imaging results suggest that individuals automatically share the emotions of others when exposed to their emotions. We question the assumption of the automaticity and propose a contextual approach, suggesting several modulatory factors that might influence empathic brain responses. Contextual appraisal could occur early in emotional cue evaluation, which then might or might not lead to an empathic brain response, or not until after an empathic brain response is automatically elicited. We propose two major roles for empathy; its epistemological role (...) is to provide information about the future actions of other people, and important environmental properties. Its social role is to serve as the origin of the motivation for cooperative and prosocial behavior, as well as help for effective social communication. (shrink)

The ability of a group of adults with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) to distinguish moral, conventional and disgust transgressions was investigated using a set of six transgression scenarios, each of which was followed by questions about permissibility, seriousness, authority contingency and justification. The results showed that although individuals with HFA or AS (HFA/AS) were able to distinguish affect-backed norms from conventional affect-neutral norms along the dimensions of permissibility, seriousness and authority-dependence, they failed to distinguish moral and (...) disgust transgressions along the seriousness dimension and were unable to provide appropriate welfare-based moral justifications. Moreover, they judged conventional and disgust transgressions to be more serious than did the comparison group, and the correlation analysis revealed that the seriousness rating was related to their ToM impairment. We concluded that difficulties providing appropriate moral justifications and evaluating the seriousness of transgressions in individuals with HFA/AS may be explained by an impaired cognitive appraisal system that, while responsive to rule violations, fails to use relevant information about the agent’s intentions and the affective impact of the action outcome in conscious moral reasoning. (shrink)

This paper discusses possible correspondences between neuroscientific findings and phenomenologically informed methodologies in the investigation of kinesthetic empathy in watching dance. Interest in phenomenology has recently increased in cognitive science (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008 ) and dance scholars have recently contributed important new insights into the use of phenomenology in dance studies (e.g. Legrand and Ravn (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8(3):389–408, 2009 ); Parviainen (Dance Research Journal 34(1):11–26, 2002 ); Rothfield (Topoi 24:43–53, 2005 )). In vision research, coherent neural (...) mechanisms for perceptual phenomena were uncovered, thus supporting correlation of phenomenology and neurophysiology Spillmann (Vision Research 49(12):1507–1521, 2009 ). Correspondingly, correlating subjects’ neurophysiological data with qualitative responses has been proposed as a means to research the human brain in the study of consciousness (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008 ), with similar issues in clinical psychology Mishara (Current Opinion in Psychiatry 20(6):559–569, 2007 ) and biology Kosslyn et al. (American Psychologist 57:341–351, 2002 ). Yet the relationship between neuroscience and qualitative research informed by phenomenology remains problematic. How qualitative research normally handles subjective experiences is difficult to reconcile with standard statistical analysis of objective data. Recent technological developments in cognitive neuroscience have inspired a number of researchers to use more naturalistic stimuli, outside the laboratory environment, such as dance, thereby perhaps helping to open up the cognitive sciences to more phenomenologically informed approaches. A question central to our research, addressed here, is how the phenomenal experiences of a dance audience member, as accessed by qualitative research methods, can be related to underlying neurophysiological events. We outline below some methodological challenges encountered in relating audiences’ first-person accounts of watching live dance performance to neurophysiological evidence of their experiences. (shrink)

Extreme conditions like savantism, autism or synaesthesia, which have a neurological 2AH, UK basis, challenge the idea that other minds are similar to our own. In this paper we report a single case study of a man in whom all three of these conditions co-occur. We suggest, on the basis of this single case, that when savantism and synaesthesia co- occur, it is worthwhile testing for an undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). This is because savantism has an established association with (...) ASC, and the combination of ASC with synaesthesia may increase the likelihood of savantism. The implications of these conditions for philosophy of mind are introduced. (shrink)

