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Variation in empathy: the interplay of genetic and environmental factors
... Twin research has shown that empathy is moderately heritable. In a meta-analysis of eight studies, Knafo and Uzefovsky (2013) found that 35 percent of the variance in empathy was accounted for by genetic factors. Interestingly, genetic factors were more evident as participants' age increased, indicating that genetic influences on empathy increase with age, similar to the patterns found for other traits such as intelligence (Plomin, DeFries, Knopik, & Neiderhiser, 2016) and prosocial behavior (Knafo & Plomin, 2006). ...
... For example, as regulatory abilities develop during childhood, they become more relevant to the expression of empathy. Thus, as individuals grow up, genetic influences on empathy regulation may be more evident (Knafo & Uzefovsky, 2013;Melchers, Montag, Reuter, Spinath, & Hahn, 2016). ...
... Indeed, Knafo and Uzefovsky (2013) found in their meta-analysis that 30 percent of the variation in emotional empathy was due to genetic factors, with no evidence for shared-environmental influences. By contrast, individual differences in cognitive empathy were accounted for by both genetic (26 percent of the variance) and shared environmental (17 percent of the variance) effects. ...
A range of empirical and theoretical perspectives on the relationship between biology and social cognition from infancy through childhood.
Recent research on the developmental origins of the social mind supports the view that social cognition is present early in infancy and childhood in surprisingly sophisticated forms. Developmental psychologists have found ingenious ways to test the social abilities of infants and young children, and neuroscientists have begun to study the neurobiological mechanisms that implement and guide early social cognition. Their work suggests that, far from being unfinished adults, babies are exquisitely designed by evolution to capture relevant social information, learn, and explore their social environments. This volume offers a range of empirical and theoretical perspectives on the relationship between biology and social cognition from infancy through childhood.
The contributors consider scientific advances in early social perception and cognition, including findings on the development of face processing and social perceptual biases; explore recent research on early infant competencies for language and theory of mind, including a developmental account of how young children become moral agents and the role of electrophysiology in identifying psychological processes that underpin social cognition; discuss the origins and development of prosocial behavior, reviewing evidence for a set of innate predispositions to be social, cooperative, and altruistic; examine how young children make social categories; and analyze atypical social cognition, including autism spectrum disorder and psychopathy.
Contributors
Lior Abramson, Renée Baillargeon, Pascal Belin, Frances Buttelmann, Melody Buyukozer Dawkins, Sofia Cardenas, Michael J. Crowley, Fabrice Damon, Jean Decety, Michelle de Haan, Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz, Xiao Pan Ding, Kristen A. Dunfield, Rachel D. Fine, Ana Fló, Jennifer R. Frey, Susan A. Gelman, Diane Goldenberg, Marie-Hélène Grosbras, Tobias Grossmann, Caitlin M. Hudac, Dora Kampis, Tara A. Karasewich, Ariel Knafo-Noam, Tehila Kogut, Ágnes Melinda Kovács, Valerie A. Kuhlmeier, Kang Lee, Narcis Marshall, Eamon McCrory, David Méary, Christos Panagiotopoulos, Olivier Pascalis, Markus Paulus, Kevin A. Pelphrey, Marcela Peña, Valerie F. Reyna, Marjorie Rhodes, Ruth Roberts, Hagit Sabato, Darby Saxbe, Virginia Slaughter, Jessica A. Sommerville, Maayan Stavans, Nikolaus Steinbeis, Fransisca Ting, Florina Uzefovsky, Essi Viding
... In a meta-analysis, Knafo and Uzefovsky (2013) found that heritability of prosocial responding increased with age, accompanied by a decline in the effects of the twins' shared environment. This age-related pattern could be at least partly due to evocative geneenvironmental correlations in which children's genetically influenced behavior (e.g., low prosocial behavior) affects how other people respond to them (e.g., the degree of parents' negativity directed at a child; see Eisenberg et al., 2015), which in turn feeds back and further affects children's behavior. ...
Prosociality is a multifaceted concept referring to the many ways in which individuals care about and benefit others. Human prosociality is foundational to social harmony, happiness, and peace; it is therefore essential to understand its underpinnings, development, and cultivation. This handbook provides a state-of-the-art, in-depth account of scientific, theoretical, and practical knowledge regarding prosociality and its development. Its thirty chapters, written by international researchers in the field, elucidate key issues, including: the development of prosociality across infancy, childhood, adolescence, and beyond; the biological, cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms that underlie and influence prosociality; how different socialization agents and social contexts can affect children's prosociality; and intervention approaches aimed at cultivating prosociality in children and adolescents. This knowledge can benefit researchers, students, practitioners, and policy makers seeking to nurture socially responsible, caring youth.
... In addition to anatomical sexual dimorphism, there is a sexually dimorphic recruitment of empathy-related cortical areas within the CNS, e.g. the amygdala, superior temporal sulcus, temporoparietal junction, and the inferior frontal gyrus [54,57]. Walter [10] and others [58,59] discuss the genetic aspects of empathy, especially in regard to the phylogenetically ancient hormones/ neurotransmitters oxytocin and vasopressin, as well as reviewing how various genes and the environment may be implicated in empathic responses. Derntl et al. [60] reveal how trait empathy changes with the menstrual cycle; and another study shows how gonadal hormones influence empathy [61]. ...
