Behavioral strategies: morality and empathy

Today we are at the epicenter of the psychology of individualism. The main values are personal development, independence and freedom of expression. Undoubtedly, these values have brought a lot of benefits. They are the basis of the very concept of “freedom”. But the further we move in this direction, the more we become convinced that independence has its price. We pay for this with loneliness, loss of the meaning of life, and mental suffering. We have never had such freedom to separate from our spouses: in Western countries, the divorce rate is approaching fifty percent, in Russia there are 829 divorces per 1,000 marriages (Rosstat). According to this indicator, Russia has become a world leader. 

Behavioral strategies: morality and empathy
A person’s behavior outside of extreme life situations is most often determined by their morality. Morality is a philosophical concept, closely related to the rules and customs of society. In different historical epochs, in different cultures and conditions, the idea of the correct perception of the world has changed significantly. For us, gladiatorial fights or the readiness of a medieval samurai for hara-kiri are poorly understood and can only cause post-traumatic syndrome. In modern European society, the basic principle of morality is the acceptance of responsibility for one’s thoughts, words, actions, and the choice of basic values such as compassion and complicity. Man is a part of the universe. By destroying the world around us, we destroy ourselves. Therefore, morality, compassion, complicity and empathy towards others are the most important conditions for maintaining human health. Empathy is empathy for another person in their emotional state. It can be said to ease his emotional burden. With the help of empathy, we better understand the interlocutor, tuning in to the wave of his feelings. Scientists relate mirror neurons, cells that fire both when performing actions and observing such actions, to the concept of empathy, as well as to learning through imitation. Mirror neurons, as it turned out, are a terribly contradictory thing. A few brain scan results show that some areas of the brain are activated both during the execution of an action and when observing it. However, of the hundreds of other studies trying to explain the findings with mirror neurons, only very few demonstrate serious evidence. Then why does a smile cause a smile, and an aggressive reaction causes negative emotions in return? You can use the methodology of Ekman and Friesen, psychologists who created a catalog of the basic expressions of the human face (taxonomy of facial expressions), and found that when a person smiles, the facial muscles stimulate chemical reactions in the brain, which in turn give a positive attitude and contribute to cheerfulness. In general, they proved the old truth — when you smile at the world, the world smiles back.

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Published

July, 2024

Duration of reading

About 1-2 minutes

Category

Awareness, responsibility and morality

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