Sympathy
Hume explained that this is the case because "the minds of all men are similar in their feelings and operations" and that "the motion of one communicates itself to the rest" so that as "affections readily pass from one person to another… they beget correspondent movements.
Sympathy is also believed to be based on the principle of the powerful helping the vulnerable (young, elderly, sick).
[9] This desire to help the vulnerable has been suggested by the American Psychological Association, among others, to stem from paternalistic motives to protect and aid children and the weak.
People within the same group are interconnected and share successes and failures and therefore experience more sympathy towards each other than to out-group members, or social outsiders.
[11] Small groups of socially dependent individuals may develop empathic concerns, and later sympathy, if certain prerequisites are met.
Parental care relationships, alliances during conflicts, and the creation of social hierarchies are associated with the onset of sympathy in human interactions.
Sympathetic behavior originally came about during dangerous situations, such as predator sightings, and moments when aid was needed for the sick and/or wounded.
[13] Such forms of expression can convey messages related to emotion as well as opinions, physical states (e.g. fatigue), and understanding.
Patting a person on their back, arms, or head for a few seconds can effectively convey feelings of sympathy between people.
The choice to donate, and the subsequent decision of how much to give, can be separated into two emotion-driven decision-making processes: Mood management, or how people act to maintain their moods, influences the initial decision to donate because of selfish concerns (to avoid regret or feel better).
[20] Human sympathy in donation behavior can influence the amount of aid given to people and regions that are in need.
Increasing how emotional a description is, presenting individual cases instead of large groups, and using less information and numerical data can positively influence giving behavior.
[22] Judging people's character helps to maintain social order, making sure that those who are in need receive the appropriate care.
Sympathy impacts how doctors, nurses, and other members of society think about and treat people with different diseases and conditions.
The level of sympathy exhibited by health care providers corresponds to patient characteristics and disease type.
[23] One factor that influences sympathy is controllability: the degree to which the afflicted individual could have avoided contracting the disease or medical condition.
[non sequitur] Sympathy in health-related decision-making[clarification needed] is heavily influenced by disease stigma.
Sexual orientation of individual patients has also been shown to affect stigma levels in the case of HIV diagnoses.
[24] Social and emotional stimuli that relate to the well-being of another person can be studied with technology that tracks brain activity (such as Electroencephalograms and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging).
The temporal parietal junction, orbitofrontal cortex, and ventral striatum are also thought to play a role in the production of emotion.
At the same time, top-down responses make sense of the emotional inputs streaming in and apply motive and environmental influence analyses to better understand the situation.
Both of these processes act on sensory and perceptual pathways; executive functioning for empathic emotions does not begin during these early stages.
[32] Prosocial and moral development extends into adolescence and early adulthood as humans learn to better assess and interpret the emotions of others.
into five categories, beginning with a hedonistic self-orientation and ending with an internalized sense of needs of others, including empathic emotions.
[34] One study sought to determine whether sympathy demonstrated by children was solely for personal benefit, or if the emotion was an innate part of development.
Prosocial behavior has been noted in children as young as twelve months when showing and giving toys to their parents, without promoting or being reinforced by praise.
Levels of prosocial behavior increased with sympathy in children with low moral motivation, as it reflects the link between innate abilities and honing them with the guidance of parents and teachers.
