Empathy makes humans into social creatures. It allows us to put ourselves into someone else’s shoes – without losing our own sense of self. Empathy encompasses both the emotional capacity to feel what others feel, as well as the cognitive capability to understand others’ emotions, desires and intentions.
By conducting a variety of experiments, researchers from diverse fields are studying the behaviors of children, youths and adults to learn more about the different dimensions of empathy, in all of its complexity. Using imaging techniques like MRIs, they’re able to track what goes on in the brain and which neurons play a role in generating empathy.
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