Tag Archives: empathy

Journalist describes her quest to give voice to patients struggling with psychosis

“The more I focus on my thoughts, the more I feel like they don’t belong to me” — that is how Anna, an individual with psychosis, describes her experience.

This disruption in a person’s sense of self has long fascinated Rachel Aviv, staff writer for The New Yorker, she said in a recent campus talk sponsored by the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism. (more…)

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Psychopaths are not neurally equipped to have concern for others

Prisoners who are psychopaths lack the basic neurophysiological “hardwiring” that enables them to care for others, according to a new study by neuroscientists at the University of Chicago and the University of New Mexico.

“A marked lack of empathy is a hallmark characteristic of individuals with psychopathy,” said the lead author of the study, Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at UChicago. Psychopathy affects approximately 1 percent of the United States general population and 20 percent to 30 percent of the male and female U.S. prison population. Relative to non-psychopathic criminals, psychopaths are responsible for a disproportionate amount of repetitive crime and violence in society. (more…)

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Moral Evaluations of Harm are Instant and Emotional, Brain Study Shows

People are able to detect, within a split second, if a hurtful action they are witnessing is intentional or accidental, new research on the brain at the University of Chicago shows.

The study is the first to explain how the brain is hard-wired to recognize when another person is being intentionally harmed. It also provides new insights into how such recognition is connected with emotion and morality, said lead author Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at UChicago. (more…)

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UCLA Psychologists Discover a Gene’s Link to Optimism, Self-Esteem

UCLA life scientists have identified for the first time a particular gene’s link to optimism, self-esteem and “mastery,” the belief that one has control over one’s own life — three critical psychological resources for coping well with stress and depression.

“I have been looking for this gene for a few years, and it is not the gene I expected,” said Shelley E. Taylor, a distinguished professor of psychology at UCLA and senior author of the new research. “I knew there had to be a gene for these psychological resources.” (more…)

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