"Since all literary works, almost by definition, contain notional content, aesthetic theories that rely on purely formal qualities tend to overlook literature. The very existence of narrative raises philosophical issues. In narrative, a creator can embody, and readers be led to imagine, fictional characters, and even fantastic creatures or technologies. The ability of the human mind to imagine, and even to experience empathy with, these fictional characters is itself revealing about the nature of the human mind. Some fiction can be thought of as a sort of a thought experiment in ethics: it describes fictional characters, their motives, their actions,"
"Empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. There are many definitions for empathy that encompass a broad range of emotional states. Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and empathy. The English word ""empathy"" is derived from the Ancient Greek word εμπάθεια (""empatheia"", meaning ""physical affection or passion""). This, in turn, comes from εν (""en"", ""in, at"") and πάθος (""pathos"", ""passion"" or ""suffering""). The term was adapted by Hermann Lotze and Robert Vischer to create the"
"another person experiences things through their senses (i.e. visually or auditorily). Most of this literature has focused on visual perspective-taking: the ability to understand the way another person sees things in physical space. Conceptual perspective-taking is defined as the ability to comprehend and take on the viewpoint of another person's psychological experience (i.e. thoughts, feelings and attitudes). For instance, one can visualize the viewpoint of a taller individual (perceptual/visual) or reflect upon another's point of view on a particular concept (conceptual). Theory of mind is the awareness that people have individual psychological states that differ from one another. Within perspective-taking"
"Transference Transference () is a theoretical phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of the feelings a person has about a second person to feelings the first person has about a third person. It usually concerns feelings from an important second-person relationship from childhood, and is sometimes considered inappropriate. Transference was first described by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, who considered it an important part of psychoanalytic treatment. It is common for people to transfer feelings from their parents to their partners or children (that is, cross-generational entanglements). For instance, one could mistrust somebody who resembles an ex-spouse in manners, voice,"
"other people and having a desire to help them; experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions; discerning what another person is thinking or feeling; and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other. It can also be understood as having the separateness of defining oneself and another a blur. It also is the ability to feel and share another person's emotions. Some believe that empathy involves the ability to match another's emotions, while others believe that empathy involves being tenderhearted toward another person. Having empathy can include having the understanding that there are many factors that go"
"thinking and feeling in a certain situation. Immersive virtual environments allow people to vividly share the perceptual experiences of others as if they are in the heat of the moment. In essence, our abilities to take the perspective of another person can be augmented by viscerally sharing their experiences - seeing, hearing, and feeling what the other person did in a particular situation. We can now literally climb into the skin of the other person to fully embody their body and senses. Current projects explore how novel affordances of interactive digital media such as immersion and interactivity can enhance the"
"Imagination Imagination is the ability to produce images, ideas and sensations in the mind without any immediate input of the senses (such as seeing or hearing). It is also described as the forming of experiences in the mind, which can be recreations of past experiences such as vivid memories with imagined changes or that they are completely invented. Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process. A basic training for imagination is listening to storytelling (narrative), in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to ""evoke"
"Pain empathy Pain empathy is a specific subgroup of empathy that involves recognizing and understanding another person’s pain. Empathy is the mental ability that allows one person to understand another person’s mental and emotional state and how to effectively respond to that person. When a person receives cues that another person is in pain, neural pain circuits within the brain are activated. There are several cues that can communicate pain to another person: visualization of the injury causing event, the injury itself, behavioral efforts of the injured to avoid further harm, and displays of pain and distress such as facial"
"celebrities. Also crippling fear can result from taking an imagined painful future too seriously. Three philosophers for whom imagination is a central concept are Kendall Walton, John Sallis and Richard Kearney. See in particular: Imagination Imagination is the ability to produce images, ideas and sensations in the mind without any immediate input of the senses (such as seeing or hearing). It is also described as the forming of experiences in the mind, which can be recreations of past experiences such as vivid memories with imagined changes or that they are completely invented. Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems"
"Social sharing of emotions The social sharing of emotions is a phenomenon in the field of psychology that concerns the tendency to recount and share emotional experiences with others. According to this area of research, emotional experiences are not uniquely fleeting and internal. Scientific studies of catastrophes and important life events demonstrate the propensity of victims to talk about their experiences and express their emotions. At the onset of these empirical studies, Rimé et al. coined the term “social sharing of emotions” in 1991 to name the observed phenomenon. This research was a significant development in social psychology because it"
"""the use of the analyst's countertransference remains a point of controversy"". Transference Transference () is a theoretical phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of the feelings a person has about a second person to feelings the first person has about a third person. It usually concerns feelings from an important second-person relationship from childhood, and is sometimes considered inappropriate. Transference was first described by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, who considered it an important part of psychoanalytic treatment. It is common for people to transfer feelings from their parents to their partners or children (that is, cross-generational entanglements). For instance,"
