How learning shapes the empathic brain

Hein, Grit; Engelmann, Jan; Vollberg, Marius C.; Tobler, Philippe N.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1514539112

Cited by 88 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Enhanced PE signaling and faster learning when benefitting others also provide a potential explanation for reports of individuals higher in empathy being more motivated to behave in a prosocial manner compared with those lower in empathy (21). Moreover, our results support an emerging view that PE signals may be crucial for learning how to interact, and empathize, with others (59). Twin data indicate substantial heritability of prosociality across development (60,61).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Neurocomputational mechanisms of prosocial learning and links to empathy

Lockwood

Apps

Valton

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

187

236

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Reinforcement learning theory powerfully characterizes how we learn to benefit ourselves. In this theory, prediction errors-the difference between a predicted and actual outcome of a choice-drive learning. However, we do not operate in a social vacuum. To behave prosocially we must learn the consequences of our actions for other people. Empathy, the ability to vicariously experience and understand the affect of others, is hypothesized to be a critical facilitator of prosocial behaviors, but the link between empathy and prosocial behavior is still unclear. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) participants chose between different stimuli that were probabilistically associated with rewards for themselves (self), another person (prosocial), or no one (control). Using computational modeling, we show that people can learn to obtain rewards for others but do so more slowly than when learning to obtain rewards for themselves. fMRI revealed that activity in a posterior portion of the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex/basal forebrain (sgACC) drives learning only when we are acting in a prosocial context and signals a prosocial prediction error conforming to classical principles of reinforcement learning theory. However, there is also substantial variability in the neural and behavioral efficiency of prosocial learning, which is predicted by trait empathy. More empathic people learn more quickly when benefitting others, and their sgACC response is the most selective for prosocial learning. We thus reveal a computational mechanism driving prosocial learning in humans. This framework could provide insights into atypical prosocial behavior in those with disorders of social cognition.reinforcement learning theory | prosocial behavior | empathy | reward | subgenual anterior cingulate cortex P rosocial behaviors, namely, social behaviors or actions intended to benefit others, are a fundamental but poorly understood aspect of social interaction (1). To behave prosocially, animals need to learn about the consequences that their actions can have for others. In reinforcement learning theory (RLT), prediction errors (PEs)-differences between expected and actual outcomesdrive learning (2). RLT provides a powerful framework for understanding how animals learn to obtain rewards for themselves (3). However, the processes by which animals learn to make choices that benefit others are unknown. Here we use RLT to characterize prosocial learning, combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and detailed computational modeling of behavior.Studies using economic games, moral judgments, or charity donation tasks have consistently reported activity in the ventral striatum, posterior regions of the subgenual cingulate cortex/basal forebrain (hereinafter referred to as sgACC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during prosocial behavior (4-7). Each of these regions receives input from midbrain dopaminergic neurons (8), and these cortical regions all project to the ventral ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Neurocomputational mechanisms of prosocial learning and links to empathy

Lockwood

Apps

Valton

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

187

236

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“…Providing people with feedback about the benefits of empathic actions supports continued prosocial behavior (Grant & Sonnentag, 2008). Indeed, changing expectations about likelihood of help from an out-group member can eliminate intergroup empathy gaps (Hein et al, 2015). Thus, the valence of feedback should matter for how subsequent goal conflicts in empathic situations are resolved, and how goals are structured.…”

Section: Ends Of Empathy 29mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People exhibit more empathy for out-groups when they believe that empathy is malleable (Schumann et al, 2014) and less exhausting (Cameron, Harris, & Payne, 2016), and when they think their peers value empathy (Nook et al, 2016). Parochial empathy can be undone by changing how people think about others-i.e., by expanding group boundaries (Dovidio et al, 1997;Nier et al, 2001), individuating out-group members (Bruneau, Cikara, & Saxe, 2015), and changing expectations about help from out-groups (Hein et al, 2015). As beliefs about out-groups change, people balance goals differently.…”

Section: Empathy and Partialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

