Coplan Definición 2011

8/18/2019 Coplan Definición 2011

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Empathy and bandwidth — you could inscribe the words on Zuckerberg’s coat of arms. And

they are without a doubt both good things. But are they good for everybody all the time? —

Richard Stengel (2010, 68)

INTRODUCTION

Over the past few decades, there has been a surge of interest in the concept

of empathy, which has come to occupy a central role in countless debates

taking place in both public and academic discourse. Barack Obama writes

about empathy in his book, The Audacity of Hope (2006b), and has invoked theconcept in several different contexts, most notably when he listed the criteria

he would use to choose nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court. This led to

heated political debates over the nature and appropriateness of judicial

empathy, generating what several news outlets called an “empathy war.”

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook who was Time magazine’s 2010“Person of the Year,” suggests that one of the major goals of Facebook is to

promote empathy among its users. In speeches given to different audiences in

the past few years, the Academy Award–winning actress Meryl Streep (2010)

says that empathy is what fuels positive change and that it is at the center of

her well-being and purpose in the world.

While empathy’s frequent appearance in public discussions is a relativelynew phenomenon, empathy has been a topic of interest in philosophy and

psychology ever since the word’s introduction into the English language in

1909.1 Yet, today, empathy seems to be of greater concern than ever before,

as researchers from multiple disparate disciplines have become convinced of

its relevance to a wide range of issues, such as the nature and conditions of

morality and moral judgments, how we understand one another, what makes

certain political candidates appealing, how and why we engage with works of

art, what characterizes psychopaths and bullies, how medical workers should

interact with their patients, and the recipe for successful psychotherapy.2

1 In order to capture the German concept of Einfühlung , Edward Titchener transliterated theGreek word ‘empatheia’ as ‘empathy’, which he first introduced in 1909 in his Experimental Psychology of Thought Processes . Although Titchener was the first to use the term ‘empathy’, by thetime he began discussing it, Einfühlung was already a prominent concept in psychology, aesthet-ics, and philosophy of social science. For more on this, see Currie, forthcoming; Coplan andGoldie, forthcoming; Stueber 2000, 2006, 2008; and Kögler and Stueber 2000.

2 For a discussion of some of the current research on empathy, especially within philosophyand psychology, as well as a survey of the history of the concept, see Coplan and Goldie,forthcoming. Useful overviews of how the concept of empathy has developed and is currentlyemployed in particular areas of research, including hermeneutics, developmental psychology,and psychoanalysis can be found in Stueber 2006, 2008; Batson 2009; Eisenberg 2000;Verducci 2005; A. Clark 2007; Wispé 1987; Gladstein 1984; Gladstein and Brennan 1987;Bohart and Greenberg 1997; and K Clark 1980

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Due to its apparent importance to so many different domains, it is crucial

that we address a problem that has plagued the study of empathy for almost

all of its hundred-year history—the fact that there is no clear and agreed upon

answer to the question of what empathy is. There are currently numerouscompeting conceptualizations of empathy circulating the literature, which

makes it difficult to keep track of which process or mental state the term is

being used to refer to in any given discussion. We need to be able to keep

track because the different conceptualizations refer to distinct psychological

processes that vary, sometimes widely, in their function, phenomenology,

mechanisms, and effects. The different processes that get called “empathy”

are not interchangeable, yet all are worthy of study in and of themselves.

Further confusing matters is the fact that researchers studying empathy

employ differing (often incommensurable) approaches, ranging from a priori theorizing to the examination and analysis of patterns of neural activation

through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Several researchers have responded to the conceptual confusion surround-

ing empathy by advancing a view of empathy as a broad and inclusive

concept. Indeed, this has become the norm in the recent literature. One of the

most famous proponents of this broad view is the primatologist and ethologist

Frans de Waal. A champion of empathy, de Waal has argued for its impor-

tance in research published for academic specialists as well as in books,

articles, and presentations aimed at popular audiences. In The Age of Empathy: Lessons for a Kinder Society, de Waal says, empathy “is the grand theme of ourtime” (2009, ix). He argues that empathy is an ancient part of our heritage that

has received far too little attention and has often been misunderstood. Phi-

losophers’ discussions of empathy exemplify this “misunderstanding” since, in

de Waal’s view, they neglect important low-level phenomena and focus too

narrowly on highly sophisticated cognitive operations involving processes like

perspective taking. In contrast, de Waal presents a broad conceptualization of

empathy that encompasses an array of psychological phenomena, including

mirroring processes, bodily synchronization, imitation of various forms, and

emotional contagion. He maintains that all of these processes should count as

empathy because all are fundamental features of human nature and of the

social behavior of both human and nonhuman animals. As I mentioned

above, views such as de Waal’s, which conceptualize empathy as a broad

umbrella concept, have become the norm in the recent literature?3

The motivation behind de Waal’s approach (and others like it) is admi-

rable. De Waal is right that emotional contagion, mirroring processes, and

3 See, e.g., Hoffman 2000; Davis 1996; Slote 2007, 2010; and Stueber 2006, 2008. DeWaal’s account elaborates on the model of empathy he developed with Stephanie Preston(Preston and de Waal 2002)

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different types of imitation are all fundamentally important and merit serious

attention. Philosophers, in particular, are too often guilty of neglecting low-

level affective processes, which play an enormous role in almost every aspect

of human experience. Nevertheless, grouping these together with higher-levelprocesses is not the best way to highlight their importance. In order to do

justice to these processes, we must treat them as separate and as being worthy

of distinctive conceptualizations. I do not deny that the various processes

referred to as empathy are related in multiple ways, but transforming

empathy into a catch-all term does little to shed light on the nature of these

relationships or on the nature of each individual process itself. On the con-

trary, it leads us to ignore the differences among the processes and to conflate

them in ways that interfere with attempts to understand them.

