Jean Decety
Encyclopedia
Jean Decety is a neuroscientist and an internationally recognized expert on cognitive neuroscience
and social neuroscience
. His research focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning social cognition
, particularly empathy
, sympathy
, emotional self-regulation
and more generally interpersonal processes. He is Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago
.
) and in 1987 (biological and medical engineering sciences) and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1989 (neurobiology) from the Université Claude Bernard. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm
, Sweden
, in the Departments of Neurophysiology
and Neuroradiology
. He then joined the National Institute for Medical Research (INSERM) in Lyon, France, until 2001.
Decety is currently professor at the University of Chicago
and its College
, with appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry. He is the head of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory and co-director of the Brain Research Imaging Center at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dr. Decety is an executive committee member of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and a member of the Center for Integrative Neuroscience and Neuroengineering.
He married Sylvie Bendier and they have two sons (Nathan and Glenn Ariel).
and is on the editorial boards of The ScientificWorldJournal
, Frontiers in Emotion Science, and Neuropsychologia. Decety is a member of the faculty advisory committee of the France Chicago Center.
measures to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in mental simulation of action, also known as Mental Practice of Action
or motor imagery
, a technique used by athletes to rehearse and improve their performance. A series of experiments demonstrated that mental simulation can activate heart
and respiration
control mechanisms almost to the same extent as actual behavior. Imagining an action or actually performing that action share similar neural circuits, including the premotor cortex
, supplementary motor area
, cerebellum
, parietal cortex and basal ganglia
, and these circuits are also activated when one observes, imitates or imagines actions performed by other individuals. These findings support the common coding theory
between perception and action put forward by Roger Sperry and more recently by German psychologist Wolfgang Prinz
. The core assumption of this theory is that actions are coded in terms of the perceivable effects (i.e., the distal perceptual events) they should generate. Performing a movement leaves behind a bidirectional association between the motor pattern it has generated by and the sensory effects that it produces. Such an association can then be used backwards to retrieve a movement by anticipating its effects. Decety and colleagues proposed that this perception–action coupling mechanism offers an interesting foundation for intersubjectivity
and social understanding because it provides a functional bridge between first-person information and third-person information, grounded on self-other equivalence, which allows analogical reasoning, and offers a possible, yet partial, route to understanding others.
, sympathy
, personal distress
, the sense of agency
, perspective taking, emotional regulation, and implicit moral reasoning
in healthy individuals as well as people with social behavior disorders. In a recent series of functional MRI and magnetoencephalographic studies, Decety and his students have shown that when children or adults watch other people in pain, the neural circuits underpinning the processing of first-hand experience of pain
are activated in the observer. This basic somatic sensorimotor resonance plays a critical role in the primitive building block of empathy
and moral reasoning
that relies on the sharing of other’s distress. Such results are important, because appreciating the brain’s role in responding to the pain of others can help us understand children who exhibit social cognitive disorders (e.g., antisocial personality disorder
and conduct disorder
) and are often deficient in experiencing empathic concern
, sympathy
or guilt
. Current research in Decety social cognitive neuroscience laboratory explores the neurological mechanisms that underpin the function and dysfunction of empathy and its expression in individuals who vary in psychopathic traits, including incarcerated psychopaths, by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging
, neuroanatomy
and diffusion tensor imaging, gaze
analysis and pupillometry, autonomic nervous system
measurements, and behavioral responses.
New area of Decety's research investigates the development of moral reasoning
, empathy
and empathic concern
from early childhood
to late adolescence
by probing the neural underpinnings of moral sensitivity and delimiting the impact of individual dispositions and social context. This area of investigation combines neuroscience
methods such as functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, MRI and high-density electroencephalography
with developmental science
to examine age-related changes in the computational mechanisms subserving moral sensitivity.
and inhibition of aggression
. Deficits or lack of empathy are prominent features of various psychopathologies. Decety model of empathy and its expressions (e.g., sympathy
, altruism
, empathic concern
and moral reasoning
) posits that the experience of empathy involves three interacting (yet functionally and neurologically dissociable) components: 1) affective sharing between other and self, mental flexibility, and self-regulation. The two latter components relies on executive functions
underpinned by the prefrontal cortex
and its connections with the limbic system. His model emphasizes the crucial role of the sense of agency
and self-other awareness when appreciating emotions, thoughts and feelings. Without self-other awareness and self-regulatory skills confusion will result from our capacity to share emotional states with others. This will lead to emotional contagion
and in some case, personal distress.