This chapter discusses the history of the various definitions of empathy and states two widely accepted current definitions for affective and cognitive empathy. The neural basis of different or overlapping cortical regions used by affective or cognitive empathy as well as sympathy/compassion are summarized, with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex as a probable common denominator for these emotions. Longitudinal studies of allopathic and osteopathic medical students confirm that women have higher affective and cognitive empathy scores than men, via the use of the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE), respectively. During undergraduate medical education, BEES and JSE scores drop after the completion of the first basic science year and after the first year of clinical rotations. Students with higher empathy scores tend to enter primary care residencies, whereas students with lower scores are more likely to enter technical or procedure-oriented specialties. The ability to partially blunt an affective empathic response to an emotionally charged patient situation helps to ensure the health care provider can devote all their attention to the patient vs. the provider being caught up in their own emotions. Affective blunting may also be helpful in preventing burnout, especially among women health care workers.
... Kindness has a deep evolutionary history (Hublin, 2009). Individual differences in kindness are partly due to differences in genes (Knafo A & Uzefovsky F, 2012;Lewis & Bates, 2011;Steger et al., 2007). Kindness emerges early in infant development (Warneken, 2018). ...
What is kindness, and what makes an act kind? Previous theoretical and empirical research suggests that the kindness of an act depends not only on the benefits the act provides, but also the costs incurred to provide those benefits. Here we test these predictions by having 1,692 candidate acts of kindness (for family, friends, colleagues, and strangers) rated for perceived cost, benefit, and kindness, by a large sample of the US & UK public (Ntotal=16,064). As predicted, we found that benefit, cost, and benefit:cost interaction all positively predicted the kindness of the act (pseudo R2≈0.73), and did so for all types of recipients. We also found that less efficient acts are considered kinder than more efficient acts. We discuss the implications of these findings for discussions about the effectiveness of altruism, and the prospects for further research on the nature of kindness.
... The primary caregiver's ability to "mentalize" is furthermore predictive of the development of empathy and ToM in the child (84)(85)(86). Empathy develops in concert with other cognitive functions, such as emotion regulation and social understanding (87), whereas ToM is fundamental to effective social/pragmatic language skills and is closely intertwined with language development (88). Exposure to rich conversation about emotion and social situations during childhood develops words and meanings about mental states, as well as ToM, which in turn supports pragmatic language development (62). ...
Social communication forms the foundation of human relationships. Social communication, i.e., the appropriate understanding and use of verbal and non-verbal communication within a social context, profoundly impacts mental health across the lifespan and is also highly vulnerable to neurodevelopmental threats and social adversities. There exists a strong interconnection between the development of language and other higher cognitive skills, mediated, in part, through the early attachment relationship. Consideration of how attachment links to brain development can help us understand individuals with social communication difficulties across the lifespan. The early attachment relationship supports the development of the foundational constructs of social communication. In this paper, a neuropsychological perspective was applied to social communication, which integrated evidence from early attachment theory, examining the underpinnings of social communication components identified by the SoCom model, namely socio-cognitive, socio-emotional, and socio-linguistic constructs. A neuropsychological perspective underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. This should also inform approaches to prevention, policy, intervention, and advocacy for individuals with or at risk for social communication impairments, as well as their families.
With the development of science and technology, the Internet occupies more time in daily lives and changed our life from all aspects. Empathy, an important factor for human interaction that is usually considered to improve socializing, is also affected by Internet use. By surveying 193 Chinese adults about their online habits and empathy levels through Davis Empathy scale. We found that the time spent surfing on the Internet, especially the time spent on entertainment, is positively correlated with digital empathy, while playing video games negatively affect people's empathy ability.
This systematic review aims to examine the association between the quality of the parent-child relationship, as defined by attachment security, parental warmth, and parental sensitivity, and the development of empathy, specifically in toddlers (12 to 36 months) and pre-schoolers (3 to 6 years of age). Four databases were systematically searched (PsycINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC, and Web of Science Core Collection) following a clear search strategy and inclusion criteria. Subsequently, abstracts were co-screened by two researchers before reviewing full-texts for suitability of inclusion. 16 articles were identified and critically appraised to understand the current picture of the research. On balance, the review highlights that the evidence-base exploring the association between child empathy and the quality of the parent-child relationship among toddlers and pre-schoolers is small and strikingly inconsistent. Put broadly, the most consistent associations were found in longitudinal studies with pre-schoolers where attachment security was linked with higher scores of empathy. Although links were found for parental sensitivity and warmth, the correlations tended to be modest. Few studies considered the potential mechanisms underlying the association between the quality of the parent-child relationship and empathy, however, two studies provided consistent evidence that emotion regulation is a mediator in this relationship. Overall, while the findings of this review suggest that a modest link exists between a broad range of indicators of the quality of the parent-child relationship and the development of empathy in toddlers and pre-schoolers, the relationship remains complex and not yet fully understood. Future research should look to use longitudinal and experimental designs (e.g., priming) to provide greater evidence for a causal link between the quality of the parent-child relationship and empathy.
“Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for others’ good, and melt at others’ woe.” Homer (8th Century BC)
Bias-based cyberbullying involves repeated hurtful actions online that devalue or harass one’s peers specific to an identity-based characteristic. Cyberbullying in general has received increased scholarly scrutiny over the last decade, but the subtype of bias-based cyberbullying has been much less frequently investigated, with no known previous studies involving youth across the United States. The current study explores whether empathy is related to cyberbullying offending generally and bias-based cyberbullying specifically. Using a national sample of 1644 12- to 15-year-olds, we find that those higher in empathy were significantly less likely to cyberbully others in general, and cyberbully others based on their race or religion. When the two sub-facets of empathy were considered separately, only cognitive empathy was inversely related to cyberbullying, while (contrary to expectation) affective empathy was not. Findings support focused efforts in schools to improve empathy as a means to reduce the incidence of these forms of interpersonal harm.
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