De Waal’s approach to empathy—to argue for an overarching concept thatapplies to a wide variety of processes—takes us in the wrong direction. Against

this view, I contend that, far from being “emphasized to the point of distrac-

tion,” as de Waal claims, the differences among the processes referred to as

“empathy” have not been emphasized enough. What we need is a narrower

conceptualization of empathy, not a broader one. We need greater precision in

our conceptualizations of the myriad processes that get called empathy, and we

need to specify as clearly and systematically as possible what the different

processes are, how each one works, and why each one matters. Only then will

we be able to appreciate more fully the roles these processes play in our lives.It is no accident that philosophers have been the ones most often accused

of defining empathy too narrowly. One of the oldest and most important tasks

of philosophy is to formulate, clarify, and refine our concepts and theories to

ensure that they are as specific as possible, possess as much explanatory power

as possible, and can thereby enhance our understanding of the world and of

our experiences. For Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, a critical step in deter-

mining how best to understand and conceptualize a particular phenomenon

is to decide what to exclude from the conceptualization. Put differently, to

figure out what something is often requires us first to figure out what it is not .Those of us with naturalist commitments must also make sure that our

theories and concepts are informed by and have the capacity to inform

science. They must therefore square with the methods, activities, and discov-

eries of empirical scientists.4 As philosophers, one of the most significant

contributions we can make to interdisciplinary areas of research, such as the

study of empathy, is through the creation of theoretical and conceptual

frameworks that clearly and systematically organize—as much as is

4 See Robert McCauley (forthcoming) for a discussion of philosophical naturalism and theconstraints it places on theory and concept construction. McCauley’s methodological approachis the type to which I think philosophers should aspire



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possible—the patterns, mechanisms, and relevance of the various objects of

study. These frameworks play an essential role in the exchange of ideas,

empirical findings, and methodologies from different areas of research.

To summarize, the goal of my discussion here is to help to show why weneed to refine our conceptual framework of empathy so as to distinguish

clearly several related processes that too often get confused, conflated, or

ignored. Complaining that there are too many things that get called empathy

or that the concept is unclear is nothing new. Indeed, many, if not most, of

the articles published on the topic of empathy in recent decades begin by

acknowledging the slipperiness of the concept and stipulating a definition.

While it is great that so many philosophers, psychologists, film theorists,

anthropologists, medical researchers, and so on, are aware of how muddled

the concept of empathy is, acknowledgement of this fact is not enough. Weneed a theoretical framework that makes salient the relevant differences and

similarities between the multiple processes that get referred to as empathy.

In what follows, I begin to construct this sort of framework through an

examination of three of the processes that are commonly referred to as

empathy: emotional contagion, a process of self-oriented perspective taking

(which I refer to as “pseudo-empathy”), and empathy proper (which I define

as a complex imaginative process through which an observer simulates

another person’s situated psychological states while maintaining clear self–

other differentiation). Under my conceptualization, empathy has three essen-tial features: affective matching, other-oriented perspective taking, and clear

self–other differentiation. I maintain that there are empirical, conceptual, and

normative reasons for clearly distinguishing these three processes.

Before turning to my discussion of these processes, I would like to empha-

size a point I made above, namely, that, contrary to claims of others, treating

the various processes referred to as empathy as separate phenomena, each

worthy of its own distinct conceptualization, does not lead to the neglect or

dismissal of any of them. Quite the opposite—it puts us in a far better position

to understand, appreciate, and study all of them. It is in no way my intention

to suggest that the high-level process I refer to as empathy is the only one

worthy of philosophical reflection. I consider the processes I do not count as

empathy to be just as important. In fact, I devote more attention in this paper

to emotional contagion than to empathy proper. I reiterate this point since it

would be easy to conclude that I favor a narrow conceptualization of empathy

due to a lack of interest in any process other than the highly sophisticated one

that I refer to as empathy. Such a conclusion would be false.5

5 I have discussed emotional contagion and its significance in multiple places. See, e.g.,Coplan 2006 and 2010

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1. EMOTIONAL CONTAGION

I begin with an examination of emotional contagion. A majority of empathy

researchers consider emotional contagion to be a primitive form of empathyor empathy at its most basic level. Although I understand the logic behind

viewing emotional contagion in this way, I maintain that it is a mistake for a

number of different reasons. (1) Emotional contagion on its own has different

causes than the higher-level processes referred to as empathy; (2) it involves a

different neural architecture (which is to say that it is realized by a distinctive

neural pathway) than the higher-level processes referred to as empathy; (3) it

involves a different phenomenology than the higher-level processes; and (4) it

often results in different effects. During the past twenty years, there have been

huge advances in the empirical study of mirroring processes and the neuralunderpinnings of various forms of shared affect. These advances provide solid

empirical evidence showing that emotional contagion differs significantly

from the higher-level processes referred to as empathy, and thus it is high time

for us to update our files.

Emotional contagion is defined by psychologists Elaine Hatfield, John

Cacioppo, and Richard Rapson as the “tendency to automatically mimic and

synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those

of another person, and, consequently, to converge emotionally” (1994, 153–

54). As Stephen Davies explains, this “involves the transmission from A to Bof a given affect such that B’s affect is the same as A’s but does not take A’s

state or any other thing as its emotional object” (forthcoming). Emotional

contagion happens extremely quickly and is typically below the threshold of

awareness, so in standard cases, we end up “catching” another’s emotion

without realizing it. The main processes involved are facial, vocal, and pos-

tural mimicry and the activation and afferent feedback triggered by mimicry.

All of these processes are automatic and involuntary.6 Emotional contagion is

not a higher-order cognitive process, which explains why it occurs in numer-

ous species, most of which are not thought to possess the capacity for self-knowledge. Stephanie Preston and de Waal hypothesize that emotional

contagion developed before more complex emotional processes (such as high-

level empathy) and involves fast and reflexive subcortical processes that go

directly from sensory cortices to the thalamus to the amygdala to response

(Preston and de Waal 2002). The research on emotional contagion shows that

due to our hardwired ability to “catch” the emotions of others, our emotional

experiences can be directly and immediately influenced by another’s emo-

6 See Dimberg 1982, 1988, 1990; Adelmann and Zajonc 1989; Levenson, Ekman, andFriesen 1990; Bavelas et al. 1987; Hess and Blairy 2001; Hatfield, Rapson, and Le 2009; andHatfield Cacioppo and Rapson 1994 53 62



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tions and need not depend on any conscious evaluation or interpretation of

external events or conditions or of the other’s emotion itself. This has signifi-

cant implications for the theory of emotion debate since it provides clear

evidence of emotion taking place through automatic, unconscious processesthat occur in the absence of any cognitive evaluation.7

Emotional contagion has multiple characteristics that set it apart from

other processes that lead to shared emotions. First, there is its causal story;

emotional contagion gets triggered by direct sensory engagement with

another person expressing an emotion.8 It is a bottom-up or outside-in

process. To catch the emotion of another, we must be able to directly perceive

the other and the other’s emotion either through visual or aural observation.

