Psychological Development and Education ›› 2014, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (2): 208-215.

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Neural Basis and Effects of Empathy on Prosocial Behaviors

XIAO Feng-qiu1, ZHENG Zhi-wei2, CHEN Ying-he1   

  1. 1. Institute of developmental psychology, Beijing normal university, Beijing 100875;
    2. Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101
  • Online:2014-03-15 Published:2014-03-15

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Abstract: The behaviors that benefit others, refered to as prosocial behaviors, are significant to evolution and reality. As one of the most important influential factors of prosocial behaviors, sympathy has been widely studied in the field of cognitive neuroscience. The activation of the insula is related to negatively emotional experience. The insula is the neural basis of emotional empathy which is beneficial for the generation of motivation of prosocial behaviors. In addition, the temporoparietal junction involves in understanding other people's intention, and it is the neural basis of cognitive empathy which is favorable for choosing efficacious way to help others. The gender differences in empathy-related neural basis provide new evidence for the different prosocial behavioral performance between males and females. Future research need to clarify the functional significance of the brain regions related to prosocial behaviors, to consider multiple factors simultaneously, and to combine with pathological studies.

Key words: prosocial behaviors, emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, neural basis, gender

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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