Empathic concern drives costly altruism

FeldmanHall, Oriel; Dalgleish, Tim; Evans, Davy; Mobbs, Dean

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.10.043

Cited by 274 publications

(240 citation statements)

References 70 publications

(121 reference statements)

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“…Ambiguity resolution is a process associated with the caudate as evidenced by fMRI paradigms with healthy individuals (O’Doherty, 2011; Ketteler et al, 2008). fMRI studies demonstrate that the caudate is recruited when an individual is deciding whether to perform an altruistic helping behavior or a non-helping behavior (FeldmanHall et al, 2015). Also, resolving ambiguity and making a decision to act or refuse to act may in itself be rewarding (Aupperle et al, 2015; Soares et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstructing empathy: Neuroanatomical dissociations between affect sharing and prosocial motivation using a patient lesion model

et al. 2018

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Affect sharing and prosocial motivation are integral parts of empathy that are conceptually and mechanistically distinct. We used a neurodegenerative disease (NDG) lesion model to examine the neural correlates of these two aspects of real-world empathic responding. The study enrolled 275 participants, including 44 healthy older controls and 231 patients diagnosed with one of five neurodegenerative diseases (75 Alzheimer's disease, 58 behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), 42 semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), 28 progressive supranuclear palsy, and 28 non-fluent variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA). Informants completed the Revised Self-Monitoring Scale's Sensitivity to the Expressive Behavior of Others (RSMS-EX) subscale and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index's Empathic Concern (IRI-EC) subscale describing the typical empathic behavior of the participants in daily life. Using regression modeling of the voxel based morphometry of T1 brain scans prepared using SPM8 DARTEL-based preprocessing, we isolated the variance independently contributed by the affect sharing and the prosocial motivation elements of empathy as differentially measured by the two scales. We found that the affect sharing component uniquely correlated with volume in right > left medial and lateral temporal lobe structures, including the amygdala and insula, that support emotion recognition, emotion generation, and emotional awareness. Prosocial motivation, in contrast, involved structures such as the nucleus accumbens (NaCC), caudate head, and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), which suggests that an individual must maintain the capacity to experience reward, to resolve ambiguity, and to inhibit their own emotional experience in order to effectively engage in spontaneous altruism as a component of their empathic response to others.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstructing empathy: Neuroanatomical dissociations between affect sharing and prosocial motivation using a patient lesion model

et al. 2018

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“…Altruism is a prosocial behavior that is driven by concern for others rather than concern for oneself and is accompanied with inherent personal costs (e.g., personal risk during the action or as an outcome, opportunity cost) (Eisenberg, 2014). Empathy and perspective-taking are socio-cognitive processes that are central to evoking altruistic behaviors (Eisenberg, Eggum, & Di Giunta, 2010), and rely on common neural circuitry (FeldmanHall, Dalgleish, Evans, & Mobbs, 2015). Interestingly, individuals high in altruism engage in neural networks related to empathy and theory of mind more so than individuals who are less altruistic (Haas et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interestingly, individuals high in altruism engage in neural networks related to empathy and theory of mind more so than individuals who are less altruistic (Haas et al, 2015). FeldmanHall et al (2015) reported that altruistic behavior is predicted by increased empathic concern for others but not by levels of personal distress. Previous research examining the relation between early childhood trauma and empathic abilities support our observation of reduced altruistic behaviors in patients with PTSD.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral reasoning in women with posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood abuse

Nazarov

Walaszczyk

Frewen

et al. 2016

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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BackgroundPreliminary evidence suggests that relative to healthy controls, patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show deficits on several inter-related social cognitive tasks, including theory of mind, and emotion comprehension. Systematic investigations examining other aspects of social cognition, including moral reasoning, have not been conducted in PTSD stemming from childhood trauma.ObjectiveTo conduct a comprehensive assessment of moral reasoning performance in individuals with PTSD stemming from childhood abuse.MethodMoral reasoning performance was assessed in 28 women with PTSD related to prolonged childhood trauma and 19 matched healthy controls. Performance was assessed using 12 modified moral dilemmas and was queried in three domains: utilitarian/deontological sacrificial dilemmas (personal and impersonal), social order vs. compassion, and altruism vs. self-interest. Participants were asked whether a proposed action was morally acceptable or unacceptable and whether or not they would perform this action under the circumstances described.ResultsWomen with PTSD were less likely to carry out utilitarian actions in personal, sacrificial moral dilemmas, a choice driven primarily by consequential intrapersonal disapproval. Increased concern regarding intrapersonal disapproval was related to higher symptoms of guilt in the PTSD group. Patients with PTSD demonstrated less altruistic moral reasoning, primarily associated with decreased empathic role-taking for beneficiaries.ConclusionsWomen with PTSD due to childhood trauma show alterations in moral reasoning marked by decreased utilitarian judgment and decreased altruism. Childhood trauma may continue to impact moral choices made into adulthood.Highlights of the articleMoral judgment processing was found to be altered in women with PTSD related to chronic childhood trauma.In comparison to healthy women, women with PTSD were less likely to approve utilitarian actions when required to assume their agency in dilemmas involving the infliction of direct physical harm.Decreased likelihood of utilitarian action approval by the PTSD sample was driven by significantly enhanced endorsement of guilt and shame as consequences of such actions.Endorsement of guilt and shame in moral dilemmas was related to increased severity of current clinical symptoms of guilt.

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“…The vmPFC, together with the ventral striatum, amygdala and insula, is a part of a domain-general valuation system that processes significant and motivating information, and guides (both social and non-social) decision-making [57]. A recent neuroimaging study found that individuals high in dispositional empathic concern engaged in costly altruism, and this relationship was supported by neural activity in the ventral tegmental area, caudate and vmPFC [58]. Thus, caring for others piggybacks on older evolutionary motivational mechanisms associated with parental care.…”

Section: (B) Why Empathy Has Evolvedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathy as a driver of prosocial behaviour: highly conserved neurobehavioural mechanisms across species

Decety

Bartal

Uzefovsky

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

540

384

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Empathy reflects the natural ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of others, coupled with a motivation to care for their well-being. It has evolved in the context of parental care for offspring, as well as within kinship bonds, to help facilitate group living. In this paper, we integrate the perspectives of evolution, animal behaviour, developmental psychology, and social and clinical neuroscience to elucidate our understanding of the proximate mechanisms underlying empathy. We focus, in particular, on processing of signals of distress and need, and their relation to prosocial behaviour. The ability to empathize, both in animals and humans, mediates prosocial behaviour when sensitivity to others' distress is paired with a drive towards their welfare. Disruption or atypical development of the neural circuits that process distress cues and integrate them with decision value leads to callous disregard for others, as is the case in psychopathy. The realization that basic forms of empathy exist in non-human animals is crucial for gaining new insights into the underlying neurobiological and genetic mechanisms of empathy, enabling translation towards therapeutic and pharmacological interventions.

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Empathic concern drives costly altruism

Cited by 274 publications

References 70 publications

Deconstructing empathy: Neuroanatomical dissociations between affect sharing and prosocial motivation using a patient lesion model

Deconstructing empathy: Neuroanatomical dissociations between affect sharing and prosocial motivation using a patient lesion model

Moral reasoning in women with posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood abuse

Empathy as a driver of prosocial behaviour: highly conserved neurobehavioural mechanisms across species

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