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Storytelling is usually involved in every piece of art.

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The game "Dungeons and Dragons" has been a common way to fictional storytelling. The game involves a group of people working together to create a story involving all their characters.

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Long time lurker of the subreddit here and saw Matt talking about D&D and storytelling on his twitter. It's an interesting subject and one that felt like it deserved it's own discussion. Matt has made a few posts on Twitter starting here.

While there are a couple of different points here I did want to try to start a conversation off the statement that Dungeons and Dragons is 0% cooperative storytelling.

Personally I've been a Dungeon Master since I was in High School and my experience leads me to side with Matt on this. Recently we have seen an surge in demand for cooperative story driven rpg system, which is an awesome thing. I love playing games like The Burning Wheel and Blades in the Dark where most of the world and events are made by the players and the DM as a collaborative effort. However, D&D is a system that doesn't support that TYPE of storytelling.

D&D is a system that encourages characters to cause things to happen because of the fact that they are intrinsically special and often heroic. But that is different from a player telling everyone in a group what is exactly going to happen, at least in my mind. You can certainly want to leap off the tower onto the back of a dragon and slice it's neck off with a single blow, but the dice, and the environment that the DM has created, might say otherwise.

While there are those that would disagree, and for valid reasons, I think that D&D rules help guide rather than hinder stories for the most part (And this is coming from a guy that's been trying to figure out a way to make a magic system based on language and speech work with it for months) for the reason that they focus the group. I've had a few sessions where, in a cooperative game like Blades in the Dark, the group has been brought out the experience because they couldn't figure out what kind of heist they wanted to pull off. With DnD there are discussions on how to approach a fight, but no one argues about what sort of monster they want to fight.

I would love to hear what people think about this, so offer a few questions to answer:

1. Do you agree with Matt, why or why not?

2. Do you prefer cooperative storytelling or do you enjoy another kind of storytelling more?

3. Do you feel that D&D limits the types of stories you want to tell? Why, and what stories do you want to tell?

Hope this is a good jump off point, so have at it y'all!

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r/mattcolville - D&D and Its Relationship with Storytelling

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Long time lurker of the subreddit here and saw Matt talking about D&D and storytelling on his twitter. It's an interesting subject and one that felt like it deserved it's own discussion. Matt has made a few posts on Twitter starting here.

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Social media has been the most recent way of storytelling by sharing stories on apps like twitter

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Storytelling doesn't have to be non fiction many stories are fake with made up charaters

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Storytelling is something consistently happening in our day to day life and most of the time we don't even realize it

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Storytelling is also in Photography. Even simple photos can tell a story

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Dear reader, I have written a lot of times, that Storytelling is one of the most important factors in Photography. A picture without a story is just a superficial picture. Without a story, the photograph has no depth.

Sure, there are pictures that are beautiful to look at. Sunrises above the ocean can be heart-warming and look great at the wall. But do they speak to you? Do they tell a story other than those of beauty?

I mean, sure those are nice images without a doubt, but they all are a kind of blob to me. I couldn't even distinguish most of them. They don't stick with me and I wouldn't be able to remember them or come back, just to find another detail.

Documentary Photography, on the other hand, is way more than what you see in the photograph. The picture is only the catalyst in triggering a chain reaction that lets you create a story in your mind.

These stories are what make them memorable and iconic.

Impactful and emotional stories of people, families, and societies will stay interesting for future generations.

Creating Stories

An average movie has 24 frames per second. With a running time of about 90 minutes, this means that the director 129.600 frames to tell his stories.

129.600 frames to create a story from beginning to end. From introducing the characters to facing a challenging and finally solving the problem.

How long would you need to photograph 129.600 Street Photographs? A month, a year or a decade?

A movie has the luxury of having a lot of room to convey a tragedy or make the audience laugh. Storytelling in photography has only room for one frame.

In a single frame, the photographer has to create the same tension, that Hollywood has 129.600 tries and opportunities. I guess you can realize by now, how difficult storytelling in photography can be.

As a static medium, the photograph is frozen in a moment. You don't know what happened before or afterward. This leaves room for the viewer to come up with a story himself.

A movie director tells a story in 90 minutes.

The photographer shows one frame and wants to bind the viewer. He doesn't tell the story. He creates enough room and inspiration for the viewer to be involved himself.

Obviously, there are a lot of differences compared to mediums that have a lot more time to evolve their story.

Storytelling in photography should start with an interesting character or detail that instantly catches the attention of the viewer. Then the focus be should lead to a "twist" that creates tension ending with a grand final.

In reality, a photograph is much more abstract than a simple linear story that is present in an image. A lot of it happens in our minds and the minds of the viewers are different.

Therefore not every viewer sees the same story or any at all. Depending on past experiences, memories, and personality the story varies.

The common saying that a photograph tells more about the photographer than its subjects may be true. Referring to the story that a photograph tells, I would go further and say that the story tells more about the viewer than the photographer.

The Beginning

Where does a story in a picture start?

In movies or books, it is very clear that the story starts from page/minute 1 with the introduction. We get to know the characters and the viewer/reader gets lead through the story.

A photograph doesn't have such a clear order. All we see is a two-dimensional plane where everything seems equally important and has no clear beginning, nor end.

Photographs that haven't a clear composition appear to be chaotic and hard to follow.

Although photographs don't have a timeline, the composition should support a direction that seems reasonable for the viewer.

One common misconception I observe for Street Photographers that recently began to explore this genre is that they try to pack everything into one image. They feel the pressure to include every detail or interesting point into one frame because otherwise, it might be too boring. This leads to images that haven't a clear handwriting and are just confusing.

Storytelling in Photography should come with a detail that stands out from everything else. Helping the viewer to understand where a potential story could begin.

Gestures

There are some details that are often talked about in Street Photography and how we should be on the search for them. The reason why photographs with such details are more interesting is that they more easily tell a story.

They are universally understood and it is easy to come up with an interesting story for the viewer.

Gestures are one of those details that often work well in Street Photography.

As a form of human interaction, they naturally tell a story and often show emotions very directly.

As seen in this picture by Nancy Borrowick from her series " The Family Imprint ", gestures come in more handily when there are people directly interacting.

Showing a portrait of a single person usually doesn't convey such a strong story. Even when having strong characters in front of the lens, it becomes very hard to display a complete story.

