Neuroscience of Empathy Part 2
If you haven't listened to last months' Part 1 we highly suggest you do that first.
In Part 2, Laine dives deeper into how empathy and stress go hand in hand, why we should care about empathy at all, and what we can do to better ourselves and the world by being more kind to others. The way empathy is connected to so many areas of our lives like language, epigenetics, drugs & alcohol use, or even political leanings is almost shocking, we couldn't dare cut this episode short.
General Outline of Episode
Defined Empathy (vs Sympathy) - feeling into vs feeling with
Neurological Empathy Development - baby, to toddler to Adolescence to Adults
Empathy and Evolution - gave us a need to be in groups and we experience empathy and stress in groups - which also gives us altruism which is where we left off
Empathy and Stress
Personal Evolution of being able to regulate stress -
Stress response - parent looks away, parent connects.
Small doses
tiny stresses- develops the capacity to manage moderate and larger ones
Frequent activation of stress response = learning and healthy development.
Stress muscle - stronger over time
Larger irregular extremes - interfere with their development
High nurture allows for our ability to regulate stress -
because we are not constantly at threat we can develop advanced ways of being - we can regulate stress because we don’t always need to be at alarm -
MJ Meany. - Changes in their stress system and GABA- not genetic predisposition - mothering that changed their brains. -grandmother children of the original rat mother took on the maternal style of which it had been raised.
It turns out that mothering and other environmental factors can and do affect DNA.
Epigenetics - “The gifts of our biology are a potential, not a guarantee”
How parents, mom - treat a baby in early life will affect the DNA that gets transcribed and thus what happens in babies brain/body
Nature and nurture colloidal
Nurture determines which potentials will be realized and what will stay hidden on the double helix
Manifested -
Drugs? Rats in isolation got higher when given cocaine
Low-licked rats - are more likely to be repeatedly taking cocaine and alcohol than other rats.
Ritalin -
Teen Pregnancy Rates - children in high-stress response areas will develop faster - neighborhoods with high murder also have the highest in pregnancy
Obesity - food scares than preserve every calorie as possible- stress- if food - overweight.
Obesity - 17,000 Californians Kaiser permanent health plan - childhood trauma is a critically overlooked factor in obesity
(and virtually every other major cause of death studied)
Risk for heart attack stroke diabetes asthma and many cancers - TRAUMA!
Vincent Faletti discovered - San Diego - adverse childhood experiences study -
Obese people were losing large amounts of weight
AND then dropping out
nearly 300 obese patients - life experiences - extraordinarily high prevalence of severe family dysfunction particularly sexual abuse.
50% of reported being sexually assaulted as children
This was than 50% higher than the general population TRIPLE the rate for men.
Virtually all of his subjects had experienced some lasting form of childhood trauma. Faletti recalls presenting these findings in a meeting at a major academic obesity study in 1990. - Presented expecting interest in the discussion period instead he was attacked and dismissed. One audience member even stood up and claimed that patients were merely making stories up to cover their further failed lives.
Where we got the ACE screening in mental health
Adverse childhood experiences -experience = ace
Higher # of ACE - higher risk
four or more aces increase some conditions as dramatically as smoking raises the risk of lung cancer.
The relationship between ace and adult health problems are stronger then for the many typical health reasons authorities are currently fighting like smoking. Compared with having none having four or more aces increases the risk of isometric heart disease by 220% stroke by 240% diabetes by 160% and chronic bronchitis are epidemiology by 90%. Having a score of six or more can lower life expectancy by more than two decades.
Why?
stress response system - every aspect of mental and physical functioning
heart
brain
blood vessels
immune system
digestive tract.
Every cell - every organ
And the result of trauma - without addressing it, ignoring it - it still lives in your body - still activates you - self-medicating/self-soothing is the way that people attempt to deal with related pain such as self-medication or self-soothing
Having four or more aces increases the odds of being a current smoker by 220%. It raises the odds of ever using illegal drugs by 470%. The chances of becoming an alcoholic go up by 740% and the chances of injecting drugs by a whopping 1030%.
Quote “People at the CDC doing this work and they told me those numbers were numbers of magnitude of which epidemiologists might see once in a career so that's plenty”.
Damage to Empathy
2 person household
Great apes/chimpanzees -infants are nurtured exclusively by their mothers’ nurturing for a full four to seven years period - contact contact
Hardy - this doesn't work for humans! Humans evolved with helpers -
Moving to a 2 parent household goes against our nature!
