2009-06-24 Ability To Literally Imagine Oneself In Another's Shoes May Be Tied To Empathy

2009-06-24  ScienceDaily \human nature\empathy\gender differences http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090623120837.htm Ability To Literally Imagine Oneself In Another's Shoes May Be Tied To Empathy Ability To Literally Imagine Oneself In Another's Shoes May Be Tied To Empathy  New research from Vanderbilt University indicates the way our brain handles how we move through space – including being able to imagine literally stepping into someone else's shoes – may be related to how and why we experience empathy toward others.

The research was recently published in the online scientific journal PLoS One.

Empathy involves, in part, the ability to simulate the internal states of others. The authors hypothesized that our ability to manipulate, rotate and simulate mental representations of the physical world, including our own bodies, would contribute significantly to our ability to empathize.

...

The researchers also found that in the female subjects only, the more empathetic people rated themselves, the longer they took to imagine themselves in the position of the person on the screen. Previous work has shown that women generally report more empathy than men and perform worse on tests of visuo-spatial abilities.

"Although it is somewhat counterintuitive that taking more time to imagine another's physical perspective was associated with more reported empathy, people who were slower at the task might have been engaging more resources to imagine another's mental state, or may be using a slower and less automatic strategy on the task," Park said.

&ldquo;New research from Vanderbilt University indicates the way our brain handles how we move through space—including being able to imagine literally stepping into someone else's shoes—may be related to how and why we experience empathy toward others.&rdquo;   