In Street Photography, looking for persons that already communicate and display some sort of action makes it a lot easier to find a story in the image. In other words, the story is already naturally there, as a Photographer you don't have to do much other than capturing it.

A Single Person

When only featuring a single person, there needs to be some context that helps to form a story.

For example in the shot above, the person works pretty well in this night and flash photo. Where did he come from, what is his job? He almost seems like the godfather of the Berlin Ku'Damm and the lights behind him support such a story.

Usually, when I shoot single people it is for the aesthetics or atmosphere, seldom for the story.

Open Stories

Photographs can either display the complete story or leave some hints for the viewer to interpret.

The distinction is in "open" or "closed" stories.

Open stories don't picture the whole story.

I mentioned before that the composition has a great impact on the story. Triangles are often used to create interesting story arcs. The key in open stories is, that for example only two of the cornerstones of the story is visible while the third is left out.

This leaves room for interpretation for the viewer to tell the story the way he prefers it.

Open stories are more engaging for the viewer as they give them the opportunity to have a more direct influence. In return, they are also more demanding.

In return, they are also more demanding.

Often, when there isn't the story directly visible, it takes some time for the viewer to come up with an interpretation of the image himself. Depending on the imagination and inspiration, not everyone will have "access" to the image. Some will observe the photo with question marks, while others really get involved and are able to come up with a great interpretation.

Thus, the critique can be very mixed and polarizing. One-half will appreciate your efforts and "understand" your hints and directions in which you are leading, while others might be confused and aren't able to create a story.

Negative feedback or harsh critique, in this case, shouldn't make you insecure. If you feel positive towards your own image this should be your main concern.

The picture above is a small example of an "open" story. We only see the woman with a very fierce look but have no information what she is witnessing.

Closed Stories

On the contrary, there are stories that are very obvious and are mainly told by the photographer, respectively the subjects.

Every relevant detail that is important is visible in the picture which should make it easy for the viewer to follow the storyline.

In this case, the setting is pretty clear. Even without any further background information, it is a very festive situation. With the lights in the back, there are strong hints at New-Years Eve, which is correct in this image.

Although this particular image doesn't leave much room for interpretation, even closed stories have some variance.

There isn't one unique truth in photography.

Tears could either be from joy or grieve, a hug at the train station could either be a warm welcome or a sad goodbye.

In Street Photography I feel that it is not our obligation, to tell the truth. We are storytellers that use the street as our stage. What we tell is candid and unposed, but not every time directly what was happening in reality.

There is always some leeway in telling the story and as there is no neutral narrator, closed stories can be interpreted differently as well.

Not Everyone has to understand the Story

Storytelling in Photography is a very complex topic.

People that aren't interested in photography or don't have any imagination left, deny that photos can tell a story. They claim, that it is totally made up and the image could show anything and everything without an actual narration.

I understand that not every picture speaks to everyone. The same happens to acclaimed quality work. Not everyone sees the daily stories of Chicago in Vivian Maier's images.

Which is totally fine, different tastes for different people.

In conclusion, this doesn't mean that a good picture will speak to everyone.

To me, it is more interesting to create controversial pictures that invoke a strong emotion in some, than addressing a broader audience.

Therefore I understand if you find the following interpretation of pictures by Bruce Gilden to be bullshit.

But he is a passionate photographer and it is his side of the story.

Conclusion on Storytelling in Photography

Photography is about stories and emotions.

Storytelling in Photography can be very complex and difficult to achieve. Search for gestures, interactions or in general actions.

Don't simply photograph people, photograph stories that already happen in front of your camera.

Give the viewer some cornerstones he can work through your image.

Guide him with your composition.

Start the story with the main detail something simple that is the first thing a viewer notices in your image. Employ other details more subtly that can be integrated into the story.

Don't refrain from creating "weird" stories that only a few people do understand.

Your worst fear might be that no one understands your images.

Your second worst fear should be that everyone does.

Controversial pictures are more interesting and valuable than creating popular boredom to entertain a broader audience.

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The Art of Storytelling In Photography - Streetbounty

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Dear reader, I have written a lot of times, that Storytelling is one of the most important factors in Photography. A picture without a story is just a superficial picture. Without a story, the photograph has no depth. Sure, there are pictures that are beautiful to look at.

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Storytelling has even made a way into video games

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If you grabbed a copy of for your PlayStation 4 last week, you've already delved into the game, as well as the game's involved story. Although other games have embraced video games as storytelling devices, Until Dawn takes it a step further, using the butterfly effect and letting you know exactly when and how your choices within the game affect outcomes.

This isn't a new concept, of course, but with the big push Sony gave for Until Dawn, it's an example of a growing trend of how developers embrace video games as mediums for telling stories.

Of course, this isn't a new thing: throughout the history of video games, developers have used video games for telling stories: in fact, with the old point-and-click adventures of the 1990s, storytelling was a necessity to motivate players to continue playing the game. Classics like the Gabriel Knight series, Phantasmagoria and 11th Hour had stories that were integral to gameplay: those little things that made players want to complete every puzzle and uncover every mystery and find out exactly how it all plays out and ends.

One of the first point-and-click adventure games to offer choices with consequences was the Tex Murphy series: the fourth game in the series, The Pandora Directive, released in 1996, even offered different endings, depending on which choice you made in the game.

So what is it about video games that makes them such good storytelling devices?

"Video games achieve something that other forms of storytelling just can't," says Dave Gilbert, founder of Wadjet Eye Games, the producers behind Technobabylon and the Blackwell series. "They put you IN the experience. You are making the events happen, or the events are happening to you. It's not easy to pull off, but when it's done right there is no experience like it."

It's true that playing a video game involves more interaction than watching a film or television series. With Until Dawn, for example, scenes pause as players are forced to decide who lives and who dies: and sometimes, players must make that choice quickly. This interaction means that the player becomes part of the story and not just an inactive participant.

"The thing about a video game is that it's so immersive," says Jane Jensen of Pinkerton Studios and the writer behind the classic Gabriel Knight video games. "You actually role-play the main character, so it's very powerful when emotional events -good and bad - happen to that character. That's happening to you. It has the potential to be a much stronger connection that you'd feel to a character in books or films."