Contemporary literature includes a wide variety of definitions of empathy. At the same time, the revival of sentimentalism has proposed that empathy serves as a necessary criterion of moral agency. The paper explores four common definitions in order to map out which of them best serves such agency. Historical figures are used as the backdrop against which contemporary literature is analysed. David Hume’s philosophy is linked to contemporary notions of affective and cognitive empathy, Adam Smith’s philosophy to projective empathy, and (...) Max Scheler’s account to embodied empathy. Whereas cognitive and projective empathy suffer from detachment and atomism, thereby providing poor support for the type of other-directedness and openness entailed by moral agency, embodied and affective empathy intrinsically facilitate these factors, and hence are viewed as fruitful candidates. However, the theory of affective empathy struggles to explain why the experience of empathy includes more than pure affective mimicry, whilst embodied empathy fails to take into account forms of empathy that do not include contextual, narrative information. In order to navigate through these difficulties, Edith Stein’s take on non-primordial experience is used as a base upon which a definition of affective empathy, inclusive of an embodied dimension, and founded on a movement between resonation and response, is sketched. It is argued that, of the four candidates, this new definition best facilitates moral agency. (shrink)

In moral psychology, it has long been argued that empathy is a necessary capacity of both properly developing moral agents and developed moral agency . This view stands in tension with the belief that some individuals diagnosed with autism—which is typically characterized as a deficiency in social reciprocity —are moral agents. In this paper we propose to explore this tension and perhaps trouble how we commonly see those with autism. To make this task manageable, we will consider whether high functioning (...) individuals diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder are capable of empathetic responses. If they are, then they possess a capacity that, on the view above, is required for moral agency. If they are not so capable, and yet sometimes engage in moral behaviour, this casts some doubt on the claim that empathy is required for moral agency. This second possibility will necessitate an exploration of the capacity of some individuals with autism to engage in moral behaviour, giving us further grounds to re-see these individuals as moral agents. (shrink)

The suffering of nonhuman animals has become a noted factor in deciding public policy and legislative change. Yet, despite this growing concern, skepticism toward such suffering is still surprisingly common. This paper analyzes the merits of the skeptical approach, both in its moderate and extreme forms. In the first part it is claimed that the type of criterion for verification concerning the mental states of other animals posed by skepticism is overly (and, in the case of extreme skepticism, illogically) demanding. (...) Resting on Wittgenstein and Husserl, it is argued that skepticism relies on a misguided epistemology and, thus, that key questions posed by it face the risk of absurdity. In the second part of the paper it is suggested that, instead of skepticism, empathy together with intersubjectivity be adopted. Edith Stein’s take on empathy, along with contemporary findings, are explored, and the claim is made that it is only via these two methods of understanding that the suffering of nonhuman animals can be perceived. (shrink)

Imitation, deliberation, and mindreading are characteristically human sociocognitive skills. Research on imitation and its role in social cognition is flourishing across various disciplines; it is here surveyed under headings of behavior, subpersonal mechanisms, and functions of imitation. A model is then advanced within which many of the developments surveyed can be located and explained. The shared circuits model explains how imitation, deliberation, and mindreading can be enabled by subpersonal mechanisms of control, mirroring and simulation. It is cast at a middle, (...) functional level of description, between the level of neural implementation and the level of conscious perceptions and intentional actions. The shared circuits model connects shared informational dynamics for perception and action with shared informational dynamics for self and other, while also showing how the action/perception, self/other and actual/possible distinctions can be overlaid on these shared informational dynamics. It avoids the common conception of perception and action as separate and peripheral to central cognition. Rather, it contributes to the situated cognition movement by showing how mechanisms for perceiving action can be built on those for active perception. (shrink)