Children require 4 regulatory partners on average
Poor mothers, single mothers, teen mothers, and mothers of premature babies have children who do significantly better on all measures academic emotional, and physical if they have extended family, particularly maternal family nearby and participating in their lives - cooperative parenting!
we harshly judge mothers who don't spend all of their time with their infants and often few daycares as a modern evil period in policy debates we're ignoring help historically given to mothers by relatives and friends viewing motherhood as an isolated suburban home with a father who is absent for most of the day a
History- mothers worked with other mothers with their children around them - focus on single parenthood and divorce - massive breakdown of the extended family that has come to the industrial and postindustrial society
Extended family and related social networks are studied - great benefits to children especially for single parents but for two-parent families as well
Decrease in language -
Researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley - verbal interactions in parental homes.
Utterance -. On average every day poor children hear about 178 utterances directed toward them per hour while children are professionals hear 487 utterances in the same time span period
Additionally - In poor homes for every word of praise researchers found three admonishments.
Meanwhile, in professional homes, the children got six good words for each don't do that.
preschool children - half the vocabulary 525 words versus 1100
as well as increased vulnerability to stress and possibly reduced impulse control.
Stress - less empathetic and more impulsive
brain change
Brain decisions under brain change - Unfortunately, this means that decisions may not under significant distress are not likely to be informed
Highly threatening situations make it psychologically harder to think clearly and be kind.
If we want a kinder more caring society people need more experiences and places in which they feel safe.
Damage to Empty
Empathy Burn Out-
Empathy Burnout: Research confirms that observations that over-empathy can sometimes backfire. The more distressed someone is, the more distressed we get up until a point where our own distress becomes so high and we turn inward to help ourselves better instead of helping others. Overempathy can produce selfishness.
Seeing harm - instinctively recoil from blood and gore - mirroring neurons mapped injuries of others - horror and recoil
Illness/physical deformity disgusting - human evolution - stay away from infected or wounded to reduce contagion or injury
Can overcome these initial reactions -help the sick or injured
Repeated exposure to blood gore decreases these physiological and emotional
Doctors - good!
Overcome by by your emotional reaction to the pain ofothers or mot much use
However, doctors police and rescue workers are notorious for insensitivity
If you don’t act on purpose to work against this you become numb where you shouldn’t be
Study - medical students found that young doctors became increasingly less sympathetic over the course of their training period
specialists like Pediatrics and psychiatry began with higher levels of empathy - declined to normal levels
TV and Video Games
Screen time has no positive effects
Einstein Baby - measurable language delays for ONE hour
Study - Average American children 2-4 TV found before completing 5th grade - today witnessed 8000 onscreen murders and more than 100,000 other acts of video violence
More research on violent TV than violent video games - Study - 7 to 9 year-olds violent or nonviolent films and then played indoor hockey
Researchers who did not know which boys had seen which film rated the aggressive acts during the game looking for more moves that are banned in hockey.
Study published in 2003 -329 children followed over 15 years found that 11% of males who violent TV in their junior high years had been convicted of a crime vs 3% - twice as likely for domestic violence
Females - four times more likely to have been physically violent with another adult
Every additional year a child was exposed to television before 15 years of age there was a four percent increase in the number of arrest and poverty crimes and 2% and increase in violent crimes. This author concludes that 50% of the increase in property crime in 25% of the increase in violent crime
Video Games - more complex - take out aggression while in that role - depending on the game - desensitization and a numbing deadening effect that reputation has on strong emotions.
Studies have found that people with less emotionally affected after seeing violence are more likely to be violent themselves. In many contexts in which violent video games are seen or enacted, they have no role in compassion in fact some have just the opposite.
Indeed the military now takes advantage of video games and training soldiers in to kill in combat. why killing at a distance is much easier to it reduces empathy.
Codependence Movement
The late 80s to mid-90s the codependency movement flourished
Popular in psychology - Being concerned about others was taking the focus off yourself
The idea is that only you can make yourself happy.
And by implication if your actions hurt someone else it was their problem new yours.
Why Does this Matter:
With empathy, we live longer, we are happier, and we live in a more productive society - both artistically AND wealth-wise!
Practicing love is just about the healthiest things families and friends can do
Iceland - Around 2010 – top five countries in the world on virtually all measures in health and happiness
low inequality
high empathy and the way these factors allow trust to build a flourishing society.
Iceland was consistently ranked at near or best in the world in most indicators related to trust quality of life and happiness.
Iceland was the number one country in the UN - distribution of health income and educational levels.
Number one in the global peace index - violence crime rates incarceration rates propensity for violent demonstrations trust among citizens and respect for human rights
Empathy and Economy
How well do regions and nations perform economically
Economy - how willing and able its citizens are to trust the government and the people who aren't friends or family
Renting an apartment, Renting a car - buying anything!
