Social Decision Making, Empathy and Compassion

Abstract: Empathy and Compassion are closely related, highly malleable, and easily manipulated complex emotional response hierarchies that strongly effect social decision making. The empathic emotion and the compassionate impulse have distinct properties and may be independently manipulated. Both are influenced by a variety of social, psychological, and neurobiological factors, and can be in conflict with aggressive/defensive traits. The empathizer considers personal and group resources and consequences in deciding on possible compassionate responses. Relevant social factors include framing, social roles, and such other factors as geographic, and temporal distance. Those in elite/leadership roles typically share a balance of empathic and compassionate traits that may be distinct from other members of their host societies. Empathic imagination permits emotional investment in the non-human and inanimate. Empathy training can be effective in raising an individual’s awareness of socially inculcated response patterns allowing for conscious reappraisal and the substitution of more prosocial responses.