"another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner"". Merriam-Webster defines that sympathy is when you share the feelings of another; empathy is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them, as ""sympathy"" was defined by 18th century philosophers such as Adam Smith. Meanwhile, Grammarist.com defines ""sympathy"" as ""the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else's trouble, grief, misfortune, etc.""; ""a feeling of support for something""; or ""a state in which different people share the same interests, opinions, goals,"
"his thoughts out loud in order to re-give himself the feeling of agency as he could hear himself speaking and then contributing the thought to himself. Thought insertion Thought insertion is defined by the ICD-10 as feeling as if one's thoughts are not one's own, but rather belong to someone else and have been inserted into one's mind. The person experiencing thought insertion will not necessarily know where the thought is coming from, but makes a distinction between their own thoughts and those inserted into their minds. However, patients do not experience all thoughts as inserted; only certain ones, normally"
"provokes. Or, an individual may simulate an emotional feeling and then access the environment for a suitable reason for the emotional feeling to be appropriate for that specific environment. Some research suggests that people are more able and willing to empathize with those most similar to themselves. In particular, empathy increases with similarities in culture and living conditions. Empathy is more likely to occur between individuals whose interaction is more frequent. (See Levenson and Reuf 1997 and Hoffman 2000: 62). A measure of how well a person can infer the specific content of another person's thoughts and feelings has been"
"a means of interpreting the suffering of literary characters. Mimpathy Mimpathy (, literally ""after experience"") is a philosophical concept related to empathy and sympathy. In Dagobert D. Runes' 1942 ""Dictionary of Philosophy"", contributor Herman Hausheer defines mimpathy as the sharing of another's feelings on a matter, without necessarily experiencing feelings of sympathy. Philosopher Max Scheler describes mimpathy, or ""emotional imitation"", as the basis for sympathy, but of no help in understanding another person in and of itself. Scheler identifies four types of sympathy: Academic Karen E. Smythe, in analyzing the fiction of Mavis Gallant, described mimpathy as a combination of"
"Simulation theory of empathy Simulation theory of empathy is a theory that holds that humans anticipate and make sense of the behavior of others by activating mental processes that, if carried into action, would produce similar behavior. This includes intentional behavior as well as the expression of emotions. The theory states that children use their own emotions to predict what others will do. Therefore, we project our own mental states onto others. Simulation theory is not primarily a theory ""of"" empathy, but rather a theory of how people understand others—that they do so ""by way of"" a kind of empathetic"
"Emotional contagion Emotional contagion is the phenomenon of having one person's emotions and related behaviors directly trigger similar emotions and behaviors in other people. One view developed by Elaine Hatfield, et al., is that this can be done through automatic mimicry and synchronization of one's expressions, vocalizations, postures and movements with those of another person. When people unconsciously mirror their companions' expressions of emotion, they come to feel reflections of those companions' emotions. Emotions can be shared across individuals in many different ways both implicitly or explicitly. For instance, conscious reasoning, analysis and imagination have all been found to contribute"
"Mimpathy Mimpathy (, literally ""after experience"") is a philosophical concept related to empathy and sympathy. In Dagobert D. Runes' 1942 ""Dictionary of Philosophy"", contributor Herman Hausheer defines mimpathy as the sharing of another's feelings on a matter, without necessarily experiencing feelings of sympathy. Philosopher Max Scheler describes mimpathy, or ""emotional imitation"", as the basis for sympathy, but of no help in understanding another person in and of itself. Scheler identifies four types of sympathy: Academic Karen E. Smythe, in analyzing the fiction of Mavis Gallant, described mimpathy as a combination of mimesis and empathy, an acting out of ""self-dramas"" as"
"Sympathy Sympathy (from the Greek words ""syn"" ""together"" and ""pathos"" ""feeling"" which means ""fellow-feeling"") is the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. This empathic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint, from a personal perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need. The words ""empathy"" and ""sympathy"" are often used interchangeably. Sympathy is a feeling, but the two terms have distinct origins and meanings. Merriam-Webster defines ""empathy"" as ""the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of"
"literature, the term perspective-taking and theory of mind are sometimes used interchangeably and some studies use theory of mind tasks in order to test if someone is engaging in perspective-taking. Some research, however, has highlighted that the two concepts are related but different, with theory of mind being the recognition that another person has different thoughts and feelings and perspective-taking being the ability to take on that other person’s point of view. Empathy has been defined as the ability for someone to share the same emotions another person is having. Empathy and perspective-taking have been studied together in a variety"
"Telepathy Telepathy (from the Greek τῆλε, ""tele"" meaning ""distant"" and πάθος, ""pathos"" or ""-patheia"" meaning ""feeling, perception, passion, affliction, experience"") is the purported transmission of information from one person to another without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the earlier expression ""thought-transference"". Telepathy experiments have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no convincing evidence that telepathy exists, and the topic is generally considered"
"created. In initial testing, the EQ was examined by a panel of six experimental psychologists, who were asked to rate the match of the items in the measure to the following definition of empathy: ""Empathy is the drive or ability to attribute mental states to another person/animal, and entails an appropriate affective response in the observer to the other person’s mental state."" This definition is based on Baron-Cohen's theory of empathy which includes both a cognitive and affective response to another individual's emotions. Each of the 40 empathy items were rated as relating to the definition of empathy, while all"