The player establishes an emotional connection with characters: ask anyone who's played Telltale's The Walking Dead games: many have experienced serious emotions while playing those, including fear, excitement and sadness. It's those emotions that drive the story forward, making players want to continue playing to see what happens to these characters that they've grown emotionally attached to.

"For me, games are the most fascinating medium for storytelling available right now," said Jon Ingold, creative director at inkle Studios, the company behind 80 Days, Time magazine's 2014 Game of the Year. "We know that interactivity can immerse a player into a story in a powerful way, and we know that games can evoke strong feelings - and not just excitement and fear, but humour and passion and sadness, too. But the rules are still being written, and we're discovering new tools and problems every day. If you're writing for film, there are a hundred examples of for any scene you might want to write - but for games, we're still inventing everything. So when you find something that works, that connects with your players, that's an exhilarating experience for both you and your audience."

The very technology of video games makes them perfect for storytelling, especially with that technology constantly evolving and changing. Now, with virtual reality becoming less science fiction and more reality, storytelling in games will become even more important. That means that video games constantly offer new ways of offering that interactivity and emotional connection to players on completely different levels.

"Video games are the most exciting, fluid medium that has ever existed," said Luke Whittaker, head of State of Play, the developer behind the award-winning Lumino City. "They can be graphic, textural, aural, kinetic, two dimensional or three dimensional, and now even in a VR space, and they can be any combination of these, meaning they can bring together many ways of telling stories, and the emergence of new forms is a thrilling prospect."

One of these new ideas is the concept of the interactive movie. Although the idea isn't new, game developers have recently embraced it as a way to tell a story while keeping viewers involved in the storytelling. Missing, by Zandel Media, is such an example.

But putting something interactive like that in a way that keeps the player entertained and immersed takes a certain kind of talent.

"The most important part is to know when it's time to let the player fulfill his/her part," says Simon Tremblay, founder of Zandel Media. "The player has to be able to do meaningful actions to be a part of the story. The advantage of a video game is its ability to deliver story on many levels. The cinematic will deliver the emotions. The gameplay will deliver action, consequence and secondary dialog. And finally, the environments will deliver backstory and context. The writer must keep this in mind at all times."

Of course, with games becoming more involved in interactive storytelling, a lot of questions get raised. One such question constantly debated is: are video games art? Although many argue against that fact, with many games having stories as good or even better than film - a medium which most consider art - the lines have blurred. Another question involves what actually now defines what a video game is and isn't: is an interactive movie actually a game? Is Until Dawn, which focuses so much on players interacting with the story, a game or just an interactive movie?

"As time goes on those games have gotten even deeper and more sophisticated, and much more diverse in terms of influences and themes," says Jess Haskins, creative director of What Pumpkin Studios, responsible for the upcoming Hiveswap. "There's still much that can be done to advance the art, and there's certainly been plenty of ink spilled about games as art, games as systems, the notion of challenge, authorial control vs. player interaction, and the definition of 'game' itself, and who has the authority to decide what's a game or not, what 'counts or not.

"Some of these discussions are worthier than others. As a game designer and a narrative designer, I study and try to learn from the successes and failures of past works, keep an open mind about the possibilities of the medium, and apply my craft to create the most compelling, entertaining, and thought-provoking interactive works I can."

Photo: Supermassive Games

ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

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How Video Games Have Become The Perfect Storytelling Medium

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If you grabbed a copy of for your PlayStation 4 last week, you've already delved into the game, as well as the game's involved story. Although other games have embraced video games as storytelling devices, Until Dawn takes it a step further, using the butterfly effect and letting you know exactly when and how your choices within the game affect outcomes.

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Storytelling can be within music

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Music is revered as one of the earliest, most enduring forms of storytelling. For the lot of us, music has helped create and shape personal, powerful, and even life changing experiences, which make the content all the more enjoyable for us to listen to. Since the art form has existed, an innumerable amount artists have been able to capture and document significant, intimate, and even historical events through the likes their works. In the aspects of storytelling and documentation, one of the cornerstones of artists and their work has been through the use of concept albums.

Concept albums, as their name suggest, are musical curations compiled into single LPs (Long Plays), which typically have overarching themes or narratives subtly placed throughout the album's entirety. Within the records, songs are deemed as individual stories that contribute to the overall conceptual idea(s) behind the album. The first notable instance of theme driven music was used by the likes of the famous actor, singer, and songwriter, Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra's 1955 release of In The Wee Small Hours reached critical acclaim, being revered as one of the crooner's best works, matched only by his 1956 release of Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, and his 1958 release of Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely. More importantly, musically and thematically speaking, Sinatra's work of In The Wee Small Hours also hit on several abstract themes and emotions Sinatra himself experienced. His work included ideas of night life, personal isolation, introspection, and lost love. It was unlike anything we have seen before. Sinatra's musical inspiration came from his own personal thoughts and history, like his separation from his first wife Nancy Barbato, and also in his relationship with his then-new found lover, Ava Gardner, whom he married shortly after his divorce with Barbato.

"[He was the] first pop singer to bring a consciously artistic attitude to recording." - (Friedwald, 26)

However, it was not until the beginning of the next decade before these musical story books started to take their turn. Looking at the critically acclaimed, theme-driven works of Sinatra, many artists shortly thereafter started to make their own musical plays, specifically in the genre of rock. Albums in the likes of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and The Who's Tommy, created a firm foundation for new types of music to be explored ( Jones, 49), making music and its corresponding industry evermore progressive.

Concept albums maintained their popularity well through the '70s, critically acclaimed albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon and Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti made incredible debuts through their ever progressive sounding material and their incredible narrative based storytelling. It seemed like these albums were here to stay.

However, with the emergence of MTV in the early '80s, the influences of narrative-themed albums quickly diminished. MTV put an unseen pressure on artists, as the music oriented television network focused more on an artist's individual songs, not the records as a whole ( Sturges, The Independent).

By the 1990s, the ideas of concept albums were loosely held on to, as full lengths albums became heavily segmented, and were more appreciated within their own musical niches, thus emphasizing the ideas of cult-classic albums. However, the art did not fall into the wayside. Albums such as Tupac's All Eyez on Me, Modest Mouse's The Lonesome Crowded West, and Nirvana's Nevermind,are currently revered as musical masterpieces in respects to both their musical and storytelling compositions, regardless of their musical discourses.

