Francesco Jinzioni, A

The new paper on the nature of human and animal empathy has been published in the American Anthropologist.

This work examines whether empathy is a cultural construct or part of the same biologically-determined set of emotions. Emptiness, a concept from cultural anthropology, is defined as the absence of joy, joy in seeing and hearing someone in pain or joy that we are in the presence of someone well-off in need. It is not unusual to experience the sense of empathy as both a biological and cultural construct.

In this paper we explore whether empathy is a cultural or biological construct by studying the empathy of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) using an innovative new model of social cognition, called non-contact theory: the non-contact theory is based on the idea that humans tend to ignore non-human creatures such as ourselves.

Our results show that non-contact theory predicts that social cognition is shaped by a single, and genetically determined, set of emotions. This genetic model is consistent with previous research suggesting that human emotion, as well as social behavior, emerges, in part, from the shared biology of two biological systems in our ancestors: the brain stem, which is directly connected to the limbic system, in humans, and the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the brain’s autonomic nervous system.

Chimp empathy: in our hearts

The fact that chimpanzees, as well as many other species, display similar levels of empathy for the emotional states of others is consistent with the evolutionary view that empathy evolved as it did, mainly through competition in the animal kingdom. Although evolution does not ensure the presence of genetic diversity, chimpanzees and other primates have a unique ability to develop common, biologically-adapted social structures. They can do so in spite of relatively small genetic differences between the two brain systems – the limbic system is larger than the brain stem, and animals with a greater amygdala have a lower rate of suffering than do animals with a larger and less emotional amygdala – whereas for humans the limbic system is inversely proportional to the size of the brain. This suggests a different level of functional specialization for one key function of the brain, emotion processing. In humans empathy is highly related to other dimensions of intelligence, emotional response to suffering, and psychological well-being. Our results suggest that these genetic differences have not been solely responsible for the development of emotions in chimpanzees, but also explain a major