Emotional contagion neither relies on nor involves the imagination or any

other higher-level processing. It is an immediate response that arises throughdirect sensory observation. Among the implications of this dimension of

emotional contagion is the fact that films and television shows can generate

emotional contagion responses, while literary narratives cannot.9

Another distinguishing feature of emotional contagion is its automaticity.

It is an automatic process that is thought to occur subcortically when we

encounter another person expressing emotion and perceive that expression. It

is also involuntary; no deliberate effort or thought is required, and the other’s

emotion is typically transmitted very quickly and without the observer real-

izing that she has “caught” it.10 Due to the automatic and involuntary natureof emotional contagion, researchers often characterize it as a kind of reflex.

7 I develop this argument in greater length elsewhere (2010). Davies (forthcoming) takes asimilar position, arguing that the evidence on emotional contagion works against the “cogni-tive” or “judgment” theory of emotion, which is the dominant view in philosophy.

8 The person whose emotion triggers emotional contagion need not be physically presentbut must be perceptually accessible. Thus, we can have a contagion response to characters infilms or to news reports providing visual and aural access to a person expressing emotion. SeeCoplan 2006 and 2009 and Coplan and Matravers 2011 for discussion of emotional contagionresponses to film. There are good reasons for thinking that, in some cases, animated charactersand nonhuman animals expressing emotion may be able to trigger a contagion response, butthese sorts of cases are beyond the scope of this paper. Davies (forthcoming) argues that weexperience emotional contagion in response to certain kinds of music that mimic the sound of the human voice expressing emotion. Although I do not discuss these sorts of nonstandard caseshere, everything I say about emotional contagion applies to them as well, and they all still relyon direct sensory engagement of some form.

9 See Coplan 2006 and 2009 and Coplan and Matravers 2011 for this argument and formore on how film elicits emotional contagion responses and why it is well suited to do so.

10 It is possible in some cases for one to be aware of experiencing emotional contagion. Forexample, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals, who are familiar with thephenomenon of emotional contagion and have been trained to recognize their own emotions,may be aware of times when they have experienced emotional contagion. However, these sortsof cases are not the norm

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A third distinctive feature of emotional contagion is its ability to generate

emotional states that fail to correspond to the emotional state a subject is in

immediately prior to the process of contagion or to a subject’s cognitive

evaluation of how things are going in the environment or in the subject’s life.11

Suppose, for example, that I am melancholic and view the world and every-

thing in it as hopeless and then encounter an effervescent person (the target

individual) who laughs easily and often.12 I respond to the target individual’s

laughter and expressions of joy by beginning to laugh myself, and soon I find

myself feeling joyful. Emotional contagion has altered my emotional state,

transforming it into something markedly different from what I was experi-

encing prior to my encounter with this emotionally expressive target. And this

happened without any changes in my beliefs about the world or my place in

it. I made no cognitive evaluations. I simply had an automatic and involun-tary response to another person’s emotion.

In contrast to most of the other emotional processes referred to as

empathy, emotional contagion typically puts one in an emotional state that is

experienced as one’s own, that is, not in relation to the individual whose

emotion leads to the contagion response. In standard cases of emotional

contagion, the subject is unaware that he is catching the emotion of another.

As I explained above, the subject shares the other’s emotion but not because

of having attempted to adopt the other’s perspective or because of any

complex reasoning or theorizing. The target individual’s emotion triggers theobserver’s emotion, but once the emotion has been transmitted, there need

not be any connection between the observer’s emotion and that of the target.

Observers experience the emotions generated through emotional contagion

as their own emotions. These emotions are not experienced vicariously or as

“off-line.” Thus, if I experience a contagion response of fear as a result of

observing another’s fear, my fear is not a vicarious response or an

imagination-based response. I am simply afraid.

Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense that emotional contagion works

this way. One of the functions of our emotions is to alert us to the state of the

environment and to prepare us to act so that we can avoid harm and

approach rewards. With the ability to catch the emotion of a nearby other, I

am able to benefit from any monitoring of our environment that originates

11 Emotional contagion responses to film provide a useful example of this feature of emo-tional contagion. Murray Smith (1995, 73–109) discusses this through an explanation of howcertain formal features of a film can elicit an emotional response that is incongruent with thedominant emotional responses generated by the film. I expand on Smith’s discussion through ananalysis of a climactic scene in Jean Pierre Jeunet’s 1997 film Alien Resurrection (Coplan, 2006).

12 Psychologists generally refer to the person whose emotion generates emotional contagion,high-level empathy, or sympathy as the “target” (e.g., the observer empathized with the target’s sadness; the observer caught the anxiety of the target)



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within her. My contagion-based emotion response and the physiological

changes and behavior that are part of it cause me to respond to whatever

stimulus has provoked the other’s emotion without my having to have noticed

that stimulus or to have evaluated the environment in a way consistent withthe emotion. Nevertheless, I am prepared to immediately act and in all

likelihood will act.

Consider the following very simple example. Suppose that Wilma and

Betty are out one day picking berries in the woods. All of the sudden, Betty

sees a ferocious saber-toothed tiger stealthily approaching and is stricken with

fear. Wilma, however, is oblivious to the saber-toothed tiger. Nevertheless,

when Wilma looks over at Betty and observes Betty’s expression of fear,

Wilma automatically and involuntarily becomes afraid. As a result, Wilma

experiences a pattern of physiological activity that enables her to deal withdanger in the environment: an increased secretion of norepinephrine

(adrenaline), an increased heart rate, an increase in the electrical conductivity

of the skin (i.e., a rise in the ability to conduct electricity), and so on.13 All of

this happens immediately. Wilma does not need to ask Betty why she is afraid,

nor does Wilma need to apprehend the source of Betty’s fear. Wilma’s fear

will still cause Wilma to experience the environment as threatening and to

behave accordingly—all because she automatically and involuntarily catches

the fear that Betty expresses.

