The plasticity of social emotions

Social emotions such as empathy or compassion greatly facilitate our interactions with others. Despite the importance of social emotions, scientific studies have only recently revealed functional neural plasticity associated with the training of such emotions. Using the framework of two antagonistic neural systems, the threat and social disconnection system on the one hand, and the reward and social connection system on the other, this article describes how training compassion and empathy can change the functioning of these systems in a targeted manner. Whereas excessive empathic sharing of suffering can increase negative feelings and activations in the insula and anterior cingulate cortex (corresponding to the threat and social disconnection system), compassion training can strengthen positive affect and neural activations in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and striatum (corresponding to the reward and social connection system). These neuroimaging findings are complemented by results from behavioral studies showing that compassion is linked to helping and forgiveness behavior, whereas empathic distress not only decreases helping behavior, but is even associated with increased aggressive behavior. Taken together, these data provide encouraging evidence for the plasticity of adaptive social emotions with wide-ranging implications for basic science and applied settings.