Does empathy suppress our capacity for analytical thinking?
Tuesday, May 14, 2024.
When we engage in empathetic thinking, our brain suppresses the analytical network, and vice versa—when the brain activates the analytical networks, the ability to empathize diminishes.
This discovery marks the first time researchers have observed a limitation in our capacity to be both analytical and empathetic simultaneously…
Dr. Anthony Jack, the study's lead author, explained:
"What we see in this study is neural inhibition between the entire brain network we use to socially, emotionally, and morally engage with others and the entire network we use for scientific, mathematical, and logical reasoning.
This shows scientific accounts really do leave something out—the human touch. A major challenge for the science of the mind is how we can better translate between the cold and distant mechanical descriptions that neuroscience produces and the emotionally engaged intuitive understanding which allows us to relate to one another as people."
How the study was conducted
The study, involving 45 college students, presented participants with problems to solve that either involved physics or required consideration of others' feelings. Brain scans showed that engaging with physics problems activated the analytical brain network while suppressing the empathetic network. Conversely, when participants were prompted to empathize, the empathetic network was activated, and the analytical network was suppressed.
Dr. Jack elaborated, "When subjects are lying in a scanner with nothing to do, which we call the resting state, they naturally cycle between the two networks. This tells us that it’s the structure of the adult brain that is driving this, that it’s a physiological constraint on cognition."
Over-reliance on either network can be detrimental, according to Dr. Jack. He explained, "You want the CEO of a company to be highly analytical in order to run a company efficiently, otherwise it will go out of business. But, you can lose your moral compass if you get stuck in an analytic way of thinking. You’ll never get by without both networks. You don’t want to favor one, but cycle efficiently between them, and employ the right network at the right time."
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed
RESEARCH:
Jack, A. I., Dawson, A. J., Begany, K. L., Leckie, R. L., Barry, K. P., Ciccia, A. H., & Snyder, A. Z. (2013). FMRI reveals reciprocal inhibition between social and physical cognitive domains. NeuroImage, 66, 385-401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.061
