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Empathy as a driver of prosocial behaviour: highly conserved neurobehavioural mechanisms across species
Open accessAbstract
Empathy reflects the natural ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of others, coupled with a motivation to care for their well-being. It has evolved in the context of parental care for offspring, as well as within kinship bonds, to help facilitate group living. In this paper, we integrate the perspectives of evolution, animal behaviour, developmental psychology, and social and clinical neuroscience to elucidate our understanding of the proximate mechanisms underlying empathy. We focus, in particular, on processing of signals of distress and need, and their relation to prosocial behaviour. The ability to empathize, both in animals and humans, mediates prosocial behaviour when sensitivity to others' distress is paired with a drive towards their welfare. Disruption or atypical development of the neural circuits that process distress cues and integrate them with decision value leads to callous disregard for others, as is the case in psychopathy. The realization that basic forms of empathy exist in non-human animals is crucial for gaining new insights into the underlying neurobiological and genetic mechanisms of empathy, enabling translation towards therapeutic and pharmacological interventions.
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“For instance, prosocial behaviors have been documented in primates and rodents60, 61.”
From Distinct selective forces and Neanderthal introgression shaped genetic diversity at genes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders (2017) · cites this paper as [61]
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“Although lineages showing high cognitive skills are reported both among mammalian and bird species, mammals are generally believed to have acquired higher prosocial skills compared to non-mammalian vertebrates60, 61.”
From Distinct selective forces and Neanderthal introgression shaped genetic diversity at genes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders (2017) · cites this paper as [61]
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“Detecting others' distress is a prerequisite for helping behavior (Cronin, 2012; Decety et al., 2016).”
From Helping behavior in prairie voles: a model of empathy and the importance of oxytocin (2022) · cites this paper as Decety et al., 2016
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Wolf, R. C., Pujara, M. S., Motzkin, J. C., Newman, J. P., Kiehl, K. A., Jean Decety, A., Kosson, D. S., & Koenigs, M. R. (2015) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.22911 · Cited by 94
Empathy and stress related neural responses in maternal decision making
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Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Kiehl KA, 2014, The psychopath whisperer: inside the minds of those without a conscience
- Darwin C, 1871, The descent of man
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Connecting minds and sharing emotions through mimicry: A neurocognitive model of emotional contagion
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“While one line of research describes the neural correlates of face perception (Haxby et al., 2002) and empathy (Carr et al., 2003; Decety et al., 2016; Decety and Lamm, 2007; Decety, 2011; Fan et al., 2011; Mutschler et al., 2013; Singer and Lamm, 2009; Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009; Shamay-Tsoory,…”
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Explorations into the nature and function of compassion
Gilbert, P. (2019) · Current Opinion in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.002 · Cited by 250
Stern, J. A., & Cassidy, J. (2018) · Developmental Review · doi:10.1016/j.dr.2017.09.002 · Cited by 222
Prosocial apathy for helping others when effort is required
Lockwood, P. L., Hamonet, M., Zhang, S. H., Ratnavel, A., Salmony, F. U., Husain, M., & Apps, M. A. J. (2017) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0131 · Cited by 218
Metadata
- Authors
- Decety, J., Bartal, I. B.-A., Uzefovsky, F., & Knafo-Noam, A.
- Affiliations
- The Child Neurosuite—Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5658 South University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Department of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2016-01-19
- Volume
- 371
- Issue
- 1686
- Pages
- 20150077
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- PMC
- PMC4685523
- OpenAlex
- W2216930413
- Cited by
- 740
- References
- 140
- Citations by year
- 2026: 72 · 2025: 100 · 2024: 90 · 2023: 101 · 2022: 98 · 2021: 69 · 2020: 71 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 37 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 9
- FWCI
- 4.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- John Templeton Foundation (Science of Philantropy)
- European Research Council (1670/13)
- Israel Science Foundation (449/14)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- empathy, prosocial behavior, distress signals, callousness, psychopathy, evolution of empathy, parental care, kinship bonds, social neuroscience, animal behavior, neural circuits, therapeutic interventions
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Behavior, Animal, Brain, Empathy, Biological Evolution, Humans, Social Behavior, Stress, Psychological, Psychology, Developmental
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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