Psychological Dynamics of Empathy PDF

Psychological Dynamics of Empathy 1/14 Social Psychological Research: Section 1 ​ Empathy is not a single “thing” ○​ One facet of empathy is closest to what we usually mean by sympathy or compassion ○​ Behavioral Mimicry ○​ Theodor Lipps...

Psychological Dynamics of Empathy 1/14 Social Psychological Research: Section 1 ​ Empathy is not a single “thing” ○​ One facet of empathy is closest to what we usually mean by sympathy or compassion ○​ Behavioral Mimicry ○​ Theodor Lipps ​ Coined the term Einfuhlung loosely translated as an “instinctual force driving us towards inner imitation.” ○​ Behavioral and Emotional Contagion ​ Piaget's Spatial perspective taking task ​ There is no solid evidence for the existence of mirror neurons ​ There are 2 types of limits to empathy: ability and motivation ○​ Ability: In some cases the other is just too different ○​ Motivation: there are cases in which you might be able to emphasize with someone but you don't want to ​ Empathy is not a “cure: or “antidote” to stereotyping and conflict ○​ Why empathy can intensify conflict ​ Empathy is very “choosy” ​ The parochial empathy framework ​ Empathy can be wonderful, especially when it fosters prosocial behavior towards another person. ​ Empathy is bonded by our preexisting likes and dislikes 1/16 ​ An incomplete listing of different but potentially overlapping facets of empathy, defined broadly ○​ Mimicry ○​ Cognitive perspective skills ○​ Behavioral/ Emotional contagion ○​ Theodor Lipps “Einfühlung” ○​ Sympathy ​ A brief historical view ○​ A famous debate among philosophers ​ Is selfishness necessarily bad? ​ Thomas Hobbes: People are selfish and that's bad. Inherently selfish and the government should step in to avoid this. ​ Adam Smith: Humans are selfish but that can be good. No need for government involvement  ​ Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness. It's good to be selfish. As long as you do not hurt other people it is ok to look out for yourself ​ You can be selfish and empathic and sympathetic ​ Empathy and Social Psychology ○​ Empathy is often seen as the “opposite” of selfishness ​ Empathy: other oriented ​ Selfishness: maximizing own outcomes ​ How to reconcile with evolutionary principles “survival of the fittest?” ○​ Evolutionary theory attempts to explain the existence of altruism ​ Kin Selection ​ People are often “choosy” in terms of who they end up helping. We assist others if they are similar to us. ​ Reciprocity ​ Trivers 1971 ​ Ex: Cleaner birds and alligator teeth ​ You scratch my back i'll scratch yours ○​ Factors that explain self sacrifice ​ Social reward perspective ​ Personal distress motive ○​ Summary ​ Kin Selection: help others because we are like them (family) ​ Reciprocal altruism: Mutually beneficial relationships ​ Social Reward perspective ​ Personal Distress motive ○​ Does this mean that there is no such thing as honest to goodness, completely selfless altruism? ​ Dan Batson: Yes, pure altruism exists ​ Classical social psychological theories of altruism ○​ Terminology ​ Empathic Concern: interchangeable with altruism. Helping because you want to help them. Primary goal is to help. ○​ Bystander Intervention Research ​ The legacy of the Kitty Genovese case: ​ waitress in NY walking back to apartment, attacked and killed, at least 37 people watched this occur from their residence, did not call police, 70 year old women went down before the Kitty died ​ Not an isolated incident ​ Bystander effect: the more people present, the less likely one person is to step in. Case of conformity, when other people are not doing anything, you do nothing as well  ​ Explanation for nonhelping ​ John Darley ​ Bibb Latane 1/21 ​ Latane and Darley’s Famous Model ○​ An obvious aspect of empathy is assisting someone when they might need help… this issue is central to models of bystander intervention ○​ Potential Emergency - Notice the event - Interpret the event as an emergency - Assume responsibility - Intervene and Offer assistance ​ If Fail do not move to next step and no intervention/ help ​ Presence of others may play a role at both of these stages, but for different reasons ​ Does the person notice the event? ○​ The Good Samaritan Study: Situational constraints can heave a huge affect on helping ​ Did students stop and ask if person needed help (time pressure) ​ No hurry: 63% ​ Moderate Hurry: 45% ​ High hurry: 10% ​ Is the situation interpreted as an emergency (helping) situation? ○​ The “smoke filled room”: alone or group of 3 (unresponsive confederates) ​ Peoples intuition of how they would act does not match reality ​ % of participants who get up and help: ​ Alone: 65% ​ Group: 10% ​ Special case of conformity: “You see a bunch of other people doing nothing and this may be telling you that doing nothing is the right thing to do.”