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…
Tag: empathy
What the ‘moral distress’ of doctors tells us about eroding trust in health care
I sit on an ethics review committee at the Albany Med Health System in New York state, where doctors and nurses frequently bring us fraught questions. Consider a typical case:…
Empathy Loss in Dementia Linked to Brain Activity Changes
Summary: Frontotemporal dementia, affecting about 3% of dementia patients in Sweden, is characterized by a loss of empathy that challenges patients and their families. Using functional MRI, researchers found that…
How Alcohol Increases Pain Tolerance, and Aggression
Summary: Alcohol not only raises pain tolerance but also amplifies aggression, according to a new study. Researchers found that participants who drank alcohol had higher pain thresholds and were more…
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 Logical Thinking and Empathy Define Wisdom
Summary: A new study reveals that people across 12 countries and five continents perceive wisdom through two key dimensions: reflective orientation and socio-emotional awareness. Reflective orientation includes logical thinking and…