So far in my characterization of emotional contagion, I have said nothing about the subject of the contagion response understanding the emotions or

mental states of the target individual whose emotion triggered the contagion

response. In the example just discussed, Wilma’s fear does not depend on

understanding Betty’s fear in any way. This is why I describe Wilma as

“catching” Betty’s fear. I have left out any talk of intersubjective understand-

ing because I maintain that emotional contagion—on its own—provides no

understanding of the target individual’s emotions or mental states more

generally. While it is certainly possible for us to increase our understanding of

another’s emotion by reflecting on a contagion response that we have come

to identify as a contagion response by using that response as a source of data,

reflection of this kind goes well beyond the contagion response in and of itself.

It may seem obvious that emotional contagion in and of itself provides its

subject with no understanding of the target individual or her emotions, but a

number of researchers suggest otherwise. Based on the discovery of and

research on mirror neurons and mirroring processes, many have concluded

that low-level mirroring responses such as emotional contagion generate

13 For a useful discussion of the empirical and philosophical research on emotions and howthey operate, including a summary of some of the latest thinking on physiological responsepatterns associated with different emotions see Robinson 2005 1 57

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understanding. Remy Debes refers to this as the “mirrored understanding

claim.”14 According to this claim, we often understand others’ actions, sen-

sations, and emotions by directly representing those actions and feelings.

Debes rejects the mirrored understanding claim. He grants that mirroring may lead to a direct matching of a target individual’s emotions with an

observer’s emotions but explains that it does not follow from this that these

emotions will have the same meaning. Mirroring, he emphasizes, is a cogni-

tively unmediated process that carries no information about the context of the

emotion it transmits (Debes 2010, 236).

Although Debes denies that mirroring offers genuine (or rich) understand-

ing of another’s emotion, he acknowledges that it may impart a special form

of understanding that proponents of the mirrored understanding claim have

yet to articulate. He points out, however, that whatever this special form of understanding is, it is not the form of understanding typically associated with

empathy or theory of mind.15

I have offered several reasons for thinking that emotional contagion is a

unique process that should be distinguished from empathy and related

higher-order processes. I now turn to a brief discussion of some empirical

evidence for my view that comes from recent work in cognitive and social

neuroscience; this recent work has yielded an impressive array of data, the

implications of which we are only just beginning to grasp. Directly related to

my proposal are recent studies that identify some of the neuroanatomicalsubstrates of emotional contagion and empathy proper and indicate that the

two processes are based on distinctive neuroanatomical systems that develop

independently and at different rates and that can operate independently of

one another. By showing which brain regions subserve these processes, this

research reveals differences between emotional contagion and empathy that

occur at the subpersonal level.

Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory, Judith Aharon-Peretz, and Daniella Perry

(2009) conducted a study using the lesion method in order to examine the

14 Debes 2010, 236. Debes, like many of those working on empathy, simulation, andmindreading, employs the term ‘mirroring’ to refer to what I term ‘emotional contagion’. It islikely that many researchers are now talking about mirroring because of the discovery of mirrorneurons, which has increased interest in mirroring phenomena in general. I choose to stick withthe term ‘emotional contagion’ for two reasons. First, it is the term used by many of thepsychologists who have been studying the phenomenon for several decades, including NancyEisenberg, C. Daniel Batson, Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo, and Richard Rapson. Second, Iconsider emotional contagion to be a more useful description of the process. That having beensaid, I do not deny that emotional contagion is a form of mirroring nor do I see any problemwith referring to it as mirroring. There is not yet enough evidence to understand fully therelationship between emotional contagion and mirror neurons.

15 Debes accepts the more modest claim that mirroring provides only recognition. I am notconvinced that emotional contagion—at least on its own—gives us even this, but this issue is onefor another day



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relationship between emotional contagion and high-level empathy (which

involves perspective taking). They found direct evidence of a behavioral and

anatomic double dissociation between the two processes and were able to

determine that while Broadman area 44 is critical for emotional contagion,areas 11 and 10 are critical for perspective taking. Several neuroimaging

studies have already been able to identify neural underpinnings of emotional

contagion and perspective taking, but this study was able to investigate

whether or not high-level empathy (or perspective taking) depends on emo-

tional contagion since it used the lesion method (Shamay-Tsoory, Aharon-

Peretz, and Perry 2009, 518).16

Based on neuroanatomical evidence from earlier studies, Shamay-Tsoory

and her colleagues hypothesized that the ventromedial prefrontal (VM)

cortex is critical for perspective taking and that the inferior frontal gyrus(IFG) cortex is necessary for emotional contagion. To test this hypothesis,

they examined neurological patients with localized damage to either the

VM or IFG areas of the frontal cortex, along with two control groups. One

of the control groups was comprised of neurological patients with posterior

lesions, and the other was comprised of healthy individuals. Shamay-Tsoory

and her colleagues tested the subjects by having them complete tasks

designed to assess the capacity for so-called low-level/emotional empathy

and high-level/cognitive empathy or perspective taking. Their results

showed that patients with VM lesions were impaired in perspective taking when compared to individuals in both of the control groups and to the

patients with IFG lesions. Patients with IFG lesions, on the other hand,

were shown to be impaired in low-level empathy (or emotional contagion)

when compared to individuals in both of the control groups and to the

patients with VM lesions.

In order to investigate whether or not there exists a double dissociation

between the VM and IFG areas and to examine how the VM and IFG groups

would perform across various tasks, Shamay-Tsoory and her colleagues did a

repeated measures analysis with only the VM and IFG groups, which led to

further confirmation of their hypothesis. Members of the VM group were

found to be impaired in high-level/cognitive empathy when compared to

members of the IFG group, and members of the IFG group were found to be

impaired in low-level/emotional empathy when compared to members of the

VM group.

16 Studies that have identified some of the neuroanatomical substrates underlying emotionalcontagion and perspective taking (beyond those discussed by Shamay-Tsoory and her col-leagues) include Lamm et al. 2007; Jackson, Meltzoff, and Decety 2005; and Ruby and Decety2004. For discussion of these and related studies, see Singer 2006 and Decety and Meltzoff,forthcoming

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Shamay-Tsoory and her colleagues interpreted these results as providing

strong empirical support for the existence of two separate systems for the

processes that are commonly labeled empathy: one low-level system involving

emotional matching or mirroring and a separate, more advanced systeminvolving perspective taking and the cognitive understanding of others’

mental states. These systems, they claim, are both anatomically and behav-

iorally distinct.

