The actions described above are often described as automatic
imitation: the situation in which an individual observes a body movement in
another person and unintentionally performs the same body movement themselves.
Many researchers attribute this imitation to mirror neurons in the premotor
cortex of our brain.
Mirror neurons have been studied since the 1980s and
are considered to be a major factor in our ability to empathise with others,
including, sometimes, with non-human species.
The word empathy itself is a fairly recent
immigrant to the English language. In 1909 it was translated from the German
word Einfühling (in-feeling). It was to
be over one hundred years before the neuroscience of empathy was
revealed. Only in 2010 did Californian neurophysiologists identify individual
mirror neurons in the human brain.1
These neurons effectively mirror in our brain what is happening emotionally for
another person. Via this mechanism, our
brains react as if what we are seeing or hearing from another person is
actually happening to ourselves, within our own bodies.
Fortunately, our mirror neurons don’t confine
themselves just to feelings of suffering. When
others are happy, joyful, or having fun, we can feel those emotions also via our mirror
neurons. We have the capacity to feel empathetic towards someone experiencing
ecstasy just as easily as we can towards someone in pain.
Although we may have mirror neurons and hence the
ability to be empathetic, that does not mean that we are automatically highly
skilled empathic people. We are able to increase our ability to empathise. Neuroscientists are discovering that the brain has the
ability to adapt and change its neuropathways. Neuroplasticity is a very recent
science, but already the findings from that science have radical implications
for the way we relate to one another. One of those implications is that we can
learn to become better empathisers. We can improve our empathy quotient if you like.2
In order to be able to empathise with someone else,
we must be able to identify with our own feelings and emotions. The more self-aware we are the better
we are at empathising with others.3 Thus to be able to outwardly empathise we need to inwardly become attuned to
our own feelings and emotions. When we can better understand and identify our
own feelings and emotions then we become better empathisers.
Feelings and emotions
have a language, and like any language, it must be learnt. For men, until very
recently at least, this language had a limited vocabulary. Men in my cohort,
growing up in the middle of last century, often got told to “man up,” “don’t
get emotional,” “big boys don’t cry,” and other inhibitions on emotional
literacy.
Fortunately, this seems
to be changing, and men are becoming more emotionally literate.
Let us now return to the
question posed in the title of this piece. Is empathy learnt or does it come
from reflection?
It seems that it is a bit
of this and a bit of that. Mirror neurons reflect in ourselves what we see or
recognise in others. Neuroplasticity tells us that we can learn to become
better empathisers by understanding and learning about our own emotions.
We could say that through
the process of reflection (whether internal or external) we gain an
understanding of ourselves and of others. Crucial abilities in a fast-changing
world.
Notes:
1. Cited in Stefan Klein, Survival
of the Nicest, Scribe, Melbourne & London, 2014.
2. An Empathy Quotient (EQ)
has been developed at the Autism Research Centre at the University of
Cambridge.
3. Daniel Goleman, Emotional
Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ, Bloomsbury, London, 1996
No comments:
Post a Comment
This blogsite is dedicated to positive dialoque and a respectful learning environment. Therefore, I retain the right to remove comments that are: profane, personal attacks, hateful, spam, offensive, irrelevant (off-topic) or detract in other ways from these principles.