The overall popularity of concept albums, and full length albums in general, have been in an odd, roller-coaster like fluctuation for the last decade and a half. Music pirating sites have made it all too easy for the public to freely get their hands on the music they love so dearly, thus the ideas of nitpicking single tracks from whole albums became further emphasized. As the peoples' listening habits have changed, the overall ideas of full length albums seemed like a thing of the past. More-so the abstract themes, and stories behind most the music felt lost. However, with the resurgence of vinyl records, and with music streaming services like Spotify allowing artists to do track-by-track commentary alongside their releases, it seems that concept album will continue to live on.

There has always been something about concept albums that forces us to continue to listen to them. Perhaps, it is our primordial love for good story telling, or maybe it is the unifying ideas and emotions behind them that make them so special for a lot of people. However, they are much more than just musical story books; they are documents, history, if you will...Pieces of humanity curated into musical operas. They allowed for music to transcend into to the innumerable amount of genres and sub-genres we all know and love today. It is about the stories, the feelings, and the experiences...The things we seldom hear about in modern music.

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Storytelling Through Music: The Concept Album - The Anthology - Medium

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Music is revered as one of the earliest, most enduring forms of storytelling. For the lot of us, music has helped create and shape personal, powerful, and even life changing experiences, which make the content all the more enjoyable for us to listen to.

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Storytelling was a major part of Ancient Greece history, most of it being Myths created to explain a phenomenon or teach a lesson.

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Storytelling can be in different forms such as books, games, and songs

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Connections can be made by everyone around the world through social media.

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Connections can be formed by sharing stories and playing games.

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Connections exist within family and friends.

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What is Emotion connection?

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How are connections made

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Are there more than one type of connection?

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If you feel your relationships have been feeling a little 'beige' lately, this video I made recently will help you figure out why! In it, I share 4 dimensions of connecting with others, and why they are so important for anyone who wants to live more fully from their heart. I hope you enjoy it, learn something, and laugh a little. I certainly did. Enjoy!

The 4 Dimensions of Human Connections & Sexual Interactions

About three years ago, just before I became a Heart Intelligence Coach, I woke one one day and I said to myself, I'm tired of this relationship shit. (By the way, to me SHIT stands for 'Spiritually Harmonizing Intelligent Truth) I had been in a relationship with a man who was not emotionally available, and the more I tried to connect with him, the farther I pushed him away. So in my pain, I decided to jump ship, take a break from romantic relationships so that I could take a really good look at myself

I wanted to discover once and for all, why was I attracting unavailable men. So, I read everything I could about how to manifest love, how to attract your soulmate, and create the relationship of your dreams. Went to every website, purchased all these courses. And at the end of that year of intense research - which is, by the way when I created my Manifest Love Course - I finally figured out the reason why I was attracting unavailable men into my life.

Want to know the answer? Simply, because I myself, was not being available to ME.

I was not being available to what I now understand as the 4 dimensions of human connection.

The Four Dimensions of Human Connection

Human relationships have 4 primary dimensions for connecting: body, mind, heart, and spirit.

Body connections include anything physical, such as touch, cuddling, hugging, kissing, and sex.

Mind connections include communicating and sharing ideas; this is the mental, or philosophical aspect of a connection.

Heart connections include the sharing of emotions, including developing feelings for the other person, a sense of intimacy a nd falling in love.

Spirit connections include helping each other grow, and a sense that we're together for a greater purpose, or to share a spiritual journey.

Think about your current relationships, and you'll realize that each relationship in your life involves some or all of these dimensions.

For instance, with a romantic partner you may enjoy a wonderful heart-body connection. With a growth-oriented friend, you could enjoy an inspiring mind-spirit connection and exploring the meaning of life.

So let me ask you, right now, your life, where are you in each one of these four areas? How satisfied are you? What kind of connection type would you like more of?

When I asked myself this very same question, I realized that most of my relationships, were at the BODY and MIND demensions. I had become very good at this kind of relationships. But what I really wanted, what my heart was longing for, was HEART and SPIRIT type of connections. I was longing for that emotional closeness, the feelings of connection, and vulnerability. It was during this time that I started learning the skills and practices that eventually helped me access my own heart and emotions, and inspired me to become a Heart Intelligence Coach so that I could help others do the same.

The 4 Levels of Sexual Experience

When we interact with another person sexually, these 4 dimensions continue to play out, but this time as levels or stages in which we develop...

At the level of the Body, which is the physical level, SEX all about survival, and pro-creation. Sex is something you want or crave. And wanting is all about giving and receiving. That's why you hear teenagers say, 'Did you get some last night?'

When you move to the next level of the mind, which looks a life linearly, SEX becomes something you DO. At this level, because it's all about DOING, which is really all about performance, some of us suffer from performance anxiety, impotence, frigidity.

The next level, is the level of the heart. At this level you open up to the energy of love, joy, and compassion. There's nothing to get, nothing to give, there's nothing to do. You forget about performing and you move into simply being. Sex becomes a WAY in which you ARE with another person. A way in which you know, feel and experience each other's energy.

And at the Spirit Level, there's a sense of knowing, that just belong together, that we're here for something much greater, and to support each other's journey. And with it, you experience a higher form of bliss.... Or what I would call Divine Love, with my sexual partner, and through my sexual partner.

I know this may all sound very complicated, but really isn't. What I believe is ultimately most important is that you take some time out, just you alone with yourself, to ask yourself a very simple and POWERFUL QUESTIONS:
WHAT IS MY HEART LONGING FOR? What type of human connections? What level of sexual intimacy?
Then LISTEN. And listen with your whole body, mind, heart and spirit. Then take action. Love yourself so much, to Have that conversation with your partner. Or if you're single, with yourself. Answering this question for yourself, could be the tiniest baby step, that you could take, to transform your relationships, and your sexuality.

Have an awesome week ahead! And, do let me know if there's anything I can do to support you.

PS. If you want to hear more about this type of stuff, in my upcoming online course, The Path to Soulmate Love I will teach you how to attract and create a romantic relationship the heart-centered way. To learn more, .

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The 4 Dimensions of Human Connections & Sexual Interactions - Gabriel Gonsalves

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If you feel your relationships have been feeling a little 'beige' lately, this video I made recently will help you figure out why! In it, I share 4 dimensions of connecting with others, and why they are so important for anyone who wants to live more fully from their heart.