Cameron¹,

Cunningham²,

Saunders³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Empathy, or the ability to understand and resonate with the experiences of others, has long been considered by philosophers and scientists to be an important part of human morality. We present a new framework that explains empathy as resulting from motivated decisions. Drawing on models of cybernetic control, value-based choice, and constructionism, we suggest that empathy shifts depending on how people value and prioritize conflicting goals. We generate novel predictions about the nature of empathy from the science of goal pursuit, and address its apparent limitations. Empathy appears less sensitive to suffering of large numbers and out-groups, leading some to suggest that empathy is an unreliable ethical guide. Whereas these arguments assume that empathy is a limited-capacity resource, we suggest that apparent limits of empathy reflect byproducts of domain-general goal pursuit. Arguments against empathy reflect a misguided essentialism: they mistake our own choices to avoid empathy for intrinsic features of empathy, treating empathy as a capricious emotion in conflict with reason. We suggest that empathy results from a rational decision, even if its rationality is bounded, as in many decisions in everyday life. Empathy may only be limited if we choose to avoid pursuing empathic goals.Ends of empathy 3 "Empathy isn't just something that happens to us-a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain-it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, the dowdier cousin of impulse." -Leslie Jamison (2014), The Empathy ExamsIn the summer of 2016, empathy went viral. The world learned about Harambe, a silverback gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo who was shot and killed by zookeepers in an attempt to save the life of a child who had fallen into his enclosure. In the aftermath of the incident, people around the world expressed support for Harambe in a variety of ways, ranging from social media posts to charitable donations to Harambe tattoos. Empathy for Harambe became a meme in its own right. On the other hand, many people appeared to lack empathy for the zookeepers, the child, and the child's mother, to the point that some even issued death threats. This example reveals a broader point about empathy (and the lack thereof): it can feel effortless, contagious, a passion to which we are subject, rather than something we choose or control.Empathy-our ability to understand and resonate with the experiences of others-is typically considered an emotion, which can entail the conceptual baggage that many people associate with emotion. People often see emotions as passions that are out of our control, as something that happen to us. This idea has much precedent. The term derives from the Greek empatheia, which takes feeling or passion (pathos) and directs it at or into (em) someone else;this was adapted to the German Einfühlung ("feeling into"), and translated into English as empathy (Wispe, 1987). These traditions emphasize continuity of empathy with emotions, and in so doing, ca...

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“…In a study with Swiss as the observers and Balkan immigrants as the observed, an emotional response was triggered after only a few positive experiences with the observed person or even with someone similar. The study's authors did not try reversing the ethnic backgrounds of the observers and the observed (Hein et al, 2016).…”

Section: Affective Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hajnal Line and Gene-Culture Coevolution in Northwest Europe

Fröst¹

2017

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North and west of a line running from Trieste to St. Petersburg, social relations have long conformed to the Western European Marriage Pattern, i.e., men and women marry relatively late; many people never marry; children usually leave the nuclear family to form new households, and households often have non-kin members. This pattern goes back at least to the thirteenth century and perhaps to prehistoric times. I argue that this environment of weaker kinship caused northwest Europeans to create communities based on shared moral rules, rather than shared kinship. Community members enforced these rules by monitoring not only the behavior of other members but also their own behavior and even their own thoughts. Initially, this new mindset did not have a genetic basis. Individuals acquired it within the bounds of phenotypic plasticity. Over time, however, a genetic basis would have developed through the survival and reproduction of individuals who were better at being socially independent, at obeying universal rules, at monitoring other community members, and at self-monitoring, self-judging, and self-punishing. These psychological adaptations-independent social orientation, universal rule adherence, affective empathy, guilt proneness-are moderately to highly heritable. Although they are complex, they required only minor evolutionary changes to evolve out of mechanisms that were already present but limited to specific behavioral contexts. Affective empathy, for instance, is a species-wide trait but usually confined to relations with close kin, particularly between a mother and her young children. An evolutionary scenario is proposed, and two questions discussed. Are these mental traits too complex to have evolved over a span of 30 to 300 generations? Are they too altruistic to be sustainable?

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How learning shapes the empathic brain

Cited by 88 publications

References 49 publications

Neurocomputational mechanisms of prosocial learning and links to empathy

Neurocomputational mechanisms of prosocial learning and links to empathy

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

The Hajnal Line and Gene-Culture Coevolution in Northwest Europe

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