Ep. 8: Your Mind on Empathy
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Empathy has been touted as the answer to the world's crises, while also been pointed to as a potential hindrance to morality. How can researchers be so divided? In this episode of Minds Matter, Beth Fisher and Ava Ma de Sousa explore empathy's various definitions, its possible grounding in 'mirror neurons', and whether the empathy lives up to its hype or notoriety.
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Academic Articles & Books
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Empathy and ego-centrism: Silani, G., Lamm, C., Ruff, C. and Singer, T., 2013. Right Supramarginal Gyrus Is Crucial to Overcome Emotional Egocentricity Bias in Social Judgments. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33(39), pp.15466-15476.
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Mirror neurons and disgust: Wicker, B., Keysers, C., Plailly, J., Royet, J., Gallese, V. and Rizzolatti, G., 2003. Both of Us Disgusted in My Insula. Neuron, 40(3), pp.655-664.
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Gender differences in empathy due to motivation: Ickes, W., Gesn, P. R., & Graham, T. (2000). Gender differences in empathic accuracy: Differential ability or differential motivation?. Personal Relationships, 7(1), 95-109.
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Attitudes about empathy, fixed versus skill: Schumann, K., Zaki, J., & Dweck, C. S. (2014). Addressing the empathy deficit: beliefs about the malleability of empathy predict effortful responses when empathy is challenging. Journal of personality and social psychology, 107(3), 475.
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Reduced empathy for people who aren't of the same race: Sheng, F., & Han, S. (2012). Manipulations of cognitive strategies and intergroup relationships reduce the racial bias in empathic neural responses. NeuroImage, 61(4), 786-797.