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Can connecting with others help the brain the develop better?

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Matthew Lieberman, a distinguished social psychologist and neuroscientist, basically won the lottery. This past summer, he was offered three million dollars for an academic position-one million in raw income and two to do lab research. That's a king's ransom for a psychology professor. On average, psychology professors make less than six figures and rely on a patchwork of modest grants to sustain their research. All Lieberman had to do was spend four months this year and next year in Moscow, a nice enough city, doing some research-which he would have done anyway at home at UCLA.

But there was a catch. He would have to be away from his wife Naomi and seven-year-old son Ian for those eight months. They could not join him in Moscow. He had a basic trade-off problem, one that kept him up for many nights: Should I take the money and give up those eight months with my family or should I stay home and give up the money and research opportunities? In one form or another, we've all faced this dilemma, if on a more modest scale. Do you work late tonight or join your family for dinner? Do you go to the conference or to your friend's wedding? Do you prioritize your career or your relationships?
The strongest predictor of a species' brain size is the size of its social group. We have big brains in order to socialize.
Lieberman's new book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect hits the shelves this month. It's a book about relationships and why relationships are a central-though increasingly absent-part of a flourishing life. Lieberman draws on psychology and neuroscience research to confirm what Aristotle asserted long ago in his Politics: "Man is by nature a social animal ... Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god."

Just as human beings have a basic need for food and shelter, we also have a basic need to belong to a group and form relationships. The desire to be in a loving relationship, to fit in at school, to join a fraternity or sorority, to avoid rejection and loss, to see your friends do well and be cared for, to share good news with your family, to cheer on your sports team, and to check in on Facebook-these things motivate an incredibly impressive array of our thoughts, actions, and feelings.

Lieberman sees the brain as the center of the social self. Its primary purpose is social thinking. One of the great mysteries of evolutionary science is how and why the human brain got to be so large. Brain size generally increases with body size across the animal kingdom. Elephants have huge brains while mice have tiny ones. But humans are the great exception to this rule. Given the size of our bodies, our brains should be much smaller-but they are by far the largest in the animal kingdom relative to our body size. The question is why.

Scientists have debated this question for a long time, but the research of anthropologist Robin Dunbar is fairly conclusive on this point. Dunbar has found that the strongest predictor of a species' brain size-specifically, the size of its neocortex, the outermost layer-is the size of its social group. We have big brains in order to socialize. Scientists think the first hominids with brains as large as ours appeared about 600,000-700,000 years ago in Africa. Known as Homo heidelbergensis, they are believed to be the ancestors of Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals. Revealingly, they appear to be the first hominids to have had division of labor (they worked together to hunt), central campsites, and they may have been the first to bury their dead.

One of the most exciting findings to emerge from neuroscience in recent years underlines the brain's inherently social nature. When neuroscientists monitor what's going on in someone's brain, they are typically interested in what happens in it when people are involved in an active task, like doing a math problem or reaching for a ball. But neuroscientists have looked more closely at what the brain does during non-active moments, when we're chilling out and the brain is at rest. Every time we are not engaged in an active task-like when we take a break between two math problems-the brain falls into a neural configuration called the "default network." When you have down time, even if it's just for a second, this brain system comes on automatically.

What's remarkable about the default network, according to Lieberman's research, is that it looks almost identical to another brain configuration-the one used for social thinking or "making sense of other people and ourselves," as he writes: "The default network directs us to think about other people's minds-their thoughts, feelings, and goals." Whenever it has a free moment, the human brain has an automatic reflex to go social. Why would the brain, which forms only 2 percent of our body weight but consumes 20 percent of its energy, use its limited resources on social thinking, rather than conserving its energy by relaxing?

"Evolution has made a bet," Lieberman tells me, "that the best thing for our brain to do in any spare moment is to get ready for what comes next in social terms."

Evolution only makes bets if there are payoffs-and when it comes to being social, there are many benefits. Having strong social bonds is as good for you as quitting smoking. Connecting with other people, even in the most basic ways, also makes you happier-especially when you know they need your help.

One study of adults found that the brain's reward center, which turns on when people feel pleasure, was more active when people gave $10 to charity than when they received $10. In another study, comforting someone in distress activated the reward center in a powerful way. Couples were brought into the lab and the girlfriend was placed inside a brain scanner while the boyfriend sat in a chair right next to her. In some cases, the boyfriend would receive a painful electrical shock.

The girlfriend, who knew when her boyfriend was being shocked, was instructed to either hold her boyfriend's hand or to hold onto a small ball. When the scientists looked at the girlfriend's brain activity, they found that her reward system was active when she was holding the hand of her boyfriend both when he was being shocked and when he wasn't in pain-but it was most active when she held his hand as he was being shocked. Holding your boyfriend's hand feels nice, but it's especially meaningful when you know that he needs your love and affection.

When economists put a price tag on our relationships, we get a concrete sense of just how valuable our social connections are-and how devastating it is when they are broken. If you volunteer at least once a week, the increase to your happiness is like moving from a yearly income of $20,000 to $75,000. If you have a friend that you see on most days, it's like earning $100,000 more each year. Simply seeing your neighbors on a regular basis gets you $60,000 a year more. On the other hand, when you break a critical social tie-here, in the case of getting divorced-it's like suffering a $90,000 per year decrease in your income.

You don't have to be a social scientist to know how badly a breakup hurts. One of Lieberman's most provocative studies, done in collaboration with his wife Naomi Eisenberger, shows that social loss and rejection are more painful than we might realize. The researchers put people in a brain scanner and then had them play an Internet video game called Cyberball where three people toss a ball around to each other. The research subjects were led to believe that the other people in the game were also part of the study when in fact they were just two pre-programmed avatars.

The point of Cyberball is to make the player (the research subject) feel rejected. At first, all three players toss the ball to each other in turn. But at a certain point, the avatars cut the poor research participant out of the game. They toss the ball just to each other. Even though this is a silly game in a research study and has no bearing on real life, the research subjects were really hurt. They started feeling distress. They felt rejected. When they came out of the scanner, they kept talking to the researchers about how upset they were.

The most interesting part of the study is how their brains processed the social rejection. To the brain, social pain feels a lot like physical pain-a broken heart can feel like a broken leg, as Lieberman puts it in his book. The more rejected the participant said he or she felt, the more activity there was in the part of the brain that processes the distress of physical pain.

