Gazzola Group

When a little girl falls of her bike, why do most of us go over and help her? Or why do we sometimes choose not to?

Pain is contagious: When we see someone in pain, our brain mirrors it by activating the areas that are also active when we ourselves are hurt, meaning we feel the pain of others. Most people have a natural tendency to empathize and help others, because we share the physical and emotion pain of the little girl and helping her becomes a way to soothe our own pain.

Empathy may seem automatic, but it is not necessarily innate. Children have to be taught that play can cause pain, indicating that empathy is a learning system. We learn through experience and observing the behavior of others. When we mimic others and use our limbs, faces, and voices in the same way as others, it is easier to understand one another. Empathic synchronization transports people from being individuals to becoming components of group dynamics. Think of a stadium full of people acting as one with a whole personality of their own.

But if people can be so similar in some ways, what underlies the individual differences in empathy? When the girl falls off her bike, why do some people rush to help, and others walk past?

We can influence how we act on this emotional contagion, by weighing the pros and cons of helping the little girl: For example, if we are running late for an important meeting, we might choose not to help her.

In addition, not everyone experiences emotional contagion; psychopaths generate less spontaneous brain activity in circuits that process the emotions of others than is the norm, unless you explicitly ask them to act empathically.

Valeria Gazzola

Valeria Gazzola’s lab seeks to investigate how the brain enables us to act prosocially. For instance, we study the brain regions involved in empathy, how we weigh our own interests compared to those of others, and how we learn the consequences of our actions and their influence on our moral values or lack thereof.

To study the specific brain areas causally contributing to empathic behavior, we apply a wide variety of neuroscience tools to both human and animal data, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and non-invasive ultrasound methods.

For more insight into Valeria’s latest research check out her recent publications.

You can also connect with Valeria on LinkedIn or BlueSky.