Lauri Nummenmaa et al. (2008) were also interested in the differences

between emotional contagion (or affective empathy) and cognitive empathy.

They conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study on

healthy volunteers to examine whether emotional empathy—when com-

pared to cognitive empathy—would facilitate the recruitment of brain net-

works involved in motor representations and imitation.17 The study wasdesigned to investigate whether emotional and cognitive empathy recruit the

motor/action representation systems to a similar extent and whether the two

processes recruit different brain networks extending beyond the action rep-

resentation system.

Their findings confirm their hypothesis that significant differences exist

between emotional empathy and cognitive empathy. They report increased

activation in the premotor mirror neuron system, which they consider the

core empathy network, in emotional empathy as compared to cognitive

empathy. In addition, they have found support for their hypothesis thatemotional empathy and cognitive empathy activate distinct extended net-

works. Emotional empathy recruits the insula and the thalamus, areas typi-

cally involved in emotional processing; it also leads to increased activation in

the fusiform gyrus (FG) and the extrastriate body area (EBA) representing a

target individual’s face and body. Cognitive empathy, on the other hand,

relies more on the frontocortical systems associated with theory of mind and

mentalization. From these findings, Nummenmaa and her colleagues con-

clude that emotional empathy leads to more vigorous mirroring of the target

17 Nummenmaa and her colleagues (2008) and Shamay-Tsoory and her colleagues (2009)refer to different types or subtypes of empathy, often using emotional empathy to refer toemotional contagion and cognitive empathy to refer to mentalizing and theory of mind pro-cesses. This may lead readers to wonder why I do not accept these more specific terms asreferring to different subtypes of empathy rather than insisting on a narrow conceptualizationthat excludes emotional contagion and other processes. As I have been arguing, I consider theseprocesses to be distinctive enough to warrant distinctive labels. In addition, the terms ‘emotionalempathy’ and ‘cognitive empathy’ are not used uniformly. Thus, some researchers use emo-tional empathy to refer to emotional contagion, while others use emotional empathy to refer toany empathic process involving an emotion, and still others use the term to refer to cases of empathizing with someone who is experiencing emotion (as opposed to someone who isthinking or reasoning)



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individual than cognitive empathy and that the two processes recruit different

brain networks.18

In a review and analysis of recent imaging research in social neuroscience on

empathy and mentalizing, Tania Singer (2006) provides additional support forthe view that emotional contagion differs in significant ways from empathy that

involves perspective taking. Although Singer understands empathy broadly as

a multilevel construct encompassing processes ranging from emotional conta-

gion to high-level perspective taking, her analysis bears directly on my pro-

posal. The empathy studies she analyzes focus primarily on affect sharing and

emotional contagion (ibid., 859), and the major conclusion of her analysis

highlights the differences between low-level processes (such as affect sharing)

and high-level processes (such as perspective taking). More specifically, she

writes that “the abilities to understand other people’s thoughts and to sharetheir affects display different ontogenetic trajectories reflecting the different

developmental paths of their underlying neural structures” (ibid., 855).

Singer reviews major findings from three separate research streams in

social neuroscience—those concerning mentalizing, motor action imitation,

and empathizing qua affect sharing. Her review leads her to conclude that thecapacity for affect sharing develops much earlier than the capacity for men-

talizing because it is based on limbic and paralimbic structures and the

somato-sensory cortices, which rely on structures that begin to form early in

brain development. Theory of mind or mentalizing abilities, on the otherhand, rely on structures of the neo-cortex, such as the prefrontal cortex and

lateral parts of the temporal cortex, which are among the last to mature in

brain development.

Singer’s conclusion is consistent with the phylogenetic and developmental

data. Whereas emotional contagion occurs in a wide range of species, per-

spective taking occurs only in phylogenetically advanced mammals such as

great apes. In those species with the capacity for perspective taking, emotional

contagion shows up much earlier in development than the ability to take up

others’ perspectives. In humans, infants exhibit the capacity for emotional

contagion moments after they are born, while the ability to engage in per-

spective taking does not develop until the age of four or five.19

Many philosophers interested in empathy have failed to consider the

advances in the empirical research on theory of mind and mirroring pro-

cesses. An important exception to this is Alvin Goldman (2006, forthcoming),

who has played a significant role in the research on mirror neurons and is one

18 Although the study by Nummenmaa et al. (2008) provides important suggestive evidence,it should be noted that the authors are not consistent in their use of terminology, which makesit difficult to evaluate their results with certainty.

19 Hodges 2008; Wimmer and Perner 1983; Baron Cohen Leslie and Frith 1985

52 AMY COPLAN


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of the originators of simulation theory. In recent years, Goldman has refined

and elaborated his simulation theory in accordance with the latest empirical

findings. He now holds a dual-process theory of simulation, according to

which there are two distinct types of simulation: one based on mirroring andthe other based on high-level perspective taking. In line with this, he main-

tains that there are two different routes to empathy and that these are based

on distinct cognitive systems. Direct mirroring experiences, such as emotional

contagion, take one route; enactive empathy or perspective taking–based

empathy, which is a constructive process that is effortful and involves imag-

ined scenarios, takes a different route. The refinement of Goldman’s account

of simulation is motivated in large part by fMRI neuroimaging data showing

that the brain regions that subserve perspective taking have minimal overlap

with either motoric areas or the areas involved in mirroring sensations oremotions (ibid.).

Even though Goldman continues to refer to both types of simulation as

empathy, his theory makes it very clear that the processes are importantly

different. Moreover, Goldman’s account is one of the only ones that classifies

low-level processes such as contagion as empathy and yet also clearly specifies

how such processes differ from high-level empathy. I favor conceptualizing

the low-level processes in separate terms but would not object to the adoption

of a model such as Goldman’s since it carefully distinguishes these processes.

