empathy

Vicarious embarrassment, known in German as Fremdscham, is the feeling of social pain on another person's behalf—you wince at their awkward moment even though they may feel nothing. This emotional contagion depends on empathy, theory of mind, and shared neural regions that also process physical pain. People higher in trait empathy cringe more intensely, and cringing can occur even when you know the other person does not care about the awkward situation. The anterior insula and anterior cingulate activate during vicarious embarrassment just as they do for empathy for others' pain, revealing that social mortification has neural roots.

How empathy works through mirror neurons, theory of mind, and three types: cognitive, affective, and compassionate. The neuroscience of feeling others' emotions, empathy deficits, and whether it can be taught.

Contagious yawning catches 50-60% of adults. Empathy, mirror neurons, social bonding — what the research really says about why we copy yawns.

EQ has been hyped as more important than IQ. The actual neuroscience is more precise — and more interesting — than the self-help version suggests.