HomePeopleResearch TeachingIn the News PublicationsLinks

The Social Neuroscience of Empathy and Sympathy

How do we understand each other? Why and how do we care about others? If we put ourselves into the mental shoes of another person, how closely do we really feel what she feels? What cognitive and neural mechanisms account for a sense of self and other and how do these mechanisms develop? What are their evolutionary roots? What is the difference between empathy, personal distress and sympathy or empathic concern? What neural circuits underpin the experience of empathy. What aspects (if any) of empathy are specific to humans. Why do some individuals lack empathic concern?

Course Objective
This course is designed to introduce undergraduate and graduate students to the fundamentals of social neuroscience. The focus of this course will be on how people perceive and experience the emotional lives of others, and how such mind perception processes are involved in self-other understanding. The study of empathy and sympathy serves as the basis for integrating a variety of data and theories from evolutionary biology, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, clinical neuropsychology and psychopathology.

Method
The course will explore the study of empathy and sympathy from the perspective of social neuroscience. I want to articulate different levels of understanding, spanning from philosophy to neurobiology.
The first week will serve as an introduction to the field and will be devoted to basic philosophical concepts of empathy and its evolutionary origins. Weeks 2 and 3 will examine the contribution of social psychology. Week 4 will be devoted to the development of emotional understanding and theory of mind in infants and young children. Week 5 will introduce students to various methods currently employed in cognitive neuroscience (functional neuroimaging, electromyography, electrophysiology, etc.). We will explore what these methods entail, how to critically appraise them and how they inform our understanding of empathy. Weeks 6 and 7 will focus on the neural mechanisms that underpin the experience of empathy, from single-unit recordings in nonhuman primates to neural systems studies in humans with functional neuroimaging and neuropsychological approaches. Weeks 8 will discuss various social cognitive disorders in neurological and psychiatric patients. Week 9 will review, summarize, and connect the dots from the previous classes. Week 10 is the reading week for preparation for the exam.

Reading Material
There is no textbook for this course. There will be assigned readings every week, with additional readings for graduate students. Typically, undergraduate students will be required to read and discuss 2 papers each week; graduate students will be given 4 papers. All this reading material will be available on Chalk.

Class Requirements
For undergraduate students, there will be one final exam. Weekly reading assignments will also contribute to the final grade, as well as participation in class discussion.
Graduate students will be asked to write a short paper on a topic of their choice (though related to empathy and sympathy!).

Course syllabus available on Chalk