Empathy - Fiction

Empathy is the recognition and understanding of the states of mind, beliefs, desires, and, particularly, emotions of others. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another one's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself; a sort of emotional resonance. Empathy - Background. While the ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process that only fully develops later on in life, the roots of this ability are probably i ...

Including:

• Empathy - Background
• Empathy - Contrasting empathy to other phenomena
• Empathy - Psychological perspectives
• Empathy - Empathy and Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Empathy - Empathy in animals
• Empathy - Organic basis
• Empathy - Development of empathy
• Empathy - Other aspects
• Empathy - Fiction
• Empathy - Bibliography

Read more here: » Empathy: Encyclopedia - Empathy

The empathic process is exploited to a certain extent in all kinds of fiction, thus we may identify deeply with characters appearing in books, plays or films (see especially Currie 2004). In some works of science fiction and fantasy, empathy is understood to be a paranormal or psychic ability to sense the emotions of others, as opposed to telepathy, which allows one to perceive thoughts as well. A person who has that ability is ...

See also:

Empathy, Empathy - Background, Empathy - Contrasting empathy to other phenomena, Empathy - Psychological perspectives, Empathy - Empathy and Autism Spectrum Disorders, Empathy - Empathy in animals, Empathy - Organic basis, Empathy - Development of empathy, Empathy - Other aspects, Empathy - Fiction, Empathy - Bibliography

Read more here: » Empathy: Encyclopedia II - Empathy - Fiction

Some experts (psychologists, psychiatrists, and other scientists) believe that not all humans have an ability to feel empathy or perceive the emotions of others. For instance, Autism and related conditions such as Asperger's syndrome are often (but not always) characterized by an apparent reduced ability to empathize with others. The interaction between empathy and autism spectrum disorders is a complex and ongoin ...

See also:

Empathy, Empathy - Background, Empathy - Contrasting empathy to other phenomena, Empathy - Psychological perspectives, Empathy - Empathy and Autism Spectrum Disorders, Empathy - Empathy in animals, Empathy - Organic basis, Empathy - Development of empathy, Empathy - Other aspects, Empathy - Fiction, Empathy - Bibliography

Read more here: » Empathy: Encyclopedia II - Empathy - Psychological perspectives

Research in recent years has focused on possible brain processes as concomitant with empathy. Functional imaging has recently been employed to investigate the functional anatomy of empathy: Farrow et al (Neuroreport 2001; 12:2433-2438) found that empathic judgments activated left superior frontal gyrus, orbitofrontal gyrus, precuneus, left anterior middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus. Components of this circuit may be dysfunctional in psychopathy (Tunstall N., Fahy T. and McGuire P. in: Guide to Neuroimaging in Psychia ...

See also:

Empathy, Empathy - Background, Empathy - Contrasting empathy to other phenomena, Empathy - Psychological perspectives, Empathy - Empathy and Autism Spectrum Disorders, Empathy - Empathy in animals, Empathy - Organic basis, Empathy - Development of empathy, Empathy - Other aspects, Empathy - Fiction, Empathy - Bibliography

Read more here: » Empathy: Encyclopedia II - Empathy - Organic basis

While the ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process that only fully develops later on in life, the roots of this ability are probably innate. Human capacity to recognize the emotions of others is related to our imitative capacities, and seems to be grounded in the innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions we see with the proprioceptive feelings of those same movements or expressions. Humans also make the same immediate connection between tone of voice and inner feeling. ...

See also:

Empathy, Empathy - Background, Empathy - Contrasting empathy to other phenomena, Empathy - Psychological perspectives, Empathy - Empathy and Autism Spectrum Disorders, Empathy - Empathy in animals, Empathy - Organic basis, Empathy - Development of empathy, Empathy - Other aspects, Empathy - Fiction, Empathy - Bibliography

Read more here: » Empathy: Encyclopedia II - Empathy - Background

In addition to the above use, the term empathy is also used by some people to signify their heightened or higher sensitivity to the emotions and state of others. This, reportedly, can lead to both positive aspects such as a more skilled instinct for what is "behind the scenes" with people, but also to difficulties such as rapid over-stimulation, overwhelm or stress caused by an inability to protect oneself from this so-called 'pick-up'. Such people may for example find crowds stressful simply due to picking up what is often described as "whi ...

See also:

Empathy, Empathy - Background, Empathy - Contrasting empathy to other phenomena, Empathy - Psychological perspectives, Empathy - Empathy and Autism Spectrum Disorders, Empathy - Empathy in animals, Empathy - Organic basis, Empathy - Development of empathy, Empathy - Other aspects, Empathy - Fiction, Empathy - Bibliography

Read more here: » Empathy: Encyclopedia II - Empathy - Other aspects