Summary: A new theory suggests that psychedelics promote empathy, insight, and psychological flexibility by making the brain’s right hemisphere temporarily dominant over the left. Known as HEALS—Hemispheric Annealing and Lateralization…
Category: empathy
Oxytocin Powers Altruistic Responses via Parallel Brain Circuits
Summary: A new study reveals that mice instinctively display rescue-like behaviors toward anesthetized peers, offering powerful evidence that prosociality may be hardwired in mammals. Researchers identified oxytocin as a key…
Feeling Beautiful Spurs Kindness and Generosity
Summary: A new study shows that enhancing one’s appearance, even virtually, increases prosocial behavior such as kindness and charitable giving. Participants who saw enhanced images of themselves were twice as…
How Others’ Perspectives Shape Our Thoughts
Summary: Researchers explored the subtle influence of others’ perspectives on human thinking. In a study involving 234 participants, they used blindfolds to examine whether people process the viewpoint of others…
Empathy’s Influence on Drinking Patterns
Summary: A recent study reports a surprising correlation between daily affective empathy and alcohol consumption. The study found that on days when people experienced higher levels of affective empathy (empathy…
Empathy Unleashed: AI’s Personal Disclosures Boost User Acceptance
Summary: When artificial intelligence (AI) agents disclose personal information, it can boost users’ empathy towards them, thus increasing acceptance of AI technologies. The study involved online experiments where participants engaged…
