Empathy, Abuse, and the Brain
Ceileigh Trevers
Alexia Grant
8th Grade Physical Science
Mr. Oz’s Class
SSA-DM
September 29, 2013
Though both genders have emotions and feelings just like any other human being, research shows that females have more feelings than men. “Women are better at describing in a complex way emotional reactions they would have to different life situations compared to men” (Barret et al., 2000). It is scientifically proven that women are more emotional than men.
Abuse comes in many different forms. These different forms include physical, mental and emotional abuse. “Abuse and violence normally start with emotional, mental and/or verbal abuse and can eventually escalate to things like physical, sexual and maybe even economic abuse.” (Utsey, F, 2002) Abuse, a horrible occurrence, happens to many different people, anywhere and everywhere.
Domestic abuse, also known as spousal abuse, occurs when one person in a relationship or marriage tries to take control of the other person. Domestic abuse also includes physical violence, also called domestic violence. Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over another person. ‘An abuser doesn’t “play fair.”’ (Carlson, Neil, 2006). Abusers use fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to wear an object down.
Domestic abuse, also known as spousal abuse, occurs when one person in a relationship or marriage tries to take control of the other person. Domestic abuse also includes physical violence, also called domestic violence. Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over another person. ‘An abuser doesn’t “play fair.”’ (Carlson, Neil, 2006). Abusers use fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to wear an object down.
People with emotional problems may beat, shoot, stab animals, or set them on fire. Those who abuse animals are very likely to be violent to other people. Neglect is not giving an animal the right food, water, shelter or care.
All U.S. states have animal cruelty laws, and 47 states treat some forms of abuse as felonies. Farmers and researchers can do cruel things to animals that other people can't do legally, but all states have some protection for pets like dogs and cats. Studies show that people feel more pity towards abused infants. I think this is because more than half the people in the world have or had children and could not imagine anything as horrible or terrifying as abuse happening to their kids.
When you hear a story about someone getting hurt, whether it is from abuse or a tragic accident, how does it make you feel? Whatever you might reply with, you would be referring to a feeling, commonly known as an emotion. Emotions are something you experience everyday. The word has many different meanings, but a generic one would be anything that prompts an automatic reaction within an organism that has been adapted for survival. Emotions come from the brain, specifically places like the Hypothalamus and Amygdala.
Located just above the brainstem, “[The] Hypothalamus is very vital to both emotion and motivation, thus it is called “the brain within the brain". It is an important brain structure, which through its connections with autonomic nervous system controls glands and smooth muscles, blood vessels and the heart. It influences various kinds of emotional responses accompanied by physiological arousal.”
Though very small, the Amygdala, another emotion-controlling part of the brain, has a very big job. “This almond sized organ is responsible for determining what is danger to us, what we allow to get close to us, and this also includes other people. It keeps record of how we may have been hurt in the past, and it causes us to react in the same way every time the situation comes up again. It also remembers anything that is a threat to us. This is what it is designed to do until it gets damaged and twisted. We need this detection device and that is the job of the Amygdala, but if it gets wrong information, as in abuse or with other lies, then it can't perform correctly anymore and it causes fear and trauma which can result in mental deficiencies.” (Gamble, 2012)
Some common emotions that can originate from hearing abuse stories include sympathy and empathy. Even though they sound the same, these emotions are not alike in concept or definition.
If someone has asked you to “put yourself in their shoes” when referring to someone, they are basically asking you to be empathetic. In definition, empathy is the recognition and understanding of someone’s problem or situation. Empathy is not only an emotion, but it is also a feeling that everyone can have. Empathy is basically like human nature; it is a psychological feeling, which relates to the human mind. By feeling empathy you are showing others that you are prosocial, or a positive person. Empathy not only shows people that a person has feelings, but it also helps progressive construction or the advancing of a personality.
On the other hand, sympathy (also known as pity) most commonly results from a positive response to someone’s suffering. When being sympathetic, you don’t know how the person feels. You cannot relate to or understand their situation or how they are feeling because it has not happened to you before.
Believe or not, it is possible to rate empathy. “A large chunk of empathy research has focused on investigating the variables associated with empathy as a stable disposition... some of the most widely used questionnaires have been Hogan's empathy (EM) scale (Hogan 1969), Mehrabian and Epstein's questionnaire measure of emotional empathy (QMEE; Mehrabian and Epstein 1972), and, since the 1980's, Davis's Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis 1980, 1983, and 1994). [They] reflect the multiplicity of empathy conceptions in psychology, since each understands itself as operationalizing a different definition of empathy. Hogan conceives of empathy in an exclusively cognitive manner, Mehrabian and Epstein think of it as an exclusively affective phenomenon defining it broadly as “a vicarious response to the perceived emotional experiences of others” (525), and Davis treats empathy as including both cognitive and affective components; as a “set of constructs, related in that they all concern responsivity to others but are also clearly discriminable from each other” (Davis 1983, 113).” (Steuber, 2013) These surveys, along with others, have been used throughout many scientific studies. For example a researcher, Sara Konrath and her colleague, Edward O’Brien did a study concerning the empathy levels of college students. According to their data, the empathy levels of college students towards people in their 20s and 30s have been dropping. Konrath and O’Brien suggest that the influx of social media exposure might be the cause of this decrease.
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