It should now be clear why I insist that emotional contagion be excludedfrom the category of empathy. It has distinctive causes, a distinctive phenom-

enology, and distinctive effects, and it relies on a distinctive neural system that

develops and operates independently of the system underlying empathy

proper. Emotional contagion is a bottom-up process that allows us to catch

others’ emotions but transmits no understanding.

2. SELF-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVE TAKING

AS A TYPE OF PSEUDO-EMPATHY

In this section, I examine a process that I refer to as “pseudo-empathy” that

is based on self-oriented perspective taking. This process resembles empathy

(as I conceptualize it) in multiple respects, and yet I argue that, like emotional

contagion, it should be excluded from the category of empathy. I further

argue that any successful conceptual or theoretical framework of empathy will

make salient the ways in which pseudo-empathy differs from the process I

conceptualize as genuine empathy. More specifically, an adequate model of

empathy will specify the ways in which a project of self-oriented perspectivetaking differs from one of other-oriented perspective taking. Distinguishing

these two types of perspective taking is necessitated both by recent empirical



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research and by the need to show that the manner in which we attempt to

take up another’s perspective will determine the likelihood of our gaining

intersubjective or experiential understanding of the other.

What is pseudo-empathy? I use this term to refer to an attempt to adopt atarget individual’s perspective by imagining how we ourselves would think,

feel, and desire if we were in the target individual’s position. It is, essentially,

a type of self-oriented perspective taking. We use our own selves and our

responses to various simulated or imagined scenarios as a way to gain access

to or understand another person’s situated psychological states.

Why call this pseudo-empathy? It seems that this process of trying to put

oneself in the other person’s situation is exactly what we want when we ask

another to empathize with us? Suppose I say to my friend, “How would you

feel if this happened to you?” I say this as a way to elicit empathy and to getmy friend to understand where I am coming from. I acknowledge that we

sometimes speak this way, that we engage in perspective taking of this kind,

and that it is often motivated by the desire to understand another. And I

acknowledge that, in some cases, self-oriented perspective taking provides

some understanding of the other’s experience. But though it can lead to

quasi-empathic experiences, it does so only in cases where there is a great deal

of overlap between self and other or where the situation is the type that would

lead to a fairly universal response. For example, if Dick is being chased by a

lion and Jane decides to imagine that she is being chased by a lion, Jane islikely to end up with the same or a very similar experience. However, as Peter

Goldie (1999, 2002, forthcoming) argues, many, if not most, situations are

more complex than this, and one individual’s response to a set of circum-

stances is rarely a reliable indicator of what another’s will be. For this reason,

he says, adopting another’s perspective will generally require one to bring a

characterization of the target individual to bear on her imaginative process, a

characterization encompassing facts about the target’s character, emotions,

moods, dispositional tendencies, and life experiences.

In other-oriented perspective taking, a person represents the other’s situ-

ation from the other person’s point of view and attempts to simulate the target

individual’s experiences as though she were the target individual. Thus, I

imagine that I am you in your situation, which is to say, I attempt to simulate

your experiences from your point of view. Making this distinction may strike

some as splitting hairs, but other-oriented perspective taking is a different type

of process than self-oriented perspective taking, and the difference is not

purely conceptual.20 Empirical studies have shown that other-oriented per-

20 Goldie (forthcoming, 2002) highlights the differences between self- and other-orientedperspective taking at the conceptual level, ultimately concluding that empathy, if conceived of in terms of other oriented perspective taking is conceptually problematic Although I do not

54 AMY COPLAN


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spective taking requires greater mental flexibility and emotional regulation

and often has different effects than self-oriented perspective taking.21 In

addition, recent developments in cognitive neuroscience indicate that the

neural implementation of other-oriented perspective taking differs from thatof self-oriented perspective taking.22

As I mentioned above, I acknowledge that self-oriented perspective taking

occurs. In fact, it is our default mode of mentalizing (i.e., attempting to

understand and predict others’ mental states).23 Thus, in anticipating anoth-

er’s psychological states or behavior, we typically imagine ourselves in theother’s circumstances. Our engagement with the other, in this case, focuses

on the other’s external situation, yet we are the ones in the situation.

I propose that we conceptualize empathy so as to exclude processes that

involve self-oriented perspective taking, unless it is combined with other-oriented perspective taking.24 There are a number of reasons for this, not the

least of which is that self-oriented perspective taking is associated with a

number of psychological phenomena that are precisely the kinds of phenom-

ena that should be distinguished from genuine empathy, including errors in

prediction, misattributions, and personal distress.25

We have a natural tendency to assume greater similarity between self and

other than typically exists, especially when we attempt to imagine how the

other is feeling or what she is thinking. Put another way, we are naturally

subject to egocentric bias. For example, people often reason and behave asthough others have the same knowledge that they themselves have even when

they know that a given other is very different.26 The assumption of similarity

leads people to conclude that others will feel the same way that they feel, think

the same way that they think, and want the same things that they want.

Psychologists refer to such conclusions as false consensus effects and explain

that they commonly lead to prediction errors regarding others’ mental states

and behavior. Sara Hodges and Daniel Wegner (1997) argue that this occurs

due to a failure to suppress our own self-perspectives. In anticipating and

share his conclusion regarding the impossibility of other-oriented perspective taking, his discus-sions of the differences between these two modes of perspective taking offer important insightsinto why and how we must distinguish between them.

21 Batson et al. 1997; Batson et al. 2003; Decety and Sommerville 2003; Decety 2006.22 Ruby and Decety 2001, 2004; Jackson et al. 2006.23 Keysar, Lin, and Barr 2003; Royzman, Cassidy, and Baron 2003; Jackson, Meltzoff, and

Decety 2006; Goldman 2006.24 In all likelihood, we sometimes go back and forth between self- and other-oriented

perspective taking. In order to avoid becoming focused solely on ourselves and our ownexperiences, we would need to be careful not to spend too much time in the self-oriented phase.

25 For a useful discussion of the empirical literature on egocentric bias and prediction errorand a theoretical explanation in relation to re-enactive empathy and high level simulation (ormindreading), see Goldman 2006.

