If a misfortune happened to someone close, we not only empathize with his grief, but often begin to physically feel his pain. Experimental results confirm our feelings. But why is this happening?
Lisa paces the hospital hall and can’t stop. Behind the wall, her daughter is undergoing her third session of chemotherapy. Liza imagines how chilling — and yet necessary for treatment — poison once again spreads through Natasha’s veins. She thinks she feels nausea rising up her daughter’s throat and painful cramps in her stomach. Lisa tells herself that she would give anything for the opportunity to be there instead of Natasha.
Alexander cannot tear himself away from the TV screen: one hundred thousand refugees do not find salvation from the war. They have been walking in the desert for many days, often without food or water. A father with a sightless look carries a dead child in his arms. The camera stops at his unwound turban, his arms vainly clutching the boy to his chest.
Alexander gets up from his chair. He is a doctor. He can’t calm down. He has to do something, he wants to be there with these people. A few days later he is already in Africa, in the group «Doctors Without Borders».
When we suffer, the body is mobilized to endure. This is a well-known reaction: fight or flight! But where does the feeling that we experience the pain of another person come from? Where does this powerful impulse come from — to relieve the suffering of another, as if it is hurting ourselves right now?
At University College London, several female participants in an experiment were asked to undergo magnetic resonance imaging of the brain at a time when their husbands were exposed to electric current.1. They were warned a few seconds before the electric shock. In addition, each of them could see in the mirror how her husband’s hand was clenched. The faces of all the women reflected the pain that the sight of the suffering of a loved one caused them.
First of all, a group of researchers led by Tanya Singer was interested in what was happening in the brains of these women. Scanning showed that they activated the same zones of emotional reactions as people who are actually affected by electric shock.
The other person’s pain became their own. Their brain «appropriated» this pain. These women, who are connected with their husbands by love, seem to have pierced the membrane that separates the “I” from the “you”.
Our brains have a connection that connects us to the joys and pains of others, to the world around us.
The Yanomami Indians say «Ya pihi irakema» to convey the state of being in love, which means «I am infected by you.» In other words, «something of you entered me and lives in me.» I am no longer just me, because your feelings have now become mine.
According to the American philosopher Susan Langer, under the influence of love, the shell of individual being becomes permeable.2. Of course, not all people are equally capable of feeling this kind of empathy. Women are generally superior to men in this respect. This natural brain response underlies our ability to connect with other people, which is the essence of the human in us.
Mammals differ from other animals not only in that they feed on mother’s milk, but also in the presence of zones in the brain that provide an affective connection between children and parents, especially with the mother.
The anterior part of the cingulate gyrus of the cerebral cortex — this is exactly the zone that became active in women in the experiment described above — developed precisely so that the cries of the baby were completely unbearable for the mother and made it impossible for them to part. This mechanism provides constant contact with the adult, which is necessary for the growth and development of vulnerable young mammals.
In addition to attachment to loved ones, the capacity for compassion—that is, suffering with others—underpins the calling of the doctor, motivates volunteers to help those in need, and explains everyone’s desire to see society more harmonious.
In our brain structures, a connection is recorded that connects us to the pains and joys of other people, to the world around us. This connection is what makes us human — isolated and connected to each other. Feeling and therefore responsible.
1 T. Singer, B. Seymour. «Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective But Not Sensory Components of Pain». Science, № 303, 2004.
2 S. Langer. «Mind: an Essay on Human Feelings». John Hopkins Press, 1988.