From manufacturing to healthcare to government insuring that money is actually worth something is done via trust.
Without empathy, there can be no trust because if we don't believe that people will try to behave in a way that predictably honors their commitment to us we can't connect with them or engage in a mutually beneficial transaction.
Research! - trust and what has become social capital a term for the economic value associated with people's connections with and trust in one another and their capacity to form and utilize networks of those contacts
Move beyond and US versus them and to see what most people see as a “us” and therefore as worthy of trust and equal trading partners. It is measured by examining social networks and trust levels as well as other factors.
Bonding social capital involves relationships with one family and tribe.
Bridging social capital refers to connections and trust outside those boundaries.
It is not possible to have bridging social capital without starting in the bonding form if you cannot trust your own family and friends it's hardly likely you'll find outsiders anymore trustworthy.
High social capital - less crime, corruption - higher life satisfaction
Low social capital - poverty, underdevelopment - If you can’t trust you can’t do business If your transactions always aim to benefit your group at the expense of others you wind up with corruption and graft and an inability to cooperate in a large scale needed to be competitive in the global state or even built reliable nation institutions. A society's lack of trust essentially taxes every transaction the more safeguards surveillance physical barriers no worries passwords policies police lawyers courts and regulations you need to keep people honest the more each transaction costs and the more time it takes to get anything done. In countries with low trust simply setting up a business or building a home can involve weeks or turn months of bureaucratic wrangling and can require multiple bribes if anything is to move forward at all expanding the circle of empathy biandra and family and social groups is critical to a well functioning nation.
why social capital matters and why it means for our future we need to examine how trust is modulated by the brain - interactions
economic inequality reduces empathy and drives greater inequality
oxytocin- stresses impacted by positive social contacts - crucial to our economic relationships as well.
University of Zurich & Center for neuroeconomics at Claremont graduate university studied this -
People were given an opportunity to possibly quadruple their money if they shared it with a stranger at the risk of losing it all if that stranger turned chose to not return any
If given an oxytocin nasal spray before hand - Twice as many invested the maximum sum vs placebo
Additional study - oxytocin made people more generous
subject was given $10 to split with someone that person didn’t know and the other person could either accept or reject the split
if rejected neither would gain any money.
Oxytocin - The first subject was 80% more likely generous than the placebo
Additionally, research has found that if a person was given oxytocin - more likely to forgive somebody who betrayed their trust
Trust involves the chemistry of bonding -stress affects social life and this impacts the economy
Additionally, remember Oxytocin has few other effects to people could not tell what they had received, they didn’t feel additional effects
Lower heart rate - Lower blood pressure - Lower stress hormones like cortisol.
Traditional economics wrongly predict the outcome of these experiments because we have a belief that we are selfish and will always seek to maximize wealth - the belief there is little to be gained from trusting a complete stranger who could harm you
Economists will also tell you if you give a person $10 and tell them they can keep some if they give some away, it would make the most sense to keep $9 and give $1. However, most people will reject that $1 because its an insult. But Economists will tell you that any money is better than none, but that’s not how people work.
It's not fair
Apathy and lack of empathy contributes to individuals in social dysfunction inhumane ideologies and often brutal actions.
All of the studies show how experienced profoundly affects development and even the most basic ability to feel and express empathy.
We need practice love as we go through the different social experiences to be best to be able to give it back in abundance.
The brain becomes what it does most frequently it is shaped every day by what we do and what we don't do.
If we don't practice empathy we can't become more empathetic. If we don't interact with people we can't improve our connections to them.
If we don't use one another stress through caring contact we will become increasingly distressed.
Once you understand that we are interdependent - makes sense
Why would giving to others help the giver reducing chronic pain and depression even extending life? Because kind of social contact relieve distress reducing the toll chronically high levels of stress hormones take on the body.
How could we self-centered us decrease survival rates from heart disease? By cutting social contact and elevating levels of those same hormones.
Why is cuteness so appealing? Because it's the only way that the brain social networks link nurtured pleasure.
Why does money in possession so rarely bring the happiness we expect? Because they often distance one of us from one another rather than bringing us closer empathizing with status gap not narrowing them.
Brain development is utterly reliant on others - and that humans evolve as profoundly social creatures.
Perry argues - empathy has been eroding due to rapid changes in our society
advances in technology the
high mobility of populations ongoing instability of families and communities
educational work and living environments have contributed to the reduction in compassion
Relational poverty - less trusting
Why?
what kind of children do you want to raise? More broadly we must also collectively ask what kind of society do we want to live in?
