Monday, July 25, 2011

Simon Cohen Zero Degrees of Empathy 6/14/2011

Professor of both psychiatry and psychology at Cambridge.

What strikes me is his motivation-- he begins by caring about people, and then moves to trying to understand what is going on in the mind.

Two kinds of zero empathy-- negative (hurts self & others), this is psychopathy. Positive (do not intentionally hurt others) autism, which has the bonus of attention to detail.

Empathy has a genetic component. So it should be present in other animals. Best monkey example is an experiment from the 60's. Train monkeys to pull a chain to get a food reward. They learn fast. Then change it, so when they pull the chain, they get the food AND they see a fellow monkey receive an electric shock. They soon stop pulling the chain. One monkey even starved itself for 12 days rather than hurt a fellow monkey.

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