In a follow-up study, participants were called into the lab and, like last time, played Cyberball in the brain scanner. But this time, there was a twist. Before they came into the lab, half of them had taken Tylenol every day for three weeks while the other half had taken a placebo. What the researchers found in this study was remarkable: the placebo group felt just as rejected and pained as those in the initial study, but the people in the Tylenol group were totally immune to the social pain of feeling left out.

These studies are no doubt provocative and counter-intuitive. A broken leg and a broken heart seem like very different forms of pain. But there are evolutionary reasons why our brains process social pain the way they process physical pain. Pain is a sign that something is wrong. Social pain signals that we are all alone-that we are vulnerable-and need to either form new connections or rekindle old ones to protect ourselves against the many threats that are out there.

The psychologist Robert Seyfarth has extensively studied female baboons in the field and he finds that they respond to social loss, like the death of a loved one, by making new friends, often through grooming. In humans, too, social pain can be relieved through forming attachments. A baby's distress cry, for example, calls the mother to reunite with the child and tend to its needs. In studies of rats and their pups, when mothers do not respond to the distress call, the pups often die within two days of birth.

Social connections are as important to our survival and flourishing as the need for food, safety, and shelter. But over the last fifty years, while society has been growing more and more prosperous and individualistic, our social connections have been dissolving. We volunteer less. We entertain guests at our homes less. We are getting married less. We are having fewer children. And we have fewer and fewer close friends with whom we'd share the intimate details of our lives. We are increasingly denying our social nature, and paying a price for it. Over the same period of time that social isolation has increased, our levels of happiness have gone down, while rates of suicide and depression have multiplied.

"To be kept in solitude is to be kept in pain," writes the sociobiologist E. O. Wilson, "and put on the road to madness. A person's membership in his group-his tribe-is a large part of his identity."
"The more individuals endorse materialism as a positive life value, the less happy they are with are with their lives."
Across the board, people are increasingly sacrificing their personal relationships for the pursuit of wealth. The American Freshman survey has been tracking the values of college students since the mid-1960s. The survey is a good barometer of social and cultural change and it shows how far we've come in prioritizing material values over social ones. In 1965, college freshman said that "starting a family" and "helping others" were more important life goals than being "very well off financially." By the eighties, it was the reverse: "helping others" and "starting a family" were less important to college freshman than making a lot of money. In 2012, freshmen prioritizing being "very well-off financially" peaked at 81 percent, the highest that number has been in the survey's history.

"My gut says making more money will make me happier," Lieberman writes in the book, "but my gut is wrong ... The more individuals endorse materialism as a positive life value, the less happy they are with are with their lives."

These facts and more were on Lieberman's mind as he was struggling over the big decision he had to make. After a gut-wrenching couple of weeks and many sleepless nights, Lieberman finally made up his mind. In the end, he turned the three million dollars down. He did not want to be away from his wife and son. "Those are eight months with them," he told me on the phone, "that I would never get back." As tempted as he was by the money, he decided that his relationships were more important.

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Matthew Lieberman, a distinguished social psychologist and neuroscientist, basically won the lottery. This past summer, he was offered three million dollars for an academic position-one million in raw income and two to do lab research. That's a king's ransom for a psychology professor.

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Does connection have to do with the reason we keep pets?

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Ed. Note: Another favorite this Friday about those furry members of our family-no, not your Grandpa Ed, but your pet. This post was selected as an Editor's Selection on ResearchBlogging.org. It has been slightly modified from it's original posting.
I'll never forget the day S brought home a live chicken. When we lived in Queens, there were a number of fresh poultry and livestock suppliers that catered to the growing West Indian community so live poultry was readily available, but there were also a few backyard farmers in the neighborhood. S was at a gas station when he heard a cheeping noise. He knelt down to investigate and when he straightened up, found a chick sitting on the mat in the car. "What was I supposed to do?" he asked showing me the chick later that day. "It jumped in the car."

His affinity with animals is nothing new. He trained goldfish. He has refused to kill mice, insisting on releasing them into the wild. At fifteen, he nursed a pigeon back to health after setting its broken wing. During a trip to Trinidad, he befriended a bull-despite being warned away by my uncles-by sitting in the mud with it for hours. And today, we are the proud parents of two cats (we did not keep Chicken Little) who can't seem to get enough of him. I am definitely second fiddle in their feline minds-though handy to have around when they need to be fed.

S is not alone. Pat Shipman (2010) notes the significance of pets -and animals-in our lives:

In both the United States and Australia, 63% of households include pets, compared to 43% of British and 20% of Japanese households. In the United States, the proportion of households with pets is larger than those with children (522).

This relationship, dubbed the animal connection by Shipman, may have played an important role in human evolution, linking the traits that distinguish Homo sapiens from other mammals. How is it that some animals transitioned from food to friends, and what is the significance of this relationship?

The animal connection is the process by which pets or livestock become companions and/or partners, and are treated as members of the family. It refers to the close relationship between animals and humans starting 2.6 million years ago (mya), beginning with the use and study of animals by humans, and leading to regular social interactions. Today this is manifested in the adoption of animals and the care provided to them in the course of that relationship. The roots of this relationship may be found in the development of three often recognized traits of humans: making and using tools, symbolic behavior (including language, adornment, and rituals), and domestication of other species. Shipman views the animal connection as a fourth trait, tying the other three together and having an immense effect on human evolution, genetics, and behavior (2010: 522).

Though tool use has been documented in other nonhuman mammals, the manufacture and use of tools by humans is an extremely complex behavior. Modern chimpanzees are often recognized for their tool usage, but this usage varies whereas humans consistently use tools. Early humans used tools to process carcasses, and we have evidence of this from the marks left on the bones after contact with implements. Stone tools gave humans an advantage: they no longer needed to compete with scavengers. They could hunt game on their own and/or drive off those scavengers if needed. The increased meat in the human diet meant that humans occupied a predatory niche, and as such necessarily needed to disperse so that their localities could support their needs. While Shipman makes clear that the fossil record supports that expansion of geographic range about 2 mya, the more interesting point, in my opinion, is that in seeking out live game, humans needed to learn about their prey, which opened the door for a more meaningful relationship with animals.

