The dark-side of empathy: The good, the bad and the ugly

Professor Eamonn Fergusson

When?: Tuesday 30 April 2013, 16.00 to 17.00
Where?: 01AC02
Open to:: Public, Staff, Students
Speaker:: Professor Eamonn Fergusson

Evolutionary models of traits suggest they survive as they carry both costs and benefit. Within this framework I will explore the construct of empathy and highlight how empathy is linked to pro-social behaviour (helping, social bonding: Benefit), anti-social behaviour (e.g., criminal activity, psychopathy: Cost) and pain perception. I will present a paradigm combining perspective taking manipulations (as well as assessing empathy as a trait and state construct), economic games (e.g., dictator games) and assessments of pain thresholds (cold pressor test) to examine in a single paradigm if empathy can be simultaneously be good for others (i.e., increasing both self-reported helping and altruism as measures in a dictator game) and bad for the self (i.e., reduce pain threshold and increase perceptions of pain). I will then present a model of pro- and anti-social behaviour based on the interaction of empathy and trait alexithymia (i.e., inability to understand emotions) and present evidence in support of this model using dictator games. I will draw conclusions about the evolutionary nature of empathy and traits in general and applied implications for medicine and health care professionals in general.

Professor Eamonn Fergusson
University of Nottingham

Professor Eamonn Ferguson (BSc York, PhD Nottingham) is chartered health and occupational psychologist, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and co-founding president of the British Society for the Psychology of Individual Differences (www.bspid.org.uk/). He has published 129 peer reviewed academic journal articles (including in BMJ, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Transfusion, Health Psychology) and numerous conference presentations and book chapters in the areas of health, personality and medical training/selection. Professor Ferguson’s work looks to bring together theory and methods from biology, psychology and economics with a specific research focus on understanding human altruism and empathic traits and how understanding in these areas can be applied to health related issue such as blood and organ donor recruitment and retention, and medical training. This work is also informed by Professor Ferguson’s interest in how best to communication of health relevant information to influence positive changes in peoples’ behaviour.

The dark-side of empathy: The good, the bad and the ugly

Professor Eamonn Fergusson

Professor Eamonn FergussonUniversity of Nottingham

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Professor Eamonn Fergusson
University of Nottingham