Transcript Dr. Earle Waugh PowerPoint Presentation

Simon Baron-Cohen
Professor, Developmental Psychopathology
Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry
University of Cambridge
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Backgrounder on Byron-Cohen’s Book
Georgie Fluter: A Personal Story
The Thesis: Why Do People Lack Empathy?
Baron-Cohen on the Brain and Autism
Circuitry
Zero-Negative
Zero-Positive
Genetic Evidence
Critique: Evidence Not Considered
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Four kinds of conditions in people exhibit
lack of empathy
Psychopathy
Narcissim
Autism
Asperger Syndrome
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Evil and Cruelty are the result of Lack of
Empathy
Not the result of theological category of ‘sin’
Not the result of an incarnate evil-i.e.‘devil’
Not purely the result of social disorder or
environment
Not purely the result of a physical condition
Reflect variety of categories and associations
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Six Levels of Empathy, based on Empathy
Quotient Questionnaire
MRI evidence of regions of brain operative in
empathy—ten in all:
◦ Medial prefontal cortex (comparing oneself with
others)
◦ Orbitofrontal cortex ( social judgement, socially
disoriented
◦ Frontal operculum (Language processing)
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Inferior frontal gyrus (emotional recognition)
Caudal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior
insula (pain matrix-both personal and
observing)
Temporoparietal junction (intentions and
beliefs)
Superior Temporal Sulcus (judging someone’s
direction of looking)
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Somatosensory Cortex (coding sensory
experience)
Inferior Parietal Lobule, Inferior Parietal
Sulcus( Actions & response recording ‘mirror’
neurons)
Amygdala (emotional learning and regulation)
Personality Disorder Borderline: Type BExtreme saying destructive things to others
(Marilyn Monroe)
Psychopath: Type P- Total detachment from
other’s feelings...cold, calculating, completely
selfish
Narcissistic: Type N- Total entitlement of self,
‘using’ others, discarding those ‘useless’
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Asperger Syndrome (Avoidance of the social,
loneliness, patterning obsession)
Autism (Underactivity in Empathy, without
words for emotions, systemitizers to the
extreme, innovators)
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Aggressiveness Gene: MAOA-H ‘Warrior
Gene’
Emotional Recognition: 1. Serotonin
transporter (SLC6A4) 2. Arginine Vasopressin
Receptor (AVPR1A) Autism-linked, fear and
anger)
Empathy Gene (Several Genes involved)
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Can you develop empathy?
If you have none are you necessarily bad?
Can a state be empathetic (i.e. Ban the death
penalty)?
Can one be super-empathetic to the point of
being dangerous?
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Daniel Frankfurter: Evil Incarnate: Rumors of
Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in
History. Princeton, 2006.
Social Construction of Evil: Endorsed in
Rituals of Political, Social and Religious
Intent-but not universally accepted.
No Notion of Cruelty Universal: It is normally
constructed locally and from local social and
psychological conditions
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Why is the demonic, the chaotic, the marginal
regarded cross-culturally as “a realm”?
Why is the definition of evil often in the hand
of “authorities”...prophets, presidents, popes?
Isn’t he ‘an authority’?
What role does ‘fear’ play in definitions of
cruelty, and evil?
What role does conspiracy play in the
meaning of evil?
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New Studies do not support conclusions
◦ i.e. Some Children lose Autism Diagnosis: Fein D et. al. Optimal
outcome in individuals with history of autism, J.Child Psyh and
Psychiatry, 2013 DOI 10.11/jepp.1203-7.
◦ i.e. Decision-making much more complex than circuitry ideology.
Haelener, RM. et al. Inferring decoding strategies from choice
probabilities in the presence of correlated variability. Nature
Neuroscience. 2013 DOI: 10.1038/nn.3.309.
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Are cruelty, evil, lack of empathy, etc. one
and the same set of phenomena?
Are there differences between personal lack
of empathy and the social perception of evil?
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Why is evil behaviour apparently limited in
time and scope..i.e. the Hitler model?
Impossible to disengage notion of evil from
Western cultural experience, including its
religious connotations.
Perceptions of evil are real—as in Georgie
Fluter- but can they be reduced to a model of
lack-of-empathy?
Earle Waugh, Ph.D.
Director, Centre for the Cross-Cultural
Study of Health and Healing
Department of Family Medicine
University of Alberta
[email protected]
780-492-6424