Cultivating Empathy: The Latest Science and Practice October 20, 2012

2. Cultivating Empathy: The Latest Science and Practice October 20, 2012 Dacher Keltner University of California, Berkeley keltner@berkeley.edu Greatergood.berkeley.edu

3. Empathy • Empathy: Understanding how another feels or thinks • Mimicry: Mirroring another person’s behavior

4. The Frontal Lobes and Executive Control • Anatomy • Patient work: Orbitofrontal Patients • fMRI Work Emotion Regulation Empathy Emotions in Decision Making

8. Our culture needs it

9. Emotional Intelligence (Goleman, Salovey, Brackett) • EQ > IQ • Better predictor of success in work life • Powerful predictor healthy relationships • Predictor of adjustment in children

10. Example of flirtation • Attention getting phase • Recognition phase • Exploration phase • Keeping time

11. The nonverbal language • Illustrators: Actions that dramatize speech

12. The nonverbal language • Regulators: Actions that govern communication

13. The nonverbal language • Self Adaptors: Nervous, random nonverbal actions

14. The nonverbal language • Emblems: Actions that directly translate to words

15. The nonverbal language • Facial Expression

16. Darwin’s predictions • Encoding: When feeling an emotion, we express the emotion with similar muscle movements in the face (and body) • Decoding: We judge expressions in accurate and similar fashion across cultures

17. The Universality of Expression (Ekman, 2004; Elfenbein et al. 2002)

30. Everyday reconciliation, forgiveness • Embarrassment as appeasement device (Keltner & Buswell, 1997) • The display resembles mammalian appeasement displays • Expose vulnerable region • Gaze aversion cut off behavior • Awkward smile fear grimace in nonhuman primates • Defensive face touch • Cough illness • Embarrassment display prompts forgiveness • punished less • Liked more • Forgiven • People with little embarrassment, • Break rules: OFC patients, sociopaths

32. Pride (Tracy, Robins, Matsumotion) • Universal display • Primates show similar postural expansion • Shown by blind and victorious olympic athletes • Stronger display by those in West

41. Affiliation Cues Sexual Cues Contr. for Sexual Cues Contr. for Affiliation Cues • __________________________________________________ • Oxytocin Reactivity .50** .11 • Oxytocin Recovery .15 .12 • __________________________________________________

43. Emotion conveyed in vocal bursts (Simon-Thomas et al., 2009, Emotion)

45. Functions of Touch • Reward • Built Trust, Reciprocity • Signal Safety • Soothe

46. Touch and the spread of goodness

47. Cultivating empathy • Training the eye and ear • Ekman: METT, SETT • Brackett: RULER program in schools • Greater Good Science Center

48. Cultivating empathy • Empathetic communication (Rosenberg, Gottman) • I statements • The power of the question rather than assertion

49. Other tools • The arts • Mindfulness training (Kabat-Zinn) • If all else fails, oxytocin

50. Be part of the empathy revolution… • TEDx June 11, 2011: http://tedxgoldengateed.org/ • A compassion curriculum • Greatergood.berkeley.edu • Emotionmaster.com