-Latane ​ When there clearly IS an emergency, does the person take responsibility? ○​ Diffusion of Responsibility: “Something seems wrong! Maybe they need help? But surely someone else will step in.” The more people you think know about the event, the less likely you are to help. ○​ The Seizure Study: ​ One real subject  ​ Partner seems to have seizure ​ Do you tell experimenters that partners are having a seizure? ​ Perceived number of other observers ​ 0: 85% help: Average delay-52 sec ​ 1: 62% help: Average delay- 93 sec ​ 4: 31% help: Average delay- 166 sec ​ Sometimes non helping may involve a blend of all three factors at the same time ○​ Drowning in the Illinois student pool ​ Tons of people there ​ Some people did not notice ​ Did not think the event was an emergency ​ Think the lifeguard is paying attention ​ Absent from Latane and Darley Approach ○​ Personality Personality Based Research: Section 2 ​ Personality ○​ Consistency ○​ Stability ​ Individual Differences ○​ Measures ​ Construct Validity: Is your questionnaire measuring what you think it is measuring? ​ Predictive validity: Do scores on your measure predict behavior? ○​ Big 5 model: McCrae and Costa (OCEAN) ​ Openness: Curious ​ Conscientiousness: Organized, Most correlated with empathy ​ Extraversion: Outgoing ​ Agreeableness: Helpful, Most correlated with empathy ​ Neuroticism : Tendency to feel negative emotions ​ Support for the Big Five model ○​ Good Predictive Validity ○​ Reasonable Consistent overtime ○​ Across Cultures (except openness) ​ Criticisms of Big Five Theory ○​ There could be more than 5 ○​ Broad terms: Each term has subdimensions ○​ An incomplete list of previous attempts to measure individual difference in empathy  ​ Measures for young children: ​ Focus on Behaviors, not response to surveys ○​ Perceptual Role taking (Piaget's mountain task) (commonly used) ○​ Referential communication ​ Tell another person how to build tower sight- unseen ​ Measures for adults: ​ More reliant on questionnaires ​ Early efforts: focused on accuracy ○​ Dymond ​ After interaction with another person, Ss (essentially) asked to guess how the other person rated themselves ​ Very popular but has some major problems ​ An unusual question ​ Based on a single behavioral interaction ​ Agreement does not = accuracy! (Cronbach) 1/23 ​ 1983: Mark Davis and the Interpersonal Reactivity Task ○​ Not perfect but filled huge gap in the individual difference literature for those wishing to measure that: ​ Multi dimensionality of empathy ​ Clear in definitions ​ Easy to Administer ​ High in Predictive Validity ​ Statistically reliable ​ Cited many times ​ Scale has 4 subcomponents ○​ Empathic concern (I often have tender feelings for those less fortunate than me) ○​ Perspective taking (I tried to look at everyones side of a disagreement before a decision) ○​ Personal Distress (In emergency situations I feel calm and at ease) ○​ Fantasy (imagination) ​ Empathic concern and Perspective Taking ○​ Social/ Personality Researchers has historically been most interested in EC and PT ○​ Correlation to the big 5  ○​ especially agreeableness ○​ No correlation to neuroticism ​ Domain Specific measure of self reported open mindedness: Price (2015) ○​ Allows you to be more specific to a particularly domain ​ Narcissism: Another important personality variable related to empathy ○​ A recent claim in the popular press and some research: ​ Americans are getting more narcissistic ○​ Is this true? What are the implications for empathy? ​ NPI (Narcissism personality inventory) ​ 4 dimensions ○​ Exploitative (I find it easy to manipulate people) ○​ Authority/ Leadership (I like to have authority over people ​ Strongly negative correlated with EC and PT ○​ Superiority/ Arrogance ( I am an extraordinary person) ○​ Self Absorption (I like to be the center of attention) ​ Are Americans more narcissistic and less empathic than they used to be? ​ Need innovative study designs ​ 3 different methods ○​ Longitudinal Studies ​ Tracks the same group of people overtime ​ Advantages ​ When done well, can be useful ​ Cautions ​ These are very hard studies to do, Take a long time ​ Age effects are difficult to disentangle from cultural effects. ○​ Is American culture becoming less empathetic? ○​ Cross Sectional Studies ​ Collect data from different groups of participants at same time ​ Ex: in 2019 researcher X measures personality among 3 groups. (20 yr olds, 40 yr olds, 60 yr olds) ​ Advantages ​ Easier to run ​ Easier to run big samples ​ Cautions  ​ Perfectly confounds age with generational effects ○​ These groups grew up in different eras. ○​ Time-lag Studies ​ Examines responses by different participants of similar age at different points in time ​ Ex: Find sophomores who completed a given personality survey at different points in time ​ Advantages ○​ When done well can be very compelling ○​ Controls for age effects ​ Challenges ○​ Groups need to be matched on different demographic variables ○​ Interpretation of WHY you find changes can be difficult ​ The researcher makes comparisons across the three samples ​ Jean Twenge: ○​ Time Lag ○​ Narcissism scores have gone up ○​ Large Sample Size ○​ Critics ​ Not huge effect (modest inc) ​ What about empathy? Some trends as narcissism? ​ Time lag ​ Empathic concern has decreases between the 1970s and 2005 (HUGE effect) ​ Yes! ○​ People are being more narcissistic and less empathetic ○​ Do people get less empathic over their lifespan? ​ Can be dangerous because of age related effect or historical period effect 1/28 Empathy, Emotion and Justice ​ Two different classification approaches ○​ Categorical approach ​ Paul Ekman  ​ 7 basic categories of emotion ​ ​ Fear, contempt, sadness, happiness, surprise, anger, disgust ○​ The Dimensional approach ​ Russels circumplex model of emotion ​ Two axes (Arousal and Pleasantry) ​ Where do emotions come from? How can we understand the dynamics of emotional experience? ○​ Three Different perspectives ​ Nature Perspective ​ Emphasizes genetics as the basis for emotional experience/emotion. Emotions often framed as universal properties within a given species ​ Nurture Perspective ​ Emphasizes Social construction of emotion ​ Assumes different cultures have different emotional experiences ​ Cognitive Perspective ​ Emphasizes the role of goals/cognition in triggering different emotions. ​ Traditional Goal based model- Handout ○​ Emphasizes anger as only a bad thing ​ Something bad happens to you: sadness, anger shame ​ Something bad happens to someone else ​ Does the other person’s suffering satisfy goals for the self? ○​ If yes, Happiness ○​ If not, Is the other person deserving of your help? ​ If no, Disdain/anger ​ If yes, Do you have the resources to help? ​ If no, Distress/Anxiety ​ If yes, compassion ○​ Anger is directed towards people you do not like. ○​ Anger serves an antisocial motive. ○​ Cast as having exclusively negative consequences for other people ​ Is there any context in which anger might have positive consequences? ○​ Social movements ○​ Not exclusively negative ○​ Positive benefits of other negative emotions (pain, fear) ​ Pain is a signal to your body to stop ​ Fear is necessary for safety (adaptive emotion) ○​ Anger ​ Justice violations  ○​ Primary Adaptive Feelings ​ ​ Ex: ​ Feeling: fear ​ Information: Danger ​ Need: Safety ​ Goal: Avoidance ​ Ex: ​ Feeling: Anger ​ Information: Justice Violation ​ Need: Restore justice, punishment of wrongdoers, reparations to victims ​ Goal: Approach, see that justice is done ​ Disclaimer: Anger can be destructive, self serving emotion when the person's sense of justice violation is distorted or self serving ​ Summary ○​ We need anger, just as we need fear and pain ​ Further theory and research on the evolutionary advantages of anger ○​ Darwin ​ Prepares organism for action and facilitates communication to others ​ Stay away! Don't do that. This is mine ​ Trying to take a bone from a dog ○​ Fehr and Gatcher ​ Motivates punitive action towards morn violators as Darwin suggested ​ But can also drive compassion towards those who have been harmed ​ Does Not imply that anger is always triggered by norm violators ○​ Boundary conditions ​ Anger towards norm violators is likely when certain boundary conditions are met ​ Harmful actions performed by a person in which the actions ○​ Are intentional ○​ Have clearly foreseeable consequences ○​ Performed by someone of their own free will ○​ Performed by someone of otherwise sound mind (and not a really young child) ​ Harmful actions may or may not directly involve another person ○​ You will clearly be angry if someone wrecks your car and it was their fault ○​ You weren't harmed but your property rights are violated ​ Random, unforeseeable events not likely to make you angry ○​ Floods, Hurricane  ○​ But if a flood could have been predicted but wasn’t it could make you angry ​ Empathic Anger as a Predictor of Helping and Punishing Desires ○​ Person 1: Perpetrator: Unjust act ○​ Person 2: Victim: Anger, distress ○​ Person 3: Observer: Anger towards perpetrator, Feelings of anger with victim ​ Anger toward vs Anger with ○​ Empathic Anger Scale ​ If i see that someone is feeling mad because he or she was mistreated, then I feel mad too ​ Anger vs Fear in the context of neuroscience ○​ Two important subsystems in the brain ​ BIS: Behavioral Inhibition ​ Avoidance ​ BAS: Behavioral activation ​ Approach ○​ Anger is the only negative emotion that is part of the BAS system ​ Summary ○​ Anger is often framed as a bad emotion, something people should not try to feel ○​ Anger can have strong adaptive functions ○​ Anger serves as a signal to norm breakers ​ Exceptions ○​ Anger can also forge alliance with people who have been harmed (empathic anger) ○​ Anger is part of the approach system in the brain ​ Unique among negative emotions, most others are associated with avoidance Anger and Empathy Part 2 ​ Desire for Justice ○​ Retributive ○​ Restorative ​ Scales of Justice ○​ Equilibrium and Balance ​ Retributive Response ​ Response focused on offenders past behavior ​ Crime is an individual act with individual responsibility ​ Victims are somewhat peripheral to the process ​ The offender is defined by deficits ​ Focus on establishing blame or guilt ​ Imposition of pain to punish and deter/prevent  ​ Restorative Response ​ Response focused on harmful consequences of offenders behavior, emphasis on future ​ Crime has both individual and social dimensions of responsibility ​ Victims are central to the process of resolving a crime ​ The offender is defined by capacity to make reparation ​ Focus on problem solving, on liabilities / obligations, one the future ​ Restitution as a means of restoring both parties, goal of reconciliation/ restoration 1/30 One additional finding regarding empathy and emotion ​ Helper’s high ○​ Empathic acts make helpers feel good Empathy and Political Psychology ​ Cultural Stereotypes of conservatives and liberals ○​ Liberals ​ The cold hearts of conservatives ○​ Conservatives ​ Bleeding heart liberal ​ Perceived excess of compassion ​ Need for a closer (empirical look) ○​ Popular cultural beliefs aside, what is the re;ation between empathy (as an individual difference variable) and political ideology? ​ Simple life-right scales aren’t particularly useful in this context ​ Political ideology/political values are multi-dimensional ​ Well-known model of political values by Shalom Schwartz ​ Distinct facets of conservatism ○​ Conformity/ Traditionalism ​ Conservatives score higher than liberals ​ Reflects tendency from Cs to embrace old fashioned norms ​ Here, no strong relationship to empathy ○​ Self enhancement/ power/ achievement ​ Cs also score higher than Ls ​ Reflects tendency for Cs to embrace the idea of getting ahead of others ​ Particularly strong among male Cs ​ Strong negative relationship with empathy ​ What this means  ○​ Cs do on average tend to score lower in disposition empathy. But this is only try when one designs conservatism in terms of self enhancement ​ Schwartz Value Circumplex ○​ Liberal ​ Egalitarianism: Universalism, Benevolence ​ Broadly related to how most people think of empathy ○​ Conservative ​ Individualism: Hedonism, Achievement, Power ​ Broadly opposite to what most people think of empathy ​ Criticism of Schwarz model ○​ Measures of ideology are complex and hard for researchers to use ​ A different approach to measuring ideology more commonly used by social and personality psychologists ​ Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) ○​ What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will take us back to your true path ○​ It’s the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within ​ Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) ○​ Some groups of people are just inferior to others ○​ An ideal society requires some groups to be on top and others to be on the bottom. ​ Out of the 6 relationships, two are consistent with the conservatives' empathic perspective but the other 4 are not. ​ Other relevant difference between liberals and conservatives (defined broadly) ​ Liberals express care/concern towards relatively broad groups and not just their own narrow group ​ Conservative tend to express care and concern towards their ingroup ○​ More tribal ​ Could explain why conservatives might find this phrase irritating ○​ Were all in this together ​ Part 2: Parochial Empathy ○​ Parochial empathy  ​ Empathy could be wonderful if it always facilitated our ability to put ourselves in the shows of others. But there is a problem: We may be more willing to do that with some people more than others ​ This selectivity is sometimes called parochial empathy and has led some authors, like Paul Bloom, to suggest that the dynamics of empathy can exacerbate