The golden rule of most religions assumes that the cognitive abilities of perspective-taking and empathy are the basis of morality. One would therefore predict that people that display difficulties in those abilities, such as people with psychopathy and autism, are impaired in morality. But then why do autistics have a sense of morality while psychopaths do not, given that they both display a deficit of empathy? We would like here to refine some of the views on autism and morality. In (...) order to do so, we will investigate whether autism really challenges a Humean view of morality. We will then provide a new conceptual framework based on the distinction between egocentric and allocentric stances, which may help us to make some predictions about the autistic sense of morality. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated the relationship between mothers' psychological lexicon and children's cognitive and socio-emotive development as assessed through conceptual and semantic understanding tasks, in addition to the traditional tasks of theory of mind. Currently, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the frequency of mothers' mental state words used in mother-child picture-book reading is linked with children's theory of mind skills. Furthermore, mothers' use of cognitive terms is more strongly related to children's theory of mind performances than the (...) mothers' references to other mental states, such as desires or emotions (Rollo and Buttiglieri, 2009 ). Current literature has established that early maternal input is related to later child mental state understanding; however it has not yet clarified which maternal terms are most useful for the socio-emotional and cognitive development of the child, and which aspect of the cognitive development benefits from the mother-child interaction. The present study addresses this issue and focuses on the relationship between mothers' mental state talk and children's behavior in conceptual and semantic tasks, and in a theory of mind task. In this study fifty pairs consisting of mothers and their 3 to 6-year-old children participated in two sessions: (1) The mothers read a picture book to their children. To assess the maternal psychological lexicon, their narrative was codified according to the categories of mental state references used in literature: perceptual, emotional, volitional, cognitive, moral, and communicative. (2) After a few days, the conceptual and semantic skills of the children (tasks of contextualization and classification, memory, and definition of words) and their psychological lexicon were assessed. The results suggest close links between the frequency and variety of mothers' mental state words and some semantic and conceptual skills of children. (shrink)

A total of 378 mathematics undergraduates (selected for being strong at “systemizing”) and 414 students in other (control) disciplines at Cambridge University were surveyed with two questions: (1) Do you have a diagnosed autism spectrum condition? (2) How many relatives in your immediate family have a diagnosed autism spectrum condition? Results showed seven cases of autism in the math group (or 1.85%) vs one case of autism in the control group (or 0.24%), a ninefold difference that is significant. Controlling for (...) sex and general population sampling, this represents a three- to sevenfold increase for autism spectrum conditions among the mathematicians. There were 7 of 1,405 (or 0.5%) cases of autism in the immediate families of the math group vs 2 of 1,669 (or 0.1%) cases in the immediate families of the control group, which again is a significant difference. These results confirm a link between autism and systemizing, and they suggest this link is genetic given the association between autism and first-degree relatives of mathematicians. (shrink)

Several hypotheses on the form and function of sex differences in social behaviors were tested. The results suggest that friendship preferences in both sexes can be understood in terms of perceived reciprocity potential—capacity and willingness to engage in a mutually beneficial relationship. Divergent social styles may in turn reflect trade-offs between behaviors selected to maintain large, functional coalitions in men and intimate, secure relationships in women. The findings are interpreted from a broad socio-relational framework of the types of behaviors that (...) facilitate selective advertisement and investment of reciprocity potential across individuals and within groups of men and women. (shrink)

The mechanism by which humans perceive others differs greatly from how humans perceive inanimate objects. Unlike inanimate objects, humans have the distinct property of being “like me” in the eyes of the observer. This allows us to use the same systems that process knowledge about self-performed actions, self-conceived thoughts, and self-experienced emotions to understand actions, thoughts, and emotions in others. The authors propose that internal simulation mechanisms, such as the mirror neuron system, are necessary for normal development of recognition, imitation, (...) theory of mind, empathy, and language. Additionally, the authors suggest that dysfunctional simulation mechanisms may underlie the social and communicative deficits seen in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. (shrink)

