EMPATHY NATURE AND PROCESSUALITY
Journal Title: Вісник Львівського університету. Серія психологічні науки - Year 2018, Vol 2, Issue
Abstract
Empathy is considered by us from the standpoint of a systematic approach, as a complex mental process, which is the ability to emotionally penetrate into the inner world of the empaths in order to feel their emotional experiences as if they were our own while maintaining our own line of behavior, exteriorsizing emotional attitude, after realizing their state, according to our own dominant moral attitude. The article analyzes biosocial nature of empathy. It present the results of genetic studies, which indicate the presence of a genetic component in the formation of empathy, as well as specific genes associated with it. The system of mirror neurons, which is anatomical link of an organism, has been characterized, playing a key role in the formation of empathy whose level of expression depends on the activity of this system. We emphasize the interdependence of biological and social in a human being. Accordingly, biological acts as an opportunity to develop in the form of deeds, the development of which occurs through the process of socialization, as a result of interpersonal interaction with others, and as a consequence experience of life events, which determines the level of empathy. On the basis of the analyzed scientific literature, the main, in our opinion, components of empathy, namely emotional, cognitive and behavioral, are singled out. However, we consider it inappropriate to distinguish one – the most important component. Since, based on the positions of the system approach, we consider each component to be equivalent in terms of functional value. The emotional component of empathy involves reading and perceiving the emotional experiences of the object of empathy, passing them via appropriate leading ways to the cognitive centers. Passing from emotional to cognitive, in the latter there is a process of perceived experiences of the empaths, with the ability to feel their experiences, perceiving them as our own with the preservation of our line of behavior and to develop on the basis of dominant moral attitudes a certain generalized attitude towards them in a particular situation. The behavioral component is characterized by the provision of an emotionally colored exteriorization of our attitude toward the empatogenic situation of the empath in one form or another. The article considers in detail the mechanism of empathy formation which occurs as a result of a consistent systemic interaction between the components of empathy. The empathy mechanism itself is explained by resorting to the analogy of the reflex arc functioning. We show that the empathy originates in the emotional component, due to the presence of the empathy subject (empathic person) and object (empath). Empathy is updated through emotional contagion (emotional reading) of the emotional state by an empathic person under conditions of the so-called “empathic situation” (ES). After reading the emotional state of some other person, it is recognized at the cognitive level through the processes of identification and decentralization on the basis of reflection. At this stage, the sequence of the formation of empathy on its cognitive level is explained, outlining the differences between these leading processes, as well as their interaction in the processing of perceived information. Subsequently, the moralisation of the situation takes place through the prism of own dominant attitudes, and the attitude to empath, which is expressed through such possible forms of empathy as: sympathy, wickedness, compassion or envy, is formed.
Authors and Affiliations
Святослав КУЗЬМИН, Інга ПЕТРОВСЬКА
Keywords
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