What is empathy?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 January 2020
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What is empathy? This week’s question comes from Maria in Amsterdam who has noticed that when one of her friends is in pain, she feels their pain too, literally. Maria wants to know - is she experiencing a type of ‘super’ empathy?
To help find the answer, Marnie Chesterton visits the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and gets into an MRI scanner to discover what is happening in her brain when she empathises.
She talks with a pro-social psychopath to find out how psychopaths experience empathy differently and how they navigate social situations.
And Marnie meets with a mediator specialising in The Israeli–Palestinian conflict, to learn the value of empathy when the stakes are at their highest.
(Photo: Back view of loving Mum hug teen daughter. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:37.0 | You're listening to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service, |
| 0:39.8 | where we answer science questions from all over the world. This week's listener has an unusual |
| 0:45.3 | experience of empathy. When I see someone suffers like once I saw some girl she was |
| 0:52.2 | running away from her boyfriend who tried to beat her. |
| 0:56.2 | And I saw all the situation and I saw her being hysteric and crying. |
| 1:00.4 | She was running in the middle of a very wide road to just escape from him and I also started crying because I could not see it because I feel that it is something that this shouldn't be. |
| 1:12.0 | I had a friend and he fell from motor bike and because of it he hit his |
| 1:18.7 | knee and it was all swollen. So I helped him few days in the row to apply some creams and some other medicine. |
| 1:27.0 | And then after those few days, my knee also became swollen. |
| 1:31.0 | That was definitely empathy, I'm sure about it. |
| 1:34.6 | That extraordinary story, feeling someone else's pain, comes from Maria. |
| 1:39.7 | She's Russian, but now lives in an apartment in Amsterdam with her partner and rescue dog. |
| 1:45.0 | My producer Caroline and I pay her a visit. |
| 1:47.0 | Hello! Hello Charlie dog! |
... |
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