In general, dreams are a novel but realistic simulation of waking social life, with a mixture of characters, motivations, scenarios, and positive and negative emotions. We propose that the sharing of dreams has an empathic effect on the dreamer and on significant others who hear and engage with the telling of the dream. Study 1 tests three correlations that are predicted by the theory of dream sharing and empathy: that trait empathy will be correlated with frequency of telling dreams to (...) others, with frequency of listening to others’ dreams, and with trait attitude towards dreams (for which higher scores indicate positive attitude). 160 participants completed online the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire and the Mannheim Dream Questionnaire. Pearson partial correlations were conducted, with age and sex partialled out. Trait empathy was found to be significantly associated with the frequency of listening to the dreams of others, frequency of telling one’s own dreams to others, and attitude towards dreams. Study 2 tests the effects of discussing dreams on state empathy, using an adapted version of the Shen (2010) state empathy scale, for 27 pairs of dream sharers and discussers. Dream discussion followed the stages of the Ullman (1996) dream appreciation technique. State empathy of the dream discusser towards the dream sharer was found to increase significantly as a result of the dream discussion, with a medium effect size, whereas the dream sharer had a small decrease in empathy towards the discusser. A proposed mechanism for these associations and effects is taken from the robust findings in the literature that engagement with literary fiction can induce empathy towards others. We suggest that the dream acts as a piece of fiction that can be explored by the dreamer together with other people, and can thus induce empathy about the life circumstances of the dreamer. We discuss the speculation that the story-like characteristics of adult human dreams may have been selected for in human evolution, including in sexual selection, as part of the selection for emotional intelligence, empathy, and social bonding. (shrink)

Empathy is an important human ability associated with successful social interaction. It is currently unclear how to optimally measure individual differences in empathic processing. Although the Big Five model of personality is an effective model to explain individual differences in human experience and behavior, its relation to measures of empathy is currently not well understood. Therefore, the present study was designed to investigate the relationship between the Big Five personality concept and two commonly used measures for empathy (Empathy Quotient (EQ), (...) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)) in four samples from China, Germany, Spain and the United States of America. This approach was designed to advance the way the Big Five personality model can be used to measure empathy. We found evidence of medium effect sizes for associations between personality and empathy, with agreeableness and conscientiousness as the most important predictors of affective and cognitive empathy (measured by the respective IRI subscales) as well as a for a one-dimensional empathy score (measured by the EQ). Empathy in a fictional context was most closely related to openness to experience while personal distress was first of all related to neuroticism. In terms of culture, we did not observe any distinct pattern concerning cultural differences. These results support the cross-cultural applicability of the Empathy Quotient and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and indicate structurally similar associations between personality and empathy across cultures. (shrink)

Mentalizing is an important actual topic, both in psychodynamic theory and in clinical practice. Remarkably, mentalizing has been explicitly related to religion or psychology of religion only to a limited extent. This article explores the relevance of the concept of mentalizing for psychology of religion by first describing mentalizing, its development, and neuropsychological underpinnings. Second, to illustrate how the concept gives more insight into the psychology of religious phenomena, mentalizing is related to an almost universal religious practice, namely religious prayer. (...) Empirical studies from different psychological subdisciplines are interpreted from the perspective of mentalizing. Finally, its relevance for the discipline of psychology of religion is discussed. In this way, the potential of the concept as both an explaining psychological mechanism and a bridging notion that overcomes differences between psychological subdisciplines is demonstrated. (shrink)

The present study examined whether strategy moderated the relationship between visuospatial perspective-taking and empathy. Participants undertook both a perspective-taking task requiring speeded spatial judgements made from the perspective of an observed figure and the Empathy Quotient questionnaire, a measure of trait empathy. Perspective-taking performance was found to be related to empathy in that more empathic individuals showed facilitated performance particularly for figures sharing their own spatial orientation. This relationship was restricted to participants that reported perspective-taking by mentally transforming their spatial (...) orientation to align with that of the figure; it was absent in those adopting an alternative strategy of transposing left and right whenever confronted with a front-view figure. Our finding that strategy moderates the relationship between empathy and visuospatial perspective-taking enables a reconciliation of the apparently inconclusive findings of previous studies and provides evidence for functionally dissociable empathic and non-empathic routes to visuospatial perspective-taking. (shrink)

We offer an account of empathetic pain that preserves the distinctions among standard pain, contagious pain, empathetic pain, sympathy for pain, and standard pain ascription. Vicarious experiences of both contagious and empathetic pain resemble to some extent experiences of standard pain. But there are also crucial dissimilarities. As neuroscientific results show, standard pain involves a sensorimotor and an affective component. According to our account, contagious pain consists in imagining the former, whereas empathetic pain consists in imagining the latter. We further (...) argue that awareness of another's standard pain is part of empathetic pain, but empathetic awareness of another's standard pain differs from believing that another is in standard pain. (shrink)