prejudice. ​ Paul Bloom book ​ Empathy is a limited resource: we can't be empathetic to everyone, even if we wanted to ​ Empathy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Its guided by preexisting world views ​ People thus can dole out empathy in different directions depending on whether they are liberal or conservatives ​ This can lead to social division and further polarization ​ What Bloom is saying: ○​ Parochial empathy also plays out in the domain of stereotyping and prejudice ​ Highly empathic observer ​ Support/positive feelings: ingroup member ​ Lack of support/negative feelings: outgroup member ​ Ingroup-Outgroup ​ Competition/ Antagonism 2/4 ​ Key and related points from the Paul Bloom lecture ○​ Weaponization of empathy ​ One sure way of triggering anger towards an outgroup is to tell stories, describing acts of violence, by those outgroupers, towards fellow in groupers. ​ Empathy towards the good guys, anger towards the bad guys who did a bad thing to us ○​ People tend to be choosy whether their empathic feelings ​ Single, salient victim often triggers greater sympathy than information about a much larger number of victims ​ Spotlight effect ○​ Empathy and Sympathy often bound by ingroup/outgroup categorization ​ Parochial empathy ​ All else being equal, we are more impacted by the misfortunes of people who are part of our ingroup ​ In war, more sensitive to casualties suffered by ingroup members  ​ Famous fMRI study suggest this effect is automatic ​ Do you feel my pain? Racial group membership modulates empathic neural responses ○​ Anterior cingulate cortex ​ Become active when watching somebody suffer ○​ Design ​ Chinese and Caucasian ​ Shown video depicting faces receiving either a painful stimulation or non painful stimulation ​ Faces were Chinese or Caucasian ​ Predictions ​ Caucasian ○​ Predicted to shower greater neurological reactivity to ingroup ​ Chinese ○​ Predicted to shower greater neurological reactivity to ingroup ​ Each participant see’s all 4 types of faces ○​ Findings ​ Show greater neurological reactions to perceived pain of ingroup vs outgroup members ​ Analyses are complex ​ Us vs Them Mentality in politics ○​ Our reactions to victims of misfortune ○​ Would your compassion for him depend on whether he happened to share your political views? ​ Study ​ Liberal and conservation participants were asked to read about a guy lost in the woods in extreme weather ​ The “guy” is liberal or conservative ​ Experiment 1 ○​ Tim lost in the woods ○​ Half of participants did it in cold and half of the participants did it indoors ○​ Identical description other than political orientation ○​ Dependent variable ​ What was most unpleasant for the hiker ​ Ratings of how they felt ○​ Similar hiker most empathic, cold, outdoors ○​ How cold is the Hiker? ​ Similar hiker, outdoors: most empathetic  ​ Experiment 2: Experimentally induced thirst ○​ Extremely salty snacks ​ No water provided ​ Read about a person lost in woods ​ Similar vs Dissimilar ○​ Extremely salty snaked ​ Water provided ​ Read about a person lost in woods ​ Similar vs Dissimilar ○​ How thirsty is the hiker? ​ Similarly hiker, thirsty: Most empathic ​ An additional Demonstration of parochialism ○​ Study manipulated two variables ​ Target race ​ Motivation for participants to be empathic ​ Classic 2x2 Design ​ White participants, White Defendant, High empathy instructions ​ White participants, White Defendant, Low empathy instructions ​ White participants, Black defendant, High empathy ​ White participants, Black defendant, Low empathy ​ Empathy set instructions worked, but did not erase ingroup-outgroup effect ​ You can tell people to be empathic and that can be an effective instruction but that doesn't mean you are going to eliminate ingroup/outgroup bias 2/6 Developmental Psychology ​ Empathy ○​ Jean Piaget’s theory of child development ○​ Piaget's Stages: Focus on preoperational stages ​ Developmental Phenomena: Egocentric, 2-6 years old ​ Theory of mind (cognitive egocentrism) ​ Mountain task ​ Theory of mind ○​ A personal capability is the understanding that others have perspectives, beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own  ○​ Middle school aged children usually have pretty good ToM skills ○​ Peek a boo ○​ Children younger than 5 have a surprisingly difficult time with this sort of game. They aren't good at take the perspective of the other. ​ Theory of mind ​ Cognitive Perspective Taking ○​ Developmental Psychology: Typical development in children. Mountain drawing task, Sally Anne false beliefs test ○​ Clinical Psychology: atypical or other developmental trajectories. ​ Autism spectrum ​ Narcissism ​ Psychopathy ○​ Comparative psychology: comparison of humans and chimps ​ Measuring ToM abilities in developmental psych ○​ Researchers have developed several different tasks for this purpose ○​ Some of these are used for clinical disorders as well ○​ All of the following videos make reference to the same concept: Developmental abilities with respect to ToM ​ Crayon box and Snoopy ​ The Sally Anne false belief test ​ Typically, mastered by the time children are 5. Younger than that they have a lot of trouble ​ Theory of mind relationship to empathy ○​ Emotional contagion empathy ​ Put two babies together and one starts crying, the other will too ​ Reflexive ​ Does not require ToM ​ Evolutionary advantage: survival mechanism, calls attention to care givers ○​ Attributive Empathy ​ Found with older children and adults ​ Requires understanding of other minds ​ Can involve cognition and emotion ​ Greater connection to ToM  ​ Understanding vantage points of others ​ We feel connected to another person's emotion even though your not feeling that emotion ○​ These two empathies ​ Are not mutually exclusive ​ It is possible to have neither (plants, inanimate objects, pet gerbil) ​ It is possible to have both (neurotypical adults) ​ It is possible to have emotional contagion empathy without attributive empathy (many social animals, young infant) ​ It MAY be possible to have Attribute Empathy without Emotional contagion (certain types of disorders, contested) ​ Clinical Psychology ○​ Autism spectrum disorders ​ Leo Kanner - first and influential autism researcher ​ People on the spectrum: deficits in some, but not all, aspects of empathy ​ Cognitive empathy ○​ Strong evident with autism ○​ Problems seeing the world as another person might see it. Central to ToM. ○​ Adults on the spectrum have similar deficits seen in neurologically typical children aged 2-3. ​ Motor Empathy ○​ Ability to recognize, copy or imitate motor responses of the other ○​ Less clear whether adults on the spectrum have this deficit (2-3 year olds do not have the deficit) ​ Emotional empathy ○​ Ability to emotionally respond when presented with or told about experiences of others ○​ Can be measured in at least 3 ways ○​ People on the spectrum sometimes have deficits here ​ Important video on autism spectrum from Simon Baron-Cohen ​ Famous autism researcher ​ Results from children along the autism spectrum ​ Concept of self: Yes ​ Can they appreciate what another person is seeing: Yes, Perceptual role taking ​ Can they appreciate what another person is thinking: No (Sally Anne) Conceptual role taking ○​ Children with down syndrome passed 2/11: Psychopathy ​ Psychopaths have impairments in some interpersonal skills ​ Impulsive, antisocial behavior; risk takers; poor judgement; often involved in criminal activities ​ Often describes by clinicians as grandiose, egocentric, manipulative, forceful, and cold-hearted ​ Score extremely low in emotional empathy ​ For cognitive facets of theory of mind (special perspective taking, role playing, etc.), psychopaths show relatively unimpaired abilities ○​ If they are motivated to take someone’s cognitive perspective, they do it ​ Psychopath’s abilities in motor empathy (imitation) are also relatively unimpaired ​ For many, although not all, emotions (fear, sadness, guilt, shame) psychopaths show two kinds of emotional deficits ○​ They tend not to feel these emotions, themselves ○​ They show strong deficits in responding to, and even noticing, whether other people feel those emotions ​ However, things get more complicated for other emotions ○​ Anger: psychopaths often feel anger and are very good at detecting this emotion in other people ○​ Pain: psychopaths are just as sensitive to pain as anyone else, when it is occurring to THEM; however, they are disturbingly insensitive to the pain of other people ​ Representative study of emotional empathy deficits in psychopathy: ○​ Participants classified as Low, medium, or high evidence of psychopathy ○​ All placed in MRI scanner ○​ All were instructed to adopt either a self-perspective or an other-perspective while viewing visual stimuli depicting right hands and right feet of individuals in painful and non-painful situations ○​ Emotional empathy measured by amygdala activation ​ Is psychopathy treatable? ○​ There is some, but not a lot, of published research on this topic ○​ Of the work that has been done, results are not encouraging, especially with adults ○​ One challenge: ​ Incidence of psychopathy in the population is not large; hard to obtain large samples ​ Participants often withdraw from studies ​ Assessments of progress not always reliable