The perception of other people in pain has revealed to be of particular importance for Decety investigations of the neural mechanisms underlying empathy. Pain is a window through which one can obtain a detailed view of the cognitive and neurophysiological mechanism underlying the experiences of empathy and sympathy. The perception of pain in others constitutes an ecologically valid way to investigate the mechanisms underpinning the experience of empathy for two main reasons: first, everybody knows what is pain – it is a common and universal experience – and understands what are its physical and psychological manifestations; second, we have good knowledge about the neurophysiological pathways and brain areas that are involved in processing nociceptive information which include the somatosensory cortex, the supplementary motor area
, the anterior cingulate cortex
, the insula
, the periaqueductal gray
, and thalamus
.
A number of neuroimaging functional MRI and magnetoencephalography
studies from Decety Laboratory demonstrated that attending to others in pain is associated with an aversive response in the observer, underpinned by the neural circuits involved in somatosensory mirroring and processing nociceptive information. This sharing allows mapping the perceived affective cues of others onto the behaviors and experiences of the self. Decety argued that depending on the extent of the overlap in the pain matrix, and complex interactions with personal dispositions, motivation, contextual information, and self-regulation, it can lead to personal distress (i.e., self-centered motivation) or to empathic concern or sympathy (i.e., an other-oriented response). This distinction draws on the work of social psychologist Daniel Batson
with whom Decety collaborated.
Cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...
and social neuroscience
Social neuroscience
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
. His research focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning social cognition
Social cognition
Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, in the brain, of information relating to conspecifics, or members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the...
, particularly empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
, sympathy
Sympathy
Sympathy is a social affinity in which one person stands with another person, closely understanding his or her feelings. Also known as empathic concern, it is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Although empathy and sympathy are often used...
, emotional self-regulation
Emotional self-regulation
Emotional self-regulation, also known as Emotion Regulation or simply ER, is being able to properly regulate one's emotions. It is a complex process that involves the initiating, inhibiting, or modulating the following aspects of functioning:...
and more generally interpersonal processes. He is Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
.
Background
Jean Decety obtained two advanced Master degrees in 1985 (neuroscienceNeuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
) and in 1987 (biological and medical engineering sciences) and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1989 (neurobiology) from the Université Claude Bernard. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, in the Departments of Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function...
and Neuroradiology
Neuroradiology
Neuroradiology is a subspecialty of radiology focusing on the diagnosis and characterization of abnormalities of the central and peripheral nervous system, spine, and head and neck. Primary imaging modalities include computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging...
. He then joined the National Institute for Medical Research (INSERM) in Lyon, France, until 2001.
Decety is currently professor at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and its College
College of the University of Chicago
The College is the sole undergraduate institution and one of the oldest components of the University of Chicago, emerging contemporaneously with the university at large in 1892...
, with appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry. He is the head of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory and co-director of the Brain Research Imaging Center at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dr. Decety is an executive committee member of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and a member of the Center for Integrative Neuroscience and Neuroengineering.
He married Sylvie Bendier and they have two sons (Nathan and Glenn Ariel).
Editorial duties
Decety serves as the editor in chief of the journal Social NeuroscienceSocial Neuroscience
Social Neuroscience is the first academic journal dedicated to the topic of social neuroscience and was established in March 2006. It is published by the Psychology Press, a division of Taylor and Francis. The editor is University of Chicago neuroscientist Jean Decety...
and is on the editorial boards of The ScientificWorldJournal
The ScientificWorldJournal
The ScientificWorldJournal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering fields in the life sciences ranging from biomedicine to environmental sciences and its primary audience are researchers working in these fields.- Publication history :...
