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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Neurocinematics And Empathy: How Cognitive Neuroscience Enhances Our Understanding Of Emotional Responses Of Film, Kira Trinity Jan 2024

Neurocinematics And Empathy: How Cognitive Neuroscience Enhances Our Understanding Of Emotional Responses Of Film, Kira Trinity

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Cinema is a medium that is beloved around the globe since its inception over a century ago. There have been speculations on how it is that cinema works, from editing to emotional processing of the story, but only recently have we begun to explore the inner workings of cinematic impact on the brain. In this paper we will review research on cinematic impact and define cinematic editing, discuss the birth of “neurocinematics”, highlight what we have observed with regards to neuroimaging and empathy when viewing films, and speculate on how our responses to cinema may be driven by the Mirror …


Empathy And Cultural Involvement As Pathways To Resilience In The Face Of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among Native American Indians, Joy Rodriguez Dec 2022

Empathy And Cultural Involvement As Pathways To Resilience In The Face Of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among Native American Indians, Joy Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to examine two specific pathways to resilience for Native American Indians (NAIs) that have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE) and are seeking behavioral health services on the Choctaw Indian reservation: empathy and cultural involvement. The study is an examination of the effects of empathy and cultural involvement on the resilience of NAIs with one or more ACEs. The researcher also investigated the type of ACEs reported among adult NAIs seeking behavioral health services on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian (MBCI) Reservation. Lastly, the association between ACEs and resilience was …


The Inevitability Of Collision: Creating Empathy Through Fiction, Danielle Beckman Jan 2021

The Inevitability Of Collision: Creating Empathy Through Fiction, Danielle Beckman

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

While the stigma for mental illnesses has greatly declined in the last decade, there is still a disconnect between individuals without neurological illnesses and those with neurological illnesses, especially those that cause individuals to lose contact with reality. The goal of this interdisciplinary paper is to create empathy for these individuals, specifically people with schizophrenia, Alzheimer disease, and post-traumatic amnesia. Through a collection of four stories told from the perspective of these unreliable narrators, I used fiction writing techniques from the field of cognitive literary studies such as gapping and defamiliarization to create more empathy in the reader. In reading …


Neural Correlates Of Automatic Emotional Processing And Emotion Regulation In Empathy And Psychopathy-Related Coldheartedness, Danielle Difilipo Sep 2019

Neural Correlates Of Automatic Emotional Processing And Emotion Regulation In Empathy And Psychopathy-Related Coldheartedness, Danielle Difilipo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that is defined, in part, by a lack of empathy. Psychopathy-related empathic deficits have been associated with atypical behavioral and neural responses to emotional facial expressions. Although the mirror neuron system (MNS) has been implicated in empathy, very few studies have examined the role of MNS functioning as it pertains to empathy impairments in psychopathy. Moreover, there is very little empirical research regarding emotion regulation in psychopathy, and specifically whether emotional responses can be intentionally upregulated. The present study sought to clarify whether the MNS is functionally intact in adults with subclinical psychopathic traits, particularly …


Emotion Processing Deficits In Psychopathy: Does Cueing To Relevant Facial Features Increase Cognitive And Emotional Empathy?, Shawn E. Fagan Sep 2019

Emotion Processing Deficits In Psychopathy: Does Cueing To Relevant Facial Features Increase Cognitive And Emotional Empathy?, Shawn E. Fagan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a multifaceted disorder characterized by a lack of cognitive and emotional empathy. The traditional model of psychopathy divides the disorder into two factors: Factor 1 consists of the interpersonal and affective traits of psychopathy while Factor 2 measures antisocial behaviors and lifestyle choices. The attention-to-the-eyes hypothesis argues that psychopathic individuals have impaired emotion recognition (specifically for fear) due to deficits in orienting attention to salient facial features like the eyes. Psychopathic individuals also display blunted autonomic responding to emotional stimuli, though whether this is due to attention-orienting deficits remains to be clarified. The present project investigated whether empathy-related …


Contagious Yawning In The Domestic Cat (Felis Catus), Ariel M. Lombardo Aghishian May 2019

Contagious Yawning In The Domestic Cat (Felis Catus), Ariel M. Lombardo Aghishian

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates contagious yawning in domestic cats towards their owners, looking at potential links with empathy. Results showed no significant difference in yawning between conditions. The solitary nature of wildcats and their shared ancestor, and the unique social behavior in domesticated cats may explain these findings.


Pilot Study Of Empathy In Bilingual Adults, Libby Moberg May 2019

Pilot Study Of Empathy In Bilingual Adults, Libby Moberg

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Empathy is of critical public health importance due to its association with relationship satisfaction and well-being (Davis & Oathout, 1987; Davis, 1983). There is growing evidence that bilingual individuals may have higher levels of empathy (Javor, 2016). One potential mechanism for this relationship is that bilingual individuals tend to have higher levels of executive functioning (Costa et al, 2008), which is linked to higher empathy because individuals are able to more easily adopt others’ perspectives. Previous studies examining this question have largely relied on self-report questionnaires assessing empathy as a general tendency (i.e., trait). No studies have examined differences in …


U.S. Perceptions Of Economic Mobility Since The Enactment Of Nafta And Their Impact On American Politics And Society, Jairemy Quinton Edwards Jan 2019

U.S. Perceptions Of Economic Mobility Since The Enactment Of Nafta And Their Impact On American Politics And Society, Jairemy Quinton Edwards

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this study, I examine how perceptions of NAFTA developed over 20 years since its enactment, measured as perceived economic mobility in 2016, have affected more recent public perceptions leading to increased, controversial tendencies towards nationalism, protectionism, and pessimism about the future of the U.S. economy. I then assess whether and how such perceptions in turn may have affected voter perceptions about Donald Trump, setting the stage for his 2016 election victory. Therein, I have found that among U.S. voters in 2016, those with perceptions of reduced economic mobility since the enactment of NAFTA were significantly more likely to have …


Psychopathy, Empathic Concern, And Emotional-Sentence Processing: An N400 Erp Study, Farren Larson Jun 2017

Psychopathy, Empathic Concern, And Emotional-Sentence Processing: An N400 Erp Study, Farren Larson

Student Theses

Using an undergraduate sample, the present study examined how psychopathic traits (assessed by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised) and empathic concern (assessed by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index) affect emotional-information processing using event-related potentials (ERPs) and a sentential priming paradigm. Participants had their electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded while they silently read sentences with three types of endings: congruent, incongruent, and emotionally negative. We hypothesized that participants with high levels of psychopathic traits and participants with low levels of empathic concern would find the emotionally negative sentence endings less unexpected and disturbing (yielding a smaller N400), compared to participants with low levels of psychopathic …