ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
The social transmission of empathy relies on observational reinforcement learning.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- A predictive corticospinal model for pain perception.Cell reports. Medicine · 2026Article
- Modeling how autistic and non-autistic groups learn about their own and each other's preferences.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Neural effects of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation over left supramarginal gyrus on cognitive empathy for pain.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Effects of acceptance and commitment therapy-based intervention on psychological flexibility, empathy, and anger in adolescents involved in crime.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- How negative parenting relates to adolescents' perceptions of older adults: the roles of empathy and intergenerational contact.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Cumulative Dopaminergic Genetic Effects on Empathy Development in Emerging Adults.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2025Article
- Personalized neural responses to self and filial reward: Functional and structural responses to motivational cues.AIMS neuroscience · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
Theories of moral development propose that empathy is transmitted across individuals. However, the mechanisms through which empathy is socially transmitted remain unclear. Here, we combine computational learning models and functional MRI to investigate whether, and if so, how empathic and non-empathic responses observed in others affect the empathy of female observers. The results of three independent studies showed that watching empathic or non-empathic responses generates a learning signal that respectively increases or decreases empathy ratings of the observer. A fourth study revealed that the learning-related transmission of empathy is stronger when observing human rather than computer demonstrators. Finally, we show that the social transmission of empathy alters empathy-related responses in the anterior insula, i.e., the same region that correlated with empathy baseline ratings, as well as its functional connectivity with the temporoparietal junction. Together, our findings provide a computational and neural mechanism for the social transmission of empathy that accounts for changes in individual empathic responses in empathic and non-empathic social environments.
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