\u201cA lot of times, that story never gets told,\u201d says Karen Gerdes, a social worker at ASU. She is interested in empathy, which is the ability to perceive the world from other people\u2019s points of view and to feel what they are feeling. Empathy is a complex emotion because it involves both unconscious, involuntary responses and conscious, cognitive processes<\/strong>. For example, suppose you\u2019ve had a traumatic experience, like losing a loved one.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see someone else who is going through that experience, and your brain automatically starts firing as if it\u2019s happening to you. That helps you to understand a little bit better about what that person is going through,\u201d Gerdes says.<\/p>\n People who are very empathic tend to be more understanding and have stronger relationships<\/strong>. For a social worker, empathy is also an essential part of the job.<\/p>\n \u201cSocial work is all about improving quality of life for people,\u201d Gerdes says. \u201cWe do that by helping them to be their better self, and by creating a society that is more supportive. Empathy is at the core of both of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n Gerdes is an associate professor in the\u00a0School of Social Work\u00a0in the\u00a0College of Public Programs. She began studying empathy in 2006 after learning about new research from the field of social cognitive neuroscience.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve confirmed that our brain is set up to process information in a way that helps us to be more empathic and cooperative<\/strong>,\u201d Gerdes said.<\/p>\n Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), neuroscientists can watch empathy in action in a person\u2019s brain through the interaction of four neural networks \u2013 groups of neurons that perform specific functions. When all four of these neural networks are engaged, that person is expressing empathy.<\/p>\n Have you ever felt yourself smiling after seeing a stranger laugh, or feeling sad after watching someone else cry?<\/p>\n This emotional \u201cmirroring\u201d phenomenon is called affective sharing, and it\u2019s one of the observable neural networks that define empathy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople that are especially sensitive could find themselves feeling angry or irritable or annoyed and not even know why, and it\u2019s because they\u2019re picking up on the emotion of another person who is actually feeling those things,\u201d Gerdes says.<\/p>\n Affective sharing is an automatic, unconscious phenomenon, but there\u2019s more to empathy than just mirroring another person\u2019s emotions. You also must be able to put yourself in their shoes. This is the function of another neural network, called perspective taking<\/strong>. It\u2019s that cognitive ability to understand a situation from the perspective of someone else that separates empathy from sympathy, which is just an expression of concern or sorrow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The third neural network that defines empathy is self-awareness<\/strong>, or the ability to differentiate between your own experience and that of the person with whom you are empathizing<\/strong>. In the example of losing a loved one, it may be helpful for the brain to remind you of those feelings so you can empathize with a friend, but you also must recognize that your experience is separate from theirs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re there with them, but you\u2019re open to listening, because their experience is not going to be exactly the same as yours. You need to be able to differentiate that so you\u2019re not imposing things on them that worked for you,\u201d Gerdes says.<\/p>\n Additionally, empathy requires emotion regulation<\/strong> \u2013 the fourth neural network. Emotion regulation allows a person to tone down the mirroring emotions that result from affective sharing<\/strong>. Social workers often work with people who lack emotion regulation.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you put it in the context of a man that abuses his wife, he understands when his wife gets frustrated, the affect sharing is working, but the emotion regulation piece isn\u2019t,\u201d Gerdes says. \u201cHe may be feeding off his own anxiety as well as the people around him, and because he can\u2019t control that, he takes it out on the people closest to him.\u201d<\/p>\n Once you understand how these neural networks function, you can actually cultivate empathy. For example, to improve emotion regulation, Gerdes suggests using mindfulness techniques, such as meditation or focused breathing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt helps people to cope better with the emotions they\u2019re picking up on from others, to function better at a higher level,\u201d Gerdes says.<\/p>\n It can also be helpful to simply bring the emotional contagion aspect of empathy to consciousness, Gerdes says. Next time you start feeling anxious or irritated for no reason, take note of your surroundings. Are other people in the room angry or sad? Being aware of the contagious quality of emotion can help you determine whether someone\u2019s bad mood is rubbing off on you.<\/p>\n To build your capacity for perspective taking, Gerdes suggests watching movies or reading books about the specific group of people you want to understand. The more you know about the context of a person\u2019s life, the more empathic you can be.<\/p>\n Since empathy is at the core of social work, it\u2019s important to be able to measure it. Gerdes says one of the most accurate measures is the multi-faceted empathy test (MET), which is based on social cognitive neuroscience research. It asks participants to look at 23 sets of photographs of people in emotionally charged situations and then try to determine each person\u2019s emotional state, perspective and intentions.<\/p>\n While MET is an effective test, it also is relatively expensive and requires some training to administer. Most researchers tend to rely on self-report measures because they are inexpensive. The most widely used self-report measure is the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI), which was developed in the 1980s. The problem with IRI is that it ends up assessing a person\u2019s level of sympathy rather than empathy.<\/p>\n \u201cSympathy and empathy are completely different constructs. They\u2019re probably correlated with each other, but they\u2019re not the same thing,\u201d Gerdes says.<\/p>\n Gerdes is developing a new self-report measure called the empathy assessment index (EAI), which is based on the latest neuroscience research. In a recent study, she tested the measure by comparing data from a group of offenders with a group of social workers. The offenders included men who had been charged with domestic violence or sexual molestation, and at-risk parents struggling with anger management issues.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to compare the offenders\u2019 scores on our instrument, the assessment index, to the social workers\u2019 scores. If it\u2019s a valid measure, there should be a significantly significant difference in their scores, and thank goodness there was,\u201d Gerdes says. She hopes to see a shift from the outdated IRI self-report measure to the new, research-based EAI measure, which will be more accurate but just as inexpensive to use.<\/p>\n Empathy is a relatively new word, only having come about in the 20th century. While most social work classes discuss empathy to some extent, few schools have incorporated the latest research into the curriculum. But Gerdes believes they soon will, because empathy is an important concept for both social workers and the general public.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have an empathy deficit, like Hitler did, you have genocide,\u201d Gerdes says. \u201cWhen you have appropriate empathy, those things don\u2019t happen because you\u2019ll interfere with them happening. You\u2019ll do everything you can, because it\u2019s at the core of our human interaction that I try to understand you and you try to understand me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Arizona State University press release by Allie Nicodemo: The human brain evolved to ensure our survival. 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The human brain evolved to ensure our survival. One example of that survival instinct is our sense of competition \u2013 historically, it\u2019s part of what drives us to wage wars over power and resources. But an equally powerful survival tactic is our ability to love and cooperate with others<\/strong>.<\/p>\n