PSYA02H3 Chapter 15: PSYA02H3 MODULE 15.3 CHAPTER 15.docx

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYA02H3
• Professor: Steve Joordens

Document Summary

Empathy is evident in man physiological processes: humans have specialized nerve cells that could possibly serve as a basis for empathy (cid:224) mirror neurons, respond to actions and expressions of others and correlate with the ability to understand another"s intentions and emotions, neurons involved in pain perceptions are active when a person sees another in pain or even if they imagine the pain, there"s also been measurements of increased emotional responses, i. e. faster pulse rate and slight changes in skin moisture giving us clammy hands. There are three possible reasons for the bystander effect: a crowd can freeze bystanders due to stage fright, others can look around at other bystanders and wonder why they"re not intervening and sum up that the situation is all right, another possibility is the diffusion of responsibility, which occurs when people feel less responsible for an individual in need when in the presence of a group.