Wild animals are certainly able to communicate with each other, but language has thus far largely been relegated to humans, who have a clearly identifiable syntax and grammar (520). Animals have alarm calls, but there are limits to what they can communicate. For instance, a chimp alerting his troupe about a snake cannot provide details about the snake: The chimp cannot say it is a brown snake. (Or maybe it can, and we just don't know.) And while educated apes may have a vocabulary of about 400 words, they don't apply syntax and grammar to those words (520). Language allows humans to share information, and we have developed delightfully complicated means of doing so:

Ritual, art, ochre, and personal adornment are used to transmit information about such concepts as beliefs, group membership, or style, leaving physical manifestations visible in the archaeological record. Nothing interpreted as art, ritual, the use of ochre, or personal adornment has been reported in nonhuman mammals in the wild (521).

As more sophisticated stone tools were developed, humans could pursue larger game. But this might often require collaboration, which encouraged language. Perhaps the strongest example of this is prehistoric art which depicts animals extensively, revealing morphology, coloring, behaviors, and sexual dimorphism (Shipman 2010: 524). It creates a record to be shared with others.

Domestication required humans to select for desirable behavioral traits and control the reproductive and genetic output over generations. They lived in close proximity to the animals, historically even bringing them into the home. Indeed, the physical closeness of humans to animals has allowed some infectious diseases to enter the human population from animal hosts, e.g., measles (dogs), mumps (poultry), tuberculosis (cattle), and the common cold (horses) (529). However, the benefits have outweighed the costs when it comes to keeping animals near-animals are much more than a food source:

The Goyet dog is at least 17,000 years older than the next oldest domesticate (also a dog) ... animals were domesticated first because their treatment was an extension of tool making (Shipman 2010: 524).

Animals were domesticated as living tools. They expanded the reach of humans and made other resources more accessible. Animals could provide labor, milk, wool, and opportunities for the production of tools and clothing. And domestication was hedged on an understanding of biology, ecology, physiology, temperament and intelligence.

While much has been made of the monkey who appears to have adopted a cat, such cross-species alloparenting is rare. Humans are the exception. We routinely take in animals integrate them into our families, creating a beneficial relationship. Our connection to Fido may be deeply rooted in our evolutionary history.

--
Shipman, P. (2010). The Animal Connection and Human Evolution Current Anthropology, 51 (4), 519-538 DOI: 10.1086/653816

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The Animal Connection: Why Do We Keep Pets?

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Ed. Note: Another favorite this Friday about those furry members of our family-no, not your Grandpa Ed, but your pet. This post was selected as an Editor's Selection on ResearchBlogging.org. It has been slightly modified from it's original posting. I'll never forget the day S brought home a live chicken.

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Can a connection happen between human and animal?

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a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else

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Does social media damage your empathy

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My Mother's Lesson In Empathy - Poem by Aufie Zophy

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My Mother's Lesson In Empathy - Poem by Aufie Zophy

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At the time, I was a five-year old boy
A visit to my aunty, always a joy
My cousin was playing with cars at the back
He just had a new one, the body in black
Orange lines on the side, oh boy, what a toy

Only a few minutes later, it is hard to believe
My cousin was called and he had to leave
This left us alone, that beautiful car, and me
The temptation was great, as great as could be,
I could not resist and became a thieve

Into my pocket, very smoothly it went,
I was delighted, extremely content
When we reached home, I told to my mom
With much pride about what I had done
And that's where contentment would end

My mother, incredibly sweet, incredibly bright
Swallowed her anger but asked in a voice, slightly tight
Please consider for a minute or two
How you would feel if someone did this to you.
Deep in my mind, I considered this plight.

It was easy to see the horrible feeling
I'd caused in my cousin by carelessly stealing
Our next visit, I was allowed to put it silently back
That car, with orange stripes on a body of black
Since then, I ‘ve quit forever the stealing

I don't think that there ever could be
A more brilliant lesson in empathy

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The difference between the feeling of empathy and sympathy is that sympathy is feeling sorrow for others but empathy is putting yourself in others shoes.

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People with social anxiety tend to be extra sensitive to the state of mind of others.

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A new study recently published in PubMed has indicated that people who suffer from anxiety and social phobias are extra sensitive to the states of mind of other people. The more socially anxious a person is, the more likely he or she is to be able to discern the mental states of the people around him or her more accurately. The study stated, "Results support the hypothesis that high socially anxious individuals may demonstrate a unique social-cognitive abilities profile with elevated cognitive empathy tendencies and high accuracy in affective mental state attributions."

Defintion of An Empath

In the study, the researchers were looking to find any hidden links between social anxiety and being an empath. While the extrasensory skill of being an empath is still widely considered the work of science fiction, there is some evidence to suggest that some people can go above and beyond the idea of simply being strongly empathetic. An empath is generally considered to be those who are highly sensitive to the emotions of the life that exists around them. This study used scientific testing methods to determine the levels of empathy within a group of subjects. The subjects who tested high for empathic skill also demonstrated high levels of social anxiety.

What The Study Proves

The researchers on this study assessed 21 people who demonstrated high social anxiety levels and 22 people who had low social anxiety levels. The first group exhibited off the charts empathic tendencies and could more accurately indicate the mental states of other people. The people who exhibited lower levels of social anxiety exhibited corresponding levels of empathy. The team is planning larger scale research in order to confirm their current findings and look into some other matters that could be associated.

Some are saying that this could mean big things for people who suffer from social anxieties. If the abilities of people who suffer from social anxieties are actually a result of a different kind of condition than the treatment approach could be different. Some scholars from the realm of metaphysical studies intend to use this evidence to convince society that these people have a gift rather than an illness. One group issued a statement saying, "They possess a rare gift of empathy, which makes them able to feel the emotional experiences of people around them. But this flood of emotions and energy is so devastating that the brain causes those disturbing symptoms in the body in order to avoid and protect itself from this "emotional pollution"."

Differing Opinions In The Field of Psychology

Traditional academics and metaphysical academics agree that people who suffer from social anxiety have higher levels of empathetic ability than people who do not suffer from social anxiety, but these academics do not agree about what this means. Traditionalists believe that social anxiety is simply a mental illness that needs the proper treatment in order to be maintained.

Some scientists from both camps also agree that social anxiety and empathic ability can be controlled by being mindful of the environment in which you put yourself, making changes in your lifestyle to be able to control the amount of "emotional pollution" that you are taking on, and being careful to surround yourself with people who you trust. You may be able to deal with much of your condition in this way, but there are always options should you choose to seek treatment or support.

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New Study Shows Link Between Empathy And Social Anxiety

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A new study recently published in PubMed has indicated that people who suffer from anxiety and social phobias are extra sensitive to the states of mind of other people. The more socially anxious a person is, the more likely he or she is to be able to discern the mental states of the people around him or her more accurately.

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Sociopaths can feel empathy (But Its more like they can switch it on at will)

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Recent research suggests that sociopaths can feel empathy (or at least their mirror neurons light up as if they are feeling empathy) when directed to put themselves in the shoes of someone else. From the BBC News:

Psychopaths do not lack empathy, rather they can switch it on at will, according to new research. Placed in a brain scanner, psychopathic criminals watched videos of one person hurting another and were asked to empathise with the individual in pain. Only when asked to imagine how the pain receiver felt did the area of the brain related to pain light up. Scientists, reporting in Brain, say their research explains how psychopaths can be both callous and charming. The team proposes that with the right training, it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their 'empathy switch', which could bring them a step closer to rehabilitation. Criminals with psychopathy characteristically show a reduced ability to empathise with others, including their victims. Evidence suggests they are also more likely to reoffend upon release than criminals without the psychiatric condition.

I always wonder at this logical jump -- that a lack of empathy is the primary reason why sociopaths reoffend as opposed to, say, fearlessness, overoptimism, etc.? Maybe, but I haven't seen actual research on the issue, only idle speculation. The LA Times reporter, Geoffrey Mohan, takes this flawed line of reasoning one step further and suggests that only automatic empathy will do the trick:

But there is a substantial gulf between automatic empathic responses and those that result from cognitive control. Because a psychopath likely cannot be "trained" to summon up empathy to counterbalance manipulative and violent behavior, therapies would have to focus on embedding the process where it belongs: in the largely unconscious emotional regulating centers of the brain.

I disagree. I think sociopaths can be trained. I think that is the biggest implication of this recent research. And I think other research has shown that conscientiousness is the trait most strongly correlated with successful sociopaths vs. unsuccessful sociopaths. And what is conscientiousness but the acquisition of good habits, i.e. training. Plus, my own experience suggests that sociopaths can be trained. Readers of the book will recognize Ann as my trainer. So, it's an odd assertion to make, that sociopaths can't be trained. But luckily the researchers seem to share my view:

"From a therapeutical point of view, the big implication of our study is it does not seem to be the case that they have broken empathy per se," Keysers said. "That would suggest that what therapies need to do is not so much try to create empathy in them, but try to make empathy more automatic and potentially do so by making the social cues of others more salient, so they will always be drawn into this empathy mode that they can activate when they want to."

Especially given what we know of cognitive empathy being something we can practice.

So do I think that this is major news and will change the way we view sociopaths? Maybe it will change the common (mis)conceptions regarding sociopathy, but it is completely in line with recent trends in sociopathy research. For instance, Joseph Newman has a similar theory that sociopathy is largely an attentional issue, and that when you direct their attention to emotions (apparently even to the emotions of others), they experience them in relatively "normal" ways. The researchers of this current study agree:

Theories of psychopathy's origins center around deficits in instrumental learning and attention. Keyser's conclusions merge with those hypotheses. Of particular note were scans that showed abnormal activation in the amygdala, an area of the paralimbic system associated with emotional learning. Psychopaths may lack clues to the salience of social stimuli, an attribute shared to a certain degree with autism spectrum disorder.
[I have often wondered if sociopathy is an autism spectrum disorder]
Psychopaths therefore may not be able to develop more complex structures of rules and morals, said Keysers.
"They don't have this tendency that we normally have to be drawn into what the other person is feeling, and you can rephrase that as an attentional deficit," Keysers said. "They simply don't attend to what is going on with other people, automatically."

So no, I don't think this is so different from what has been the recent trend in how researchers have viewed sociopathic empathy, particularly when you consider that sociopaths have always been acknowledged to have cognitive empathy, just not emotive empathy. Research suggests that cognitive empathy can be enhanced by attention directing exercises such as perspective taking. I have consistently said that sociopaths are able to put themselves into the shoes of another and imagine what it might be like to be that person, which possibly explains why we're so good at manipulation. Also, I have even experienced this type of focused empathy accidentally.

Things I would like to see explored further:

Is this sort of empathy different from mentalizing?

Can anyone empathize with things they haven't yet experienced or the experiences of others that are dissimilar to them (e.g. white people don't empathize with Trayvon Martin as much as African Americans do)?

What is the relationship between this attentional empathy and being moved (manipulated into feeling your own feelings in response to stimulus?)

So this is good news for sociopaths and our fight against the stigma, but knowing how much some people blindly hate sociopaths, my guess is that this is eventually going to be used to argue that sociopaths are just being lazy or opportunistic when they choose not to empathize.
As a side note, apparently in the Netherlands psychopaths have access to the insanity defense? "Keysers and his team were given access to offenders who committed violent crimes, such as rape and murder, but who were found not responsible due to a psychopathy diagnosis." Sort of not surprising for the Dutch.

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Recent research suggests that sociopaths can feel empathy (or at least their mirror neurons light up as if they are feeling empathy) when directed to put themselves in the shoes of someone else. From the BBC News: Psychopaths do not lack empathy, rather they can switch it on at will, according to new research.

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Are you an empathetic person?

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Empathy can be learned, and it is the medicine the world needs right now, as having this trait can bring about greater success, both personally and professionally. Being empathetic can also lead to happiness, because when others feel what you're feeling, that inspires a sense of inner contentment.

Those who are empathetic, otherwise known as "empaths," are like sponges when it comes to human emotions. They feel everything that other beings do-whether humans or animals. They tend to get fatigued in crowds because they feel everyone's energy, thoughts, and motivations. They are people who process all that is told to them, and in this way they almost always practice "effective and compassionate listening." In fact, therapists and other medical professionals tend to get the best information from their clients and patients by implementing the beautiful art of listening. Hearing what others are conveying can reveal disharmony that can lead to both health and wellness. For those of you who want to brush up on your empathic skills, the best thing to do is to truly listen when others are speaking, and respond with verbal or visual cues to show that you