26 See Keysar Lin and Barr 2003



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imagining what another’s experience will be in a given situation, many of us

are unable to move beyond our own perspectives and so rely on our own

imagined experiences to formulate conclusions about the other. We have

difficulty not allowing our own beliefs, values, and occurrent states to influ-ence our simulation, which is why we regularly fail to understand others or at

least to understand them in a fine-grained way.27

It seems that we understand in the abstract that others are very different

from us, but in our day-to-day lives, we lose sight of this fact and generally

expect others to be just like we are, which causes us to get them wrong in

many different ways. And it is not simply that we fail to understand others’

subjective experiences; we often assume that we do understand them, whichleads to a new set of problems. I argue that self-oriented perspective taking

leads to a type of pseudo-empathy, since people often mistakenly believe thatit provides them with access to the other’s point of view when it does not.

Most of us have had the experience of disclosing something to a friend, having

her respond, “I know just how you are feeling,” and then realizing within

moments that she does not. It is not that she has not been perspective taking;

she has. But the perspective has been her own —only the circumstances are ours .Thus, our friend’s perspective taking has focused on her, not on us. While this

can be useful for many reasons, it does not yield empathy. One of the reasons

I highlight the distinction between self-oriented and other-oriented perspec-

tive taking is to prevent us from assuming that we “get” the other’s experiencewhen actually we do not. What about cases where we lack the knowledge

necessary to be able to engage in other-oriented perspective taking? Would it

be better in such cases to engage in self-oriented perspective taking? My

answer is “no.” We are better off recognizing that we are sometimes inca-

pable of genuine empathy, rather than making the assumption that we know

what the other is going through just because we know what we would be

going through in some similar situation. Regardless of whether or not one

accepts the conceptualization of empathy I am proposing, it is critical to

appreciate the differences between these two types of perspective taking.

Another important distinguishing feature of self-oriented perspective

taking is its relationship to personal distress. Personal distress—also some-

times referred to as emotional distress or contagious distress—occurs when

one observes another person in distress and reacts by becoming distressed

himself. In cases of empathetic distress, the observer’s experience of nega-

tively valenced affective arousal is vicarious; that is, it is represented as a simulation. Therefore, in spite of feeling distressed, the empathizer’s focus stays

on the other. In cases of personal distress, however, the observer’s focus is on

27 See Dunning et al 1990 and Vallone et al 1990; see also Goldman 2006

56 AMY COPLAN


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his own distress and how to alleviate it. Psychologists characterize this

response as a type of overarousal because the observer’s distress becomes

overwhelming and aversive.28 Individuals who experience personal distress

typically engage in self-directed behaviors designed to alleviate their owndiscomfort. For example, an observer experiencing personal distress will often

try to escape from the situation that triggered his distress, regardless of what

this will mean for the target individual whose distress initially caused the

observer’s distress. In some contexts, a person experiencing personal distress

will display prosocial behavior but generally only when there is no alternative

method of eliminating his discomfort.29

Why is self-oriented perspective taking more likely to lead to personal

distress? Imagining what it would be like for me to be in the awful situation you

are experiencing makes it harder for me to modulate my emotions. I losetrack of the fact that the experiences are actually yours and not mine and end

up feeling so upset that I become completely focused on my own pain and

what I can do to alleviate it. My emotional responses to imagined scenarios

involving me as me lead to greater emotional arousal in general. These effectsare decreased in other-oriented perspective taking because I suppress my

self-perspective, which makes it possible for me to accurately represent the

distressing emotions as the other’s .To summarize, personal distress, false consensus effects, and general mis-

understandings of the other are all associated with self-oriented perspectivetaking. When we imagine ourselves in another person’s situation, it frequently

results in inaccurate predictions and failed simulations of the other’s thoughts,

feelings, and desires. It also makes us more likely to become emotionally

overaroused and, consequently, to focus solely on our own experiences. To be

clear, I do not wish to suggest that self-oriented perspective taking is a bad

thing or that it never improves our understanding of others, neither of which

is true. Experiencing the other as a version of ourselves in many situations is

a good thing, and it is usually far better than experiencing the other in purely

instrumental terms. Very often it is motivated by a concern for the other and

a desire to understand his experiences, both of which tend to be good things.

It may also be the path by which we learn to engage in other-oriented

perspective taking. Nevertheless, it is a significantly different mode of inter-

subjective engagement than one centered on other-oriented perspective

taking. We must recognize this and alter both our descriptive and normative

theories accordingly.

28 Eisenberg and Strayer 1987; Eisenberg 2000; Hoffman 2000; Batson, Fultz, andSchoenrade 1987.

29 See Batson, Early, and Salvarani 1997; Batson et al. 1981; Batson 1991; Batson et al.1997; Batson Fultz and Schoenrade 1987; and Decety and Lamm 2009



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3. EMPATHY

At last I come to the complex imaginative process I refer to as “empathy,” a

process through which an observer simulates another’s situated psychologicalstates, while maintaining clear self–other differentiation. In my view, this

process is the only one that can provide experiential understanding of another

person, or understanding of another from the “inside.” It is in virtue of its

ability to provide this type of first-person access to another, however imper-

fect, that empathy is a unique and invaluable process—and one worth our

attention.

Because my goal in this article is to defend a narrow conceptualization, I

focus in the remainder of my discussion on reasons for keeping empathy

theoretically and conceptually distinct from other processes.30

Having aprecise conceptualization of empathy will greatly enhance our understanding

of its role in various aspects of our lives and will enable us to better evaluate

the research that has already been done.

Genuine empathy is difficult to achieve. To stay focused on the target

individual and move us beyond our own experiences, perspective taking

requires mental flexibility and relies on regulatory mechanisms to modulate

our level of affective arousal and suppress our own perspectives.31 As men-

tioned above, it also often requires at least some knowledge of the target,

though how much depends on the context (Goldie 1999, 2002, forthcoming).Fulfilling these conditions is not easy, particularly when the other is someone

very different from ourselves; the more unlike a target we are, the more

difficult it is to reconstruct her subjective experiences. As a result, empathy is

subject to biases tied to our familiarity and identification with the target

individual; we are more likely to empathize with those we know well and

whom we judge to be like us in some important respect. Not surprisingly, we

are also more likely to succeed in our attempts to adopt their perspectives.32

In order to represent the situation and experiences of those we know less well

and with whom we fail to identify, we must work harder, and even then, wewill often be unable to simulate their situated psychological states.33

The effort and regulation involved in other-oriented perspective taking

suggests that empathy is a motivated and controlled process, which is neither

automatic nor involuntary and demands that the observer attend to relevant

30 I discuss empathy and its essential features—affective matching, other-oriented perspec-tive taking, and self–other differentiation—at greater length elsewhere (Coplan, forthcoming).

