Fritz Breithaupt

Many consider empathy to be the basis of moral action. However, the ability to empathize with others is also a prerequisite for deliberate acts of humiliation and cruelty. In The Dark Sides of Empathy, Fritz Breithaupt contends that people often commit atrocities not out of a failure of empathy but rather as a direct consequence of over-identification and a desire to increase empathy. Even well-meaning compassion can have many unintended consequences, such as intensifying conflicts or exploiting others. Empathy plays a central part in a variety of highly problematic behaviors. From mere callousness to terrorism, exploitation to sadism, and emotional vampirism to stalking, empathy all too often motivates and promotes malicious acts. After tracing the development of empathy as an idea in German philosophy, Breithaupt looks at a wide-ranging series of case studies—from Stockholm syndrome to Angela Merkel's refugee policy and from novels of the romantic era to helicopter parents and murderous cheerleader moms—to uncover how narcissism, sadism, and dangerous celebrity obsessions alike find their roots in the quality that, arguably, most makes us human.

Empathy is usually seen as a prosocial and morally positive influence on behaviour. This article provides an overview of cases of negative acts motivated by empathy. It includes discussions of polarizations that are fueled by side-taking and empathy, selfish forms of empathy (such as sadistic empathy, vampirism, and helicopter parenting), and filtered empathy (using identification with a third person as a medium to have empathy with another). The definition of empathy used is to co-experience the situation of another.

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies applies developments in cognitive science to a wide range of literary texts that span multiple historical periods and numerous national literary traditions. The volume is divided into five parts:(1) Narrative, History, Imagination;(2) Emotions and Empathy;(3) The New Unconscious;(4) Empirical and Qualitative Studies of Literature; and (5) Cognitive Theory and Literary Experience. Most notably, the volume features case studies representing not just North American and British literary traditions, but also Argentinian (Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar), Chinese (Cao Xueqin), Colombian (Garcia Marquez), Dominican (Junot Diaz), German (Theodore Fontane), French (Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert), Indian (Mirabai, Rabindranath Tagore, Kamala Markandaya, Mani Ratnam, Tito Mukhopadhyay), Mexican (Fernando del Paso), Polish (Krystof Kieslowski), Puerto Rican (Giannina Braschi), Russian (Lev Tolstoi), South African (JM Coetzee), and Spanish (Leopoldo Alas). Moreover, the volume will cover a variety of periods (eg, Renaissance, Eighteenth century, Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist, and post-modern periods) and genres, including those associated with popular culture, such as science fiction (China Mieville), fantasy (Anne Rice), and graphic narratives (Rius's Los supermachos and Gilbert Hernandez's Troublemakers).

A good book draws you in, makes you feel involved in the story, makes you care about the characters. It’s a sign of a successful story when the struggles of the characters affect you—but do readers always feel the same emotions as the characters they are reading about? Of course not. For one thing, readers often know more or less than characters. They see the danger lurking while the character is still perfectly happy, or they are in the dark about a characters happy thoughts. Readers will react to the behavior of the character.

Desde hace algunos años, la empatía se ha vuelto uno de los temas centrales de las ciencias cognitivas y las neurociencias. Pero¿ qué es exactamente la empatía?¿ En qué consiste esta habilidad de ponernos en la piel de otra persona, incluso en aquellos casos en que no la conocemos o en que se trata de un ser ficticio, como el personaje de una novela o de un film? En esta obra, Fritz Breithaupt propone la innovadora hipótesis de que el éxito de la empatía humana depende de dos mecanismos: la toma de partido y la narración. Mientras que la mayor parte de las teorías asume que la escena primaria de la empatía concierne a dos personas, una que tiene empatía con la otra, el autor sostiene que se trataría en realidad de una escena de tres individuos: un individuo que observa un conflicto entre otros dos. Si el observador toma mentalmente partido por uno de esos contrincantes, entonces es posible que también desarrolle la empatía como una legitimación emocional para la elección de ese lado y no del otro, ya que una vez que estamos" a favor de alguien", también estamos más predispuestos a adoptar su perspectiva. Y, al mismo tiempo, al" narrar", tendemos a dar más cabida a la empatía. Con el aporte de las ciencias cognitivas, de la psicología y la literatura, Breithaupt examina cuestiones clave como las neuronas espejo, la teoría de la mente y el Síndrome de Estocolmo, y brinda originales lecturas de obras literarias canónicas, que enriquecen su argumentación acerca de la conexión necesaria entre empatía y narrativa.'Cultura de la empatía'es una obra fascinante, que resultará atractiva tanto para psicólogos y …