This chapter describes a perspective on emotion, according to which emotions are: 1. Designed to function in a social context: an emotion is often an act of relationship reconfiguration brought about by delivering a social signal; 2. Forms of skillful engagement with the world which need not be mediated by conceptual thought; 3. Scaffolded by the environment, both synchronically in the unfolding of a particular emotional performance and diachronically, in the acquisition of an emotional repertoire; 4. Dynamically coupled to an (...) environment which both influences and is influenced by the unfolding of the emotion We draw heavily on ‘transactional’ accounts of emotion proposed by some contemporary psychologists. Although these authors do not, to our knowledge, conceive their work as a contribution to the ‘situationist’ literature that is the focus of this volume, we contend that their proposals constitute a fairly exact, affective parallel to situationist ideas about cognition. The primary aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that a situated approach to emotion already exists and is backed by a substantial experimental literature. (shrink)

Empathy has become a common point of debate in moral psychology. Recent developments in psychiatry, neurosciences and social psychology have led to the revival of sentimentalism, and the ‘empathy thesis’ has suggested that affective empathy, in particular, is a necessary criterion of moral agency. The case of psychopaths – individuals incapable of affective empathy and moral agency, yet capable of rationality – has been utilised in support of this case. Critics, however, have been vocal. They have asserted that the case (...) of autism proves the empathy thesis wrong; that psychopathy centres on rational rather than empathic limitations; that empathy is not relevant to many common normative behaviours; and that rationality is required when empathy fails. The present paper analyses these four criticisms. It will be claimed that they each face severe difficulties, and that moral agency ought to be approached via a multi-tier model, with affective empathy as a baseline. (shrink)

There is disagreement in the literature about the exact nature of the phenomenon of empathy. There are emotional, cognitive, and conditioning views, applying in varying degrees across species. An adequate description of the ultimate and proximate mechanism can integrate these views. Proximately, the perception of an object's state activates the subject's corresponding representations, which in turn activate somatic and autonomic responses. This mechanism supports basic behaviors that are crucial for the reproductive success of animals living in groups. The Perception-Action Model, (...) together with an understanding of how representations change with experience, can explain the major empirical effects in the literature. It can also predict a variety of empathy disorders. The interaction between the PAM and prefrontal functioning can also explain different levels of empathy across species and age groups. This view can advance our evolutionary understanding of empathy beyond inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism and can explain different levels of empathy across individuals, species, stages of development, and situations. Key Words: altruism; cognitive empathy ; comparative; emotion; emotional contagion; empathy ; evolution; human; perception-action; perspective taking. (shrink)

Emotions, morals, practices -- Sympathy for a devil's chaplain -- Common compassion and the mad scientist -- Sympathy as callousness? physiology and vivisection -- Sympathy, liberty, and compulsion: vaccination -- Sympathetic selection: eugenics -- Scientism and practice.

One of science's greatest intellects examines how people and animals display fear, anger, and pleasure. Darwin based this 1872 study on his personal observations, which anticipated later findings in neuroscience. Abounding in anecdotes and literary quotations, the book is illustrated with 21 figures and seven photographic plates. Its direct approach, accessible to professionals and amateurs alike, continues to inspire and inform modern research in psychology.

According to simulation or shared-substrates models of emotion recognition, our ability to recognize the emotions expressed by other individuals relies, at least in part, on processes that internally simulate the same emotional state in ourselves. The term “emotional expressions” is nearly synonymous, in many people's minds, with facial expressions of emotion. However, vocal prosody and whole-body cues also convey emotional information. What is the relationship between these various channels of emotional communication? We first briefly review simulation models of emotion recognition, (...) and then discuss neuroscientific evidence related to these models, including studies using facial expressions, whole-body cues, and vocal prosody. We conclude by discussing these data in the context of simulation and shared-substrates models of emotion recognition. (shrink)

A primary function of empathy is to help individuals form and maintain social bonds. Empathy should thus occur only when individuals seek to solidify social bonds, and not in response to any opportunity to process others' emotions. Empathy should also involve only certain types of emotion – specifically, emotions that facilitate social bonds – and not any and all types of emotion.

