'I feel you': Some thoughts on emapthy

It has been established that neural networking is shared with regard to experience of physical pain and social pain (the dACC) (see Eiseberger and Liebermann, 2004). This makes sense in light of our evolutionary past, where not being a cohesive member of the group probably meant exclusion. And exclusion almost certainly meant death. An ancestral individual being ostracized from the clan was, from a survival standpoint, parallel to something that causes an inordinate amount of pain, like posting up in a campfire. When we touch something hot, we have an immediate SNS response: we jerk our hand away. This reaction evolved (like everything else) to ensure we were able to differentially reproduce. We learn to avoid touching hot things. In much the same way, avoidance of situations where we were excluded was selected for to increase chances of genetic representation in subsequent generations. It is adaptive to be pained by ostracism and to learn to avoid it.


Not related at all to the previous information, theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to others. A result of ToM, empathy, is the ability to 'feel' the emotions of another. An example: if you, as a male, witness a fellow H. sapien with an XY chromosome getting berated by his counterpart with an XX chromosome for looking at a random H. sap other who happens to have an XX chromosome as well, you probably could relate. It is these thoughts, these feelings of: "I know what he is going through.  Too bad he got caught. I don't blame him for looking, though." that begins to encapsulate what empathy is. But it doesn't end there. Let's say you were to see that same guy get bitch slapped by his lady friend. Your first thought: "Oh god, I know that shit stung!" is also a prime example of empathy at its finest. And you know what is really cool? The same parts of his brain that are activated when he gets slepped in the face (dACC & anterior insula) are activated in your brain as you witness it happen (Singer et al., 2004). Interestingly, different regions were activated when you watched homeboy getting fussed out for checking out a nice WHR (including but not limited to: MPFC, VMPFC, pCC, and the precuneus; see Masten et al., 2011). There are, hypothetically, two ways in which we can get behind the eyes (if you will) of another person. 1) an affective component (sharing of physical pain, for example) and 2) a cognitive component (i.e., mentalizing; or thinking about the what is going on in another's mind; Frith and Frith, 2006).


What am I getting at? Masten et al. (2011) recently conducted a study demonstrating that "highly empathic" individuals who witness another person being excluded showed brain activation in regions associated with first-hand experience of social pain. Very cool stuff. What I would like to know is: 1) the degree of activation across strains of humans, and the difference when comparing one strain to another; 2) the degree of difference between witnessing a family member ostracized vs. a friend vs. an unknown individual; 3) male vs. female levels of empathic brain activation when viewing males and females being ostricized (e.g., male-male, male-female, female-female, female-male). Also, if the same activation is found when viewing an animal experiencing physical pain, or when viewing an animal that appears to be abandoned/without a home (i.e., a stray dog).


I would hypothesize that activation would be similar across strains, but that viewing own-strain ostracism would activate regions associated social pain to a greater degree than viewing other-strain social exclusion (Krill and Platek, 2009). Second, I would hypothesize that a greater activation would occur when witnessing family being excluded, with the degree of activation decreasing for a friend and then for an unknown other (Krill and Platek, 2009).


Number 3 is where things get interesting. According to Simon Baron-Cohen (2005), the male and female brains are hardwired differently; females are more empathic, males are more systemizing. Accordingly, one would expect female brains to show significantly higher empathic activation, especially when viewing other females being ostracized. I would expect that male brains would become more active when viewing other males being ostracized, a mediating factor of the degree of brain activation might be whether the male is being ostracized by other males or by females. Also, perceived attractiveness of the females may play a role, but not only in this instance. Perceived attractiveness of a female may mediate the degree of empathic activation in a male's brain when witnessing females being excluded. I would hypothesize that attractive females' exclusion would result in greater activation in males. Possibly in females as well. This potential avenue of research is exciting and, in my opinion, very interesting.


I have yet to find any research on empathy towards animals experiencing physical pain or anything else, but anthropomorphizing would probably result in some degree of empathic brain activation, at least in females.


We'll see where this goes.

References in order of citation:

Eisenberger, N. I., & Lieberman, M. D. (2004). Why rejection hurts: A common neural alarm system for  physical and social pain. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 8(7), 24-300.

Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J.P., Kaube, H., Dolan, R.J., & Frith, C.D. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain. Science, 303, 1157–1162.

Masten, C. L., Morelli, S. A., & Eisenberger, N. I. (2011). An fMRI investigation of empathy for 'social pain' and subsequent prosocial behavior. NeuroImage, 55, 381-388.

Frith, D. C., & Frith, U. (2006). The neural basis of mentalizing. Neuron, 50, 531-534.

Krill, A., & Platek, S. M. (2009). In-group and out-group membership mediates anterior cingulate activation to social exclusion. Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience, 1(1), 1-7.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2005). The essential difference: The male and female brain.