31 Decety and Sommerville 2003; Decety and Jackson 2004; Decety and Hodges 2006;Goldman 2006; Lamm, Meltzoff, and Decety 2010; and Decety and Meltzoff, forthcoming.

32 Hoffman 2000; Eisenberg 2000; Batson et al. 1981.33 Decety and Jackson 2004; Lamm Meltzoff and Decety 2010

58 AMY COPLAN


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differences between self and other.34 This makes it a top-down process: it must

be initiated by the agent and generated from within, though it is likely that

bottom-up processes, such as emotional contagion, sometimes interact with

this process, providing influential feedback that alters it in important ways.Questions remain about the exact relationship between bottom-up pro-

cesses (such as emotional contagion and mirroring) and top-down processes

(such as other-oriented perspective taking). The study by Shamay-Tsoory

et al. (2009) shows that empathy does not depend on emotional contagion

because it reveals a double dissociation between the two processes. There is

evidence to suggest a correlation between empathy scores and mirror activ-

ity,35 but other evidence suggests that people highly susceptible to emotional

contagion are less capable of empathy. It seems likely that bottom-up pro-

cesses may help to activate an empathy response and may provide importantexperiential information about a target’s affective state, generating a feedback

loop, but at this point it is not entirely clear how these processes interact.36

The differences between perspective taking oriented toward the self

and that oriented toward the other have received too little attention in

philosophical discussions of empathy and of intersubjective engagement more

generally;37 however, recent developments in cognitive neuroscience and

philosophy of mind are drawing attention to the existence and significance of

these differences.38 Jean Decety and his collaborators have conducted several

experiments using fMRI to examine the brain activity associated with variousperspective taking tasks and have found that the neurological underpinning of

other-oriented perspective taking differs from that of self-oriented perspective

taking.39 In one such study, Decety and Jessica Sommerville (2003) found

specific activation of the frontopolar cortex, which is chiefly involved with

34 Goldie 1999, 2002, forthcoming; Goldman 2006, forthcoming; Batson et al. 2003; Decetyand Lamm 2009; Decety and Meltzoff, forthcoming; and Hodges and Wegner 1997.

35 See Pfeifer et al. 2008 and Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh, and Keysers 2006.36 I have said little about mirror neurons, not because they are not an important part of the

story but because the study of them is still very young and we should therefore exercise cautionabout concluding too much. Still, there are a number of exciting discoveries that have occurredrecently that are likely to help complete the picture. Recent research on mirroring and themirror system has led some to conclude that mirror neurons are more complex and more widelydistributed than was initially believed and that some mirror responses involve high-level pro-cesses (Iacoboni 2008, forthcoming). Needless to say, the story regarding mirroring is far fromcomplete.

37 Discussions of intersubjectivity within continental philosophy are typically more carefulabout the differences between self and others, but the concept of empathy does not figure asprominently in such discussions.

38 Decety 2007; Decety and Chaminade 2003; Decety and Grèzes 2006; Decety andHodges 2006; Decety and Jackson 2006; Decety and Sommerville 2003; Iacoboni 2008; Goldie1999, 2002, forthcoming; Goldman 2006, forthcoming; and Hoffman 2000.

39 Decety and Hodges 2006; Decety and Grèzes 2006; Decety and Jackson 2006; and Rubyand Decety 2001 2004



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inhibitory and regulating processes, when subjects were attempting to adopt

the subjective perspective of another individual when contrasted with taking

a self-perspective in the same tasks. Related experiments have revealed that

when subjects were asked to adopt another person’s perspective to evaluatethe other’s beliefs or imagine the other’s feelings as compared to their own

perspective, the right inferior parietal cortex was involved.40

It is believed that the inhibitory and regulatory mechanisms that subserve

other-oriented perspective taking enable us to suppress our self-perspective

and thus quarantine our own preferences, values, and beliefs.41 These mecha-

nisms are also associated with the modulation of affective arousal, which

provides an explanation for why other-oriented perspective taking is much

less likely to cause aversive arousal and personal distress than self-oriented

perspective taking.42

As scientists continue to investigate the neurophysiological substrates of

various modes of intersubjective engagement and the neural implementation

of shared representations, imitation, and mirroring behaviors, we will be able

to increase further our understanding of how empathy and related processes

work at the subpersonal level, which will improve our conceptualizations

of and theorizing about these processes at the personal level. Although we

have much to learn, the empirical evidence already makes it clear that the

differences between various forms of perspective taking are measurable and

important.I have made the case that we should conceptualize empathy narrowly and

have argued that there are important reasons for excluding emotional con-

tagion and self-oriented perspective taking from the category of empathy.

There is far more to be said about all of these processes, as well as others I

have not discussed. I hope to have shown, however, that we will be in a much

better position to study and to evaluate these processes if we establish clear

and precise conceptualizations that make salient the unique features of each

process.43

40 Ruby and Decety 2001, 2004; Jackson, Meltzoff, and Decety 2005; Jackson et al. 2006;Lamm, Batson, and Decety 2007; and Decety and Meltzoff, forthcoming.

41 Decety and Hodges 2006; Decety and Jackson 2006; and Goldman 2006, forthcoming.42 Batson 1991; Batson, Fultz, and Schoenrade 1987; and Batson et al. 2003.43 An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the 29th Spindel Conference, “Empathy

and Ethics,” at the University of Memphis. I would like to thank those who participated in theconference for their helpful questions, comments, and discussion, especially Stephan Blatti,Peter Goldie, Joey Miller, Scott O’Leary, Julinna Oxley, Jesse Prinz, Robert Roberts, MichaelSlote, and Charles Starkey. I would also like to thank Heather Battaly, Dave Gerkens, and RyanNichols for helpful discussions. I am indebted to Christian Miller for both his excellent com-ments and his patience. Finally, I am extremely grateful to Remy Debes whose feedback andsupport were invaluable

60 AMY COPLAN


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