In Mindblindness, Simon Baron-Cohen presents a model of the evolution and development of "mindreading." He argues that we mindread all the time, effortlessly, automatically, and mostly unconsciously. It is the natural way in which we interpret, predict, and participate in social behavior and communication. We ascribe mental states to people: states such as thoughts, desires, knowledge, and intentions. Building on many years of research, Baron-Cohen concludes that children with autism, suffer from "mindblindness" as a result of a selective impairment in (...) mindreading. For these children, the world is essentially devoid of mental things. Baron-Cohen develops a theory that draws on data from comparative psychology, from developmental, and from neuropsychology. He argues that specific neurocognitive mechanisms have evolved that allow us to mindread, to make sense of actions, to interpret gazes as meaningful, and to decode "the language of the eyes." A Bradford Book. (shrink)

A surfeit of research confirms that people activate personal, affective, and conceptual representations when perceiving the states of others. However, researchers continue to debate the role of self–other overlap in empathy due to a failure to dissociate neural overlap, subjective resonance, and personal distress. A perception–action view posits that neural-level overlap is necessary during early processing for all social understanding, but need not be conscious or aversive. This neural overlap can subsequently produce a variety of states depending on the context (...) and degree of common experience and emotionality. We outline a framework for understanding the interrelationship between neural and subjective overlap, and among empathic states, through a dynamic-systems view of how information is processed in the brain and body. (shrink)

Introduction: find your way -- Orientations toward objects -- Sexual orientation -- The orient and other others -- Conclusion: disorientation and queer objects.

_A surprising, sweeping, and deeply researched history of empathy—from late-nineteenth-century German aesthetics to mirror neurons_ _Empathy: A History_ tells the fascinating and largely unknown story of the first appearance of “empathy” in 1908 and tracks its shifting meanings over the following century. Despite empathy’s ubiquity today, few realize that it began as a translation of _Einfühlung _or “in-feeling” in German psychological aesthetics that described how spectators projected their own feelings and movements into objects of art and nature. Remarkably, this early (...) conception of empathy transformed into its opposite over the ensuing decades. Social scientists and clinical psychologists refashioned empathy to require the deliberate putting aside of one’s feelings to more accurately understand another’s. By the end of World War II, interpersonal empathy entered the mainstream, appearing in advice columns, popular radio and TV, and later in public forums on civil rights. Even as neuroscientists continue to map the brain correlates of empathy, its many dimensions still elude strict scientific description. This meticulously researched book uncovers empathy’s historical layers, offering a rich portrait of the tension between the reach of one’s own imagination and the realities of others’ experiences. (shrink)

"Contents "--"Introduction: Diving into the Wreck" -- "1. Trial of the Archangels" -- "2. Epicurus at the Scaffold" -- "3. Nasty, British, and Short" -- "4. The Monkey in the Panopticon" -- "5. In Which We Wonder Who Is Crazy" -- "6. Epicurus Unchained" -- "Afterword: The Restoration of the Monarchy" -- "Notes" -- "Bibliography.

Although images of faces have long been employed in the scientific study of emotion, the objectives and assumptions motivating their use have shifted according to the various fields and research programs within which they have been put to use. This article traces these shifts through three such fields – the social psychology of interwar America, cross-cultural research of the 1970s, and the contemporary neurosciences of emotion – in order to assess the recent use of facial images as a means of (...) correlating particular emotions with particular locations in the brain. (shrink)

This article reviews the history of medical and research abuses experienced by American Indians since European colonization. This article examines the unethical research of American Indians/Alaska Natives in light of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. Literature citations indicate that significant unethical research and medical care incidents occurred both before and after the Tuskegee Syphilis Study among American Indians/Alaska Natives. The majority of these unethical abuses were committed by the federal government and within the historical context (...) of a long-term contentious relationship between American Indians and the federal government. Although President Clinton issued a highly visible public apology to the African American survivors of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in 1997, American Indians have yet to experience such visible federal acknowledgment. To ensure ethical research in which benefits outweigh risks and findings are not value-laden or misrepresented, tribes have instituted their own Institutional Review Boards coupled with community-participatory activities. (shrink)