The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy

Bibliographic Data

ID4516111
AuthorsAlma H Young (0000-0003-2291-6952, McGill University, corresponding author), Allan Young
Year2012
Volume25
Issue3
Pages401-424
Publication date2012-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889712000129
OpenAlexW2072146100
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited105

ArgumentNeuroscience research has created multiple versions of the human brain. The "social brain" is one version and it is the subject of this paper. Most image-based research in the field of social neuroscience is task-driven: the brain is asked to respond to a cognitive (perceptual) stimulus. The tasks are derived from theories, operational models, and back-stories now circulating in social neuroscience. The social brain comes with a distinctive back-story, an evolutionary history organized around three, interconnected themes: mind-reading, empathy, and the emergence of self-consciousness. This paper focuses on how empathy has been incorporated into the social brain and redefined via parallel research streams, employing a shared, imaging technology. The concluding section describes how these developments can be understood as signaling the emergence of a new version of human nature and the unconscious. My argument is not that empathy in the social brain is a myth, but rather that it is served by a myth consonant with the canons of science

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Consciousness · Empathy · Mirror neuron · Perception · Psychoanalysis · Social cognition · Social neuroscience · Unconscious mind · Action Observation and Synchronization · Cognitive Neuroscience · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Neuroscience · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology