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.