How we raise and educate children changes how we govern ourselves
America - 250 years dynamic example -Universal public education and representation democracy - led to remarkable productivity creativity and socially just society.
History has waxed and waned but we believe there's clear progress that has been made and is important to recognize this if we want to help continue. - Torture killing of both animals and humans entertainment - there is hope
How?
Psychoanalyst Adam films and historian Barbara Taylor wrote
kindness today it is only between parents and children that kindness is expected sanctioned and indeed obligatory but before we condemn those mothers who raged at their toddlers in the street we might stop to consider what it feels like to be a pattern parent in society when kindness is incidentally praised while being implicitly discouraged. Kindness that is the ability to they are the vulnerability of others and therefore oneself has become a sign of weakness except of course among saintly people in whom it is a sign of their exceptionality all compassion is self-pity
Changing our beliefs - believing that kindness is for the weak and selflessness for the strong
DL Laurance “the kind are only kind because they haven't got to be anything else.”
Pleasure from kindness - Kindness as a health food
Volunteering
“actually one of the greatest sources of human happiness is become a consolation prize something that even children can tell isn't really seen as a good thing is is getting a shiny new thing for ourselves.
Psycho-psychologist Jonathan Haidt Happiness and longevity
Having strong relationships strengthens the immune system and extends life more than quitting smoking does - speeds recovery from surgery and reduces the risk of depression and anxiety disorders and it's not just that we all need somebody to lean on recent work on giving support shows that caring for others is a more often beneficial than receiving help.
Research on happiness points- the greatest source of joy is in relationships.
Dependable route to happiness - Altruism
The joy of giving goes to the gift-giver
“This is seen as a white lie something we often do to make ourselves feel better period we eat the veggies of kindness grudgingly mainly believing that it is really impossible to enjoy as much as the sweets possession in power”.
Empathy nowadays originates in family
Infancy Early Childhood
Womb - stress regulation
To create a caring citizen - support mothers, children, families
All of the neurological structures involved the empathy stress regulation and reward are actively being organized in babies even before they leave the womb.
Pregnant women need to feel safe nourished and nurtured.-surrounded by loving people who support them and ease their stress.
After birth mothers need ongoing and consistent relational support in order for them to be the best at creating a safe nurturing environment for their babies.
Hard to RAISE BABIES
Takes a village other can be such a
Stressed mother. - less capable of caring for her infant vs supported mothers who can nurture - create a capacity for self-regulation
Being available when they need us most.
Actual scientific knowledge for new parents - Spoil the baby - NOPE
Infants cannot be to loved too much so long as you respond to their cues. - manageable stress vs unmanageable stress
Comfort zone - learning a little bit of new will cause a tiny dose of stress. If you move come from calm to alert you are prepared to take new information maybe a tiny bit stressful or provoke a little discomfort but you know you can handle it.
Good stress - alert Bad stress - alarm
Push into alarm and you can do harm - We all need emotional safety to maximize our learning potential everyone learns when they feel up to a challenge not overwhelmed.
-Reading to Children
Warm Nurturing/playful/cognitive simulation
Reading for pleasure vs school -sit still, no play, no touch, not eye contact
Reading = Empathy
Slow decline in murder/torture (historians)
Builds the cortex area of the brain responsible for planning and impulse control period greater self-control tends to reduce violence
First-person -requires perspective taking placing the reader in the position of the characters and eliciting pleasure from their triumphs and pain in their suffering.
Practice perspective taking
Teach perspective-taking - what is someone else thinking/feeling
Facial expression/body language - what does that mean? TV, Movies, Real life
Singing, Drumming, and Dancing
rhythmic patterns that soothe anxiety and stress
Better regulate our stress response - life has a natural rhythm and this is impacted
Breath - heart rate - hormone cycle
Canals in the inner ear - fluid and sensors for balance
All cultures and societies have been developed some sort of pattern of repetitive end rhythmic dance.
Singing and playing an instrument can replicate the relief one experiences when using alcohol or other drugs.
Especially with patients who suffered early maltreatment that affected nonverbal and conscious brain regions
stress response system repeatedly found that these activities combine music and movement can be powerfully restorative.
With a better way of relieving tension music allows a person to stop moving drinking and using period two key elements of health converge in these newfound skills.
Especially when this is connected to culture and community.
Singing, dancing charing in group - bond one another
Walking in synch experiment
Participates were more cooperative - even at the risk of losing money for themselves
step out of step physically with the song they were supposed to sing together was less cooperative than people who synchronized.
This is one of the reasons why military organizations still emphasize these exercises.
Marching in unison exercising intensely together and chanting brings troops together and unites them as a unit. -
