The DOI matches its Crossref record; 96 of the 96 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Social Neuroscience of Empathy
Open accessAbstract
The phenomenon of empathy entails the ability to share the affective experiences of others. In recent years social neuroscience made considerable progress in revealing the mechanisms that enable a person to feel what another is feeling. The present review provides an in‐depth and critical discussion of these findings. Consistent evidence shows that sharing the emotions of others is associated with activation in neural structures that are also active during the first‐hand experience of that emotion. Part of the neural activation shared between self‐ and other‐related experiences seems to be rather automatically activated. However, recent studies also show that empathy is a highly flexible phenomenon, and that vicarious responses are malleable with respect to a number of factors—such as contextual appraisal, the interpersonal relationship between empathizer and other, or the perspective adopted during observation of the other. Future investigations are needed to provide more detailed insights into these factors and their neural underpinnings. Questions such as whether individual differences in empathy can be explained by stable personality traits, whether we can train ourselves to be more empathic, and how empathy relates to prosocial behavior are of utmost relevance for both science and society.
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In the citing paper
“This socio-affective process results from neural network activations that resemble those activations observed when the same emotion is experienced first-hand (shared network hypothesis) [2][3][4][5].”
From On the interaction of social affect and cognition: empathy, compassion and theory of mind (2018) · cites this paper as [2]
In the citing paper
“ToM and empathy differ in the representational content (mental states versus affect), yet both might be similarly brought about by interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes”
From Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy (2012) · cites this paper as Singer and Lamm 2009
In the citing paper
“more automatic, bottom-up driven mapping and awareness of others emotional states in the context of self–other distinction (i.e., empathy) might be modulated by more controlled, top-down processes involved in attributing mind states (i.e., ToM)”
From Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy (2012) · cites this paper as Singer and Lamm 2009
In the citing paper
“Interoception-related meta-representation of emotion has thus been suggested to underlie the concomitant involvement of the aMCC/SMA and AI/IFG in neuroimaging studies on empathy as reflecting affective sharing (Singer and Lamm 2009; Fan et al. 2011).”
From Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy (2012) · cites this paper as Singer and Lamm 2009
In the citing paper
“we disregarded studies in which participants were presented with emotion recognition tasks using static pictures of emotional facial expressions. That is because such tasks are probably too simple to reliably entail sharing others’ emotions and maintaining a self–other distinction”
From Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy (2012) · cites this paper as Singer and Lamm 2009
Citations
Cites
How do you feel? Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body
Craig, A. D. (2002) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn894 · Cited by 6,006
Wyer, R. S., & Srull, T. K. (2014) · Psychology Press eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315807102 · Cited by 4,211
Empathy: its ultimate and proximate bases
Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2002) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x02000018 · Cited by 4,126
Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain
Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1093535 · Cited by 3,929
Self-citationThe reorienting system of the human brain: from environment to theory of mind
Corbetta, M., Patel, G., & Shulman, G. L. (2008) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2008.04.017 · Cited by 3,889
The chameleon effect: the perception–behavior link and social interaction
Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.6.893 · Cited by 3,674
The functional architecture of human empathy
Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004) · Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews · doi:10.1177/1534582304267187 · Cited by 3,407 · cited 3×
“The reorienting system of the human brain: From environment to theory of mind.”
BackgroundNeural systems supporting interoceptive awareness
Critchley, H. D., Wiens, S., Rotshtein, P., Öhman, A., & Dolan, R. J. (2004) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn1176 · Cited by 3,406 · cited 2×
“…crucial part of the human interoceptive cortex (Craig 2003) and subserve neural representations of internal bodily states such as information about temperature, lust, hunger, bodily arousal states, and information from the gut (Craig 2002, 2003; Critchley 2005; Critchley et al. 2004; Damasio 1994).”
BackgroundInhibition and the right inferior frontal cortex
Aron, A. R., Robbins, T. W., & Poldrack, R. A. (2004) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.02.010 · Cited by 3,197
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Smith, A. (2010) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781118011690.ch10 · Cited by 3,168
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Cacioppo J. T., 2000, The Handbook of Emotion, 173
- Hatfield E., 1994, Emotional Contagion
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.10.014 · Cited by 2,016
Self-citationThe integration of negative affect, pain and cognitive control in the cingulate cortex
Shackman, A. J., Salomons, T. V., Slagter, H. A., Fox, A. S., Winter, J. J., & Davidson, R. J. (2011) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn2994 · Cited by 2,082
Vago, D. R., & Silbersweig, D. A. (2012) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00296 · Cited by 1,310
Kurth, F., Zilles, K., Fox, P. T., Laird, A. R., & Eickhoff, S. B. (2010) · Brain Structure and Function · doi:10.1007/s00429-010-0255-z · Cited by 1,293
A common role of insula in feelings, empathy and uncertainty
Singer, T., Critchley, H. D., & Preuschoff, K. (2009) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.05.001 · Cited by 1,270
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Singer, T., & Lamm, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Singer, Tania
- Lamm, Claus
- Venue
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2009-03
- Volume
- 1156
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 81-96
- ISSN
- 0077-8923 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-6632
- OpenAlex
- W2147093380
- Semantic Scholar
- 24272666739d920896ddcbd4f237c1071f620ddc
- Cited by
- 1,981
- References
- 96
- Citations by year
- 2026: 107 · 2025: 121 · 2024: 106 · 2023: 136 · 2022: 128 · 2021: 138 · 2020: 174 · 2019: 109 · 2018: 111 · 2017: 109 · 2016: 105 · 2015: 105 · 2014: 132 · 2013: 131 · 2012: 110
- FWCI
- 12.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.zora.uzh.ch
- Licence
- Locations
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Universität Zürich
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- empathy, social neuroscience, neural mechanisms of empathy, affective sharing, interpersonal relationships, perspective taking, personality traits, empathy training, prosocial behavior
- MeSH terms
- Empathy, Humans, Nerve Net, Nervous System Physiological Phenomena, Neurosciences, Social Behavior
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