, Frontiers in Emotion Science, and Neuropsychologia. Decety is a member of the faculty advisory committee of the France Chicago Center.
Early research in cognitive neuroscience
During his Ph.D. training and onwards, Decety combined behavioral, physiological and functional neuroimagingFunctional neuroimaging
Functional neuroimaging is the use of neuroimaging technology to measure an aspect of brain function, often with a view to understanding the relationship between activity in certain brain areas and specific mental functions...
measures to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in mental simulation of action, also known as Mental Practice of Action
Mental Practice of Action
Mental practice, or motor imagery, refers to use of visuo-motor imagery, or mental imagery with the purpose of improving motor behavior. Visuo-motor imagery requires the use of one’s imagination to simulate an action. It has come to the fore due to the relevance of imagery in enhancing sports...
or motor imagery
Motor imagery
Motor imagery is a mental process by which an individual rehearses or simulates a given action. It is widely used in sport training , neurological rehabilitation, and has also been employed as a research paradigm in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology to investigate the content and the...
, a technique used by athletes to rehearse and improve their performance. A series of experiments demonstrated that mental simulation can activate heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
and respiration
Respiration (physiology)
'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
control mechanisms almost to the same extent as actual behavior. Imagining an action or actually performing that action share similar neural circuits, including the premotor cortex
Premotor cortex
The premotor cortex is an area of motor cortex lying within the frontal lobe of the brain. It extends 3 mm anterior to the primary motor cortex, near the Sylvian fissure, before narrowing to approximately 1 mm near the medial longitudinal fissure, which serves as the posterior border for...
, supplementary motor area
Supplementary motor area
The supplementary motor area is a part of the sensorimotor cerebral cortex . It was included, on purely cytoarchitectonic arguments, in area 6 of Brodmann and the Vogts...
, cerebellum
Cerebellum
The cerebellum is a region of the brain that plays an important role in motor control. It may also be involved in some cognitive functions such as attention and language, and in regulating fear and pleasure responses, but its movement-related functions are the most solidly established...
, parietal cortex and basal ganglia
Basal ganglia
The basal ganglia are a group of nuclei of varied origin in the brains of vertebrates that act as a cohesive functional unit. They are situated at the base of the forebrain and are strongly connected with the cerebral cortex, thalamus and other brain areas...
, and these circuits are also activated when one observes, imitates or imagines actions performed by other individuals. These findings support the common coding theory
Common coding theory
Common coding theory is a cognitive psychology theory describing how perceptual representations and motor representations are linked. The theory claims that there is a shared representation for both perception and action...
between perception and action put forward by Roger Sperry and more recently by German psychologist Wolfgang Prinz
Wolfgang Prinz
Wolfgang Prinz is director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and an internationally recognized expert in experimental psychology, cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind...
. The core assumption of this theory is that actions are coded in terms of the perceivable effects (i.e., the distal perceptual events) they should generate. Performing a movement leaves behind a bidirectional association between the motor pattern it has generated by and the sensory effects that it produces. Such an association can then be used backwards to retrieve a movement by anticipating its effects. Decety and colleagues proposed that this perception–action coupling mechanism offers an interesting foundation for intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity is a term used in philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology to describe a condition somewhere between subjectivity and objectivity, one in which a phenomenon is personally experienced but by more than one subject....
and social understanding because it provides a functional bridge between first-person information and third-person information, grounded on self-other equivalence, which allows analogical reasoning, and offers a possible, yet partial, route to understanding others.
Current research on social cognition and moral sensitivity
Later research includes the neurobiological investigation of empathyEmpathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
, sympathy
Sympathy
Sympathy is a social affinity in which one person stands with another person, closely understanding his or her feelings. Also known as empathic concern, it is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Although empathy and sympathy are often used...
, personal distress
Personal distress
Personal distress is an aversive, self-focused emotional reaction to the apprehension or comprehension of another's emotional state or condition. This negative affective state often occurs as a result of emotional contagion when there is confusion between self and other...
, the sense of agency
Sense of agency
The "sense of agency" refers to the subjective awareness that one is initiating, executing, and controlling one's own volitional actions in the world. It is the pre-reflective awareness or implicit sense that it is me who is presently executing bodily movement or thinking thoughts...
, perspective taking, emotional regulation, and implicit moral reasoning
Moral reasoning
Moral reasoning is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. It is also called moral development. Prominent contributors to theory include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. The term is sometimes used in a different sense: reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, such as...
in healthy individuals as well as people with social behavior disorders. In a recent series of functional MRI and magnetoencephalographic studies, Decety and his students have shown that when children or adults watch other people in pain, the neural circuits underpinning the processing of first-hand experience of pain
Pain
Pain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone."...
are activated in the observer. This basic somatic sensorimotor resonance plays a critical role in the primitive building block of empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
and moral reasoning
Moral reasoning
Moral reasoning is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. It is also called moral development. Prominent contributors to theory include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. The term is sometimes used in a different sense: reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, such as...
that relies on the sharing of other’s distress. Such results are important, because appreciating the brain’s role in responding to the pain of others can help us understand children who exhibit social cognitive disorders (e.g., antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...
and conduct disorder
Conduct disorder
Conduct disorder is psychological disorder diagnosed in childhood that presents itself through a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate norms are violated...
) and are often deficient in experiencing empathic concern
Empathic concern
Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like...
, sympathy
Sympathy
Sympathy is a social affinity in which one person stands with another person, closely understanding his or her feelings. Also known as empathic concern, it is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Although empathy and sympathy are often used...
or guilt
Guilt
Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
. Current research in Decety social cognitive neuroscience laboratory explores the neurological mechanisms that underpin the function and dysfunction of empathy and its expression in individuals who vary in psychopathic traits, including incarcerated psychopaths, by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI is a type of specialized MRI scan used to measure the hemodynamic response related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging...
, neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy is the study of the anatomy and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defined nervous systems, and thus we can begin to speak of...
and diffusion tensor imaging, gaze
Gaze
Gaze is a psychoanalytical term brought into popular usage by Jacques Lacan to describe the anxious state that comes with the awareness that one can be viewed. The psychological effect, Lacan argues, is that the subject loses some sense of autonomy upon realizing that he or she is a visible object...
analysis and pupillometry, autonomic nervous system
Autonomic nervous system
The autonomic nervous system is the part of the peripheral nervous system that acts as a control system functioning largely below the level of consciousness, and controls visceral functions. The ANS affects heart rate, digestion, respiration rate, salivation, perspiration, diameter of the pupils,...
measurements, and behavioral responses.
New area of Decety's research investigates the development of moral reasoning
Moral reasoning
Moral reasoning is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. It is also called moral development. Prominent contributors to theory include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. The term is sometimes used in a different sense: reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, such as...
, empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
and empathic concern
Empathic concern
Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like...
from early childhood
Childhood
Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood , early childhood , middle childhood , and adolescence .- Age ranges of childhood :The term childhood is non-specific and can imply a...
to late adolescence
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
by probing the neural underpinnings of moral sensitivity and delimiting the impact of individual dispositions and social context. This area of investigation combines neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
methods such as functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, MRI and high-density electroencephalography
Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain...
with developmental science
Developmental Science
Developmental Science is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering developmental psychology and developmental cognitive neuroscience that was established in 1998. The current editors are Denis Mareschal, Paul C. Quin, and Mark H...
to examine age-related changes in the computational mechanisms subserving moral sensitivity.
Contribution to empathy research
For Decety, empathy denotes, at a phenomenological level of description, a sense of similarity between the feelings one experiences and those expressed by others, without losing sight of whose feelings belong to whom. Empathy allows one to quickly and automatically relate to the emotional states of our conspecifics, which is essential for the regulation of social interaction. In theories of moral development, empathy is often considered as a fundamental motivator in eliciting altruismAltruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
and inhibition of aggression
Aggression
In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
. Deficits or lack of empathy are prominent features of various psychopathologies. Decety model of empathy and its expressions (e.g., sympathy
Sympathy
Sympathy is a social affinity in which one person stands with another person, closely understanding his or her feelings. Also known as empathic concern, it is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Although empathy and sympathy are often used...
, altruism
Altruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
, empathic concern
Empathic concern
Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like...
and moral reasoning
Moral reasoning
Moral reasoning is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. It is also called moral development. Prominent contributors to theory include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. The term is sometimes used in a different sense: reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, such as...
) posits that the experience of empathy involves three interacting (yet functionally and neurologically dissociable) components: 1) affective sharing between other and self, mental flexibility, and self-regulation. The two latter components relies on executive functions
Executive functions
The executive system is a theorized cognitive system in psychology that controls and manages other cognitive processes. It is responsible for processes that are sometimes referred to as the executive function, executive functions, supervisory attentional system, or cognitive control...
underpinned by the prefrontal cortex
Prefrontal cortex
The prefrontal cortex is the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain, lying in front of the motor and premotor areas.This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, decision making and moderating correct social behavior...
and its connections with the limbic system. His model emphasizes the crucial role of the sense of agency
Sense of agency
The "sense of agency" refers to the subjective awareness that one is initiating, executing, and controlling one's own volitional actions in the world. It is the pre-reflective awareness or implicit sense that it is me who is presently executing bodily movement or thinking thoughts...
and self-other awareness when appreciating emotions, thoughts and feelings. Without self-other awareness and self-regulatory skills confusion will result from our capacity to share emotional states with others. This will lead to emotional contagion
Emotional contagion
Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others. One view developed by John Cacioppo of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures,...
and in some case, personal distress.
The perception of other people in pain has revealed to be of particular importance for Decety investigations of the neural mechanisms underlying empathy. Pain is a window through which one can obtain a detailed view of the cognitive and neurophysiological mechanism underlying the experiences of empathy and sympathy. The perception of pain in others constitutes an ecologically valid way to investigate the mechanisms underpinning the experience of empathy for two main reasons: first, everybody knows what is pain – it is a common and universal experience – and understands what are its physical and psychological manifestations; second, we have good knowledge about the neurophysiological pathways and brain areas that are involved in processing nociceptive information which include the somatosensory cortex, the supplementary motor area
Supplementary motor area
The supplementary motor area is a part of the sensorimotor cerebral cortex . It was included, on purely cytoarchitectonic arguments, in area 6 of Brodmann and the Vogts...
, the anterior cingulate cortex
Anterior cingulate cortex
The anterior cingulate cortex is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex, that resembles a "collar" form around the corpus callosum, the fibrous bundle that relays neural signals between the right and left cerebral hemispheres of the brain...
, the insula
Insular cortex
In each hemisphere of the mammalian brain the insular cortex is a portion of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus between the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe. The cortical area overlying it towards the lateral surface of the brain is the operculum...
, the periaqueductal gray
Periaqueductal gray
Periaqueductal gray is the gray matter located around the cerebral aqueduct within the tegmentum of the midbrain. It plays a role in the descending modulation of pain and in defensive behaviour...
, and thalamus
Thalamus
The thalamus is a midline paired symmetrical structure within the brains of vertebrates, including humans. It is situated between the cerebral cortex and midbrain, both in terms of location and neurological connections...
.
A number of neuroimaging functional MRI and magnetoencephalography
Magnetoencephalography
Magnetoencephalography is a technique for mapping brain activity by recording magnetic fields produced by electrical currents occurring naturally in the brain, using arrays of SQUIDs...
studies from Decety Laboratory demonstrated that attending to others in pain is associated with an aversive response in the observer, underpinned by the neural circuits involved in somatosensory mirroring and processing nociceptive information. This sharing allows mapping the perceived affective cues of others onto the behaviors and experiences of the self. Decety argued that depending on the extent of the overlap in the pain matrix, and complex interactions with personal dispositions, motivation, contextual information, and self-regulation, it can lead to personal distress (i.e., self-centered motivation) or to empathic concern or sympathy (i.e., an other-oriented response). This distinction draws on the work of social psychologist Daniel Batson
Daniel Batson
C. Daniel Batson is an American social psychologist. He holds both doctoral degrees in Theology and Psychology . He obtained his doctorate under John Darley and has taught at the University of Kansas...
with whom Decety collaborated.
Selected works
- Lamm, C., Meltzoff, A.N., & Decety, J. (2010). How do we empathize with someone who is not like us? Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, 362-376.
- Decety, J. (2007). A social cognitive neuroscience model of human empathy. In E. Harmon-Jones & P. Winkielman (Eds.), Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior (pp. 246–270). New York: Guilford Publications.
- Lamm, C., Batson, C.D., & Decety, J. (2007). The neural substrate of human empathy: effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 42-58.
- Decety, J., & Grezes, J. (2006). The power of simulation: Imagining one's own and other's behavior. Brain Research, 1079, 4-14.
- Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2007). The role of the right temporoparietal junction in social interaction: How low-level computational processes contribute to meta-cognition. The Neuroscientist, 13, 580-593.
- Decety, J. (2005). Perspective taking as the royal avenue to empathy. In B.F. Malle, & S. D. Hodges (Eds.), Other Minds: How Humans Bridge the Divide between Self and Others, (pp. 135–149). New York: Guilford Publishers.
Books as an Editor
- The Oxford Handbook of Social Neuroscience (2011). J. Decety and J.T. Cacioppo (Eds.). New York: Oxford University Press.
- The Social Neuroscience of Empathy (2009). J. Decety and W. Ickes (Eds.). Cambridge: MIT Press, Cambridge.
- Empathy - from Bench to Bedside (2011). J. Decety (Ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press, Cambridge.
- Interpersonal Sensitivity: Entering Others' Worlds (2007). J. Decety and C.D. Batson (Eds.). Hove: Psychology Press.
- Perception and Action: Recent Advances in Cognitive Neuropsychology (1998). J. Decety (Ed.). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
See also
- Cognitive neuropsychologyCognitive neuropsychologyCognitive neuropsychology is a branch of cognitive psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes. It places a particular emphasis on studying the cognitive effects of brain injury or neurological illness with a view to...
- NeuroscienceNeuroscienceNeuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
- Social neuroscienceSocial neuroscienceSocial neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
- Social psychologySocial psychologySocial psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
- PsychiatryPsychiatryPsychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
- Anti-social behavior
- Moral reasoningMoral reasoningMoral reasoning is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. It is also called moral development. Prominent contributors to theory include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. The term is sometimes used in a different sense: reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, such as...
- EmpathyEmpathyEmpathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
- Developmental cognitive neuroscienceDevelopmental Cognitive NeuroscienceDevelopmental cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary scientific field at the boundaries of neuroscience, psychology, social neuroscience, developmental science, and cognitive science.-Origins of the discipline:...
- Functional neuroimagingFunctional neuroimagingFunctional neuroimaging is the use of neuroimaging technology to measure an aspect of brain function, often with a view to understanding the relationship between activity in certain brain areas and specific mental functions...
External links
- Moral and neural response change as people age from UChicago News.
- Mirrored emotion from the University of Chicago Magazine.
- New Society for Social Neuroscience to help guide emerging field from the University of Chicago News Office.
- Society for Social Neuroscience.
- You remind me of me in the New York Times.
- Bullying tendency wired in brain from the BBC News.
- Journal Social Neuroscience.
- Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago.
- Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago.
- The University of Chicago.
- University of Chicago Experts - Jean Decety.