"other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior"" by Peter Salovey and John Mayer. This definition was later broken down and refined into four proposed abilities: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions. These abilities are distinct yet related. Emotional intelligence also reflects abilities to join intelligence, empathy and emotions to enhance thought and understanding of interpersonal dynamics. However, substantial disagreement exists regarding the definition of EI, with respect to both terminology and operationalizations. Currently, there are three main models of EI: Different models of EI have"
"Affect consciousness Affect consciousness (or affect integration - a more generic term for the same phenomenon) refers to an individual's ability to consciously perceive, tolerate, reflect upon, and express affects. These four abilities are operationalized as degrees of awareness, tolerance, emotional (nonverbal) expression, and conceptual (verbal) expression of each of the following eleven affect categories: The Affect Consciousness Interview (ACI) (Monsen et al., 2008), a semi-structured interview, is used to evaluate an individual's affect consciousness. The ACI evaluates the individual's awareness, tolerance, emotional expression, and conceptual expression of each of the affect categories are evaluated using a nine-point Affect Consciousness"
"Empathic accuracy In psychology, empathic accuracy is how accurately one person can infer the thoughts and feelings of another person. It was first introduced in conjunction with the term empathic inference, which was presented by psychologists William Ickes and William Tooke in 1988. Since then research on empathic accuracy has explored its relationship with the concepts of affect sharing and mentalizing. In order to accurately infer another's psychological state, one must be able to both share that state (affect sharing), and understand cognitively how to label that state (mentalizing). Neuroscience research has shown that brain activation associated with empathic accuracy"
"Limerence Limerence is a state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person and typically includes obsessive thoughts and fantasies and a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and have one's feelings reciprocated. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term ""limerence"" for her 1979 book, ""Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love"", to describe a concept that had grown out of her work in the mid-1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love. Limerence, which is not exclusively sexual, has been defined in terms of its"
"and other people, and in particular to be aware of, understand, and use information about the emotional states of ourselves and others with competence. It includes the ability to understand, express and manage our own emotions, and respond to the emotions of others, in ways that are helpful to ourselves and others. Similarly, the organization Antidote defined emotional literacy as: the practice of interacting with others in ways that build understanding of our own and others' emotions, then using this understanding to inform our actions. These definitions acknowledge both the individual and other people and so inter-personal relationships and the"
"Secondary consciousness Secondary consciousness is an individual's accessibility to their history and plans. The ability allows its possessors to go beyond the limits of the remembered present of primary consciousness. Primary consciousness can be defined as simple awareness that includes perception and emotion. As such, it is ascribed to most animals. By contrast, secondary consciousness depends on and includes such features as self-reflective awareness, abstract thinking, volition and metacognition. The term was coined by Gerald Edelman. Since Descartes's proposal of dualism, it became a general consensus that the mind had become a matter of philosophy and that science was not"
"Empathic concern Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like. Empathic concern is often and wrongly confused with empathy. To empathize is to respond to another's perceived emotional state by experiencing feeling of a similar sort. Empathic concern or sympathy not only include empathizing, but also entails having a positive regard or a non-fleeting concern for the other person. C. Daniel Batson is one pioneer of the term. His mature definition of the term is ""other-oriented emotion"
"of the attachment theorists is very similar to the emotional reciprocation longed for in Tennov's limerence, and each is linked to sexuality"". Limerence is characterized by intrusive thinking and pronounced sensitivity to external events that reflect the disposition of the limerent object towards the individual. It can be experienced as intense joy or as extreme despair, depending on whether the feelings are reciprocated. Basically, it is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love, even to the point of addictive-type behavior. Usually, one is inspired with an intense passion or admiration for someone. Limerence can be"
"their feelings and emotions. For example, in a 1975 study exploring the psychological reactions to the death of a loved one, it was found that 88% of bereavers felt a need to talk about the event to others. Other studies produced similar findings for people who experienced natural disasters and for cancer patients. Rimé later proposed the term “social sharing of emotions” to describe this phenomenon. Social sharing of emotions can be defined as an “interpersonal process” wherein, after an emotional event, “individuals will initiate interpersonal behaviours in which discussing this event and their reactions to it is central”. In"
"mind""; namely, those eyes ""with which all men see after they have become blind"". The common use of the term is for the process of forming new images in the mind that have not been previously experienced with the help of what has been seen, heard, or felt before, or at least only partially or in different combinations. Some typical examples follow: Imagination, not being limited to the acquisition of exact knowledge by the requirements of practical necessity is largely free from objective restraints. The ability to imagine one's self in another person's place is very important to social relations"
"beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be trained and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy. Empathy necessarily has a ""more or less"" quality. The paradigm case of an empathic interaction, however, involves a person communicating an accurate recognition of the significance of another person's ongoing intentional actions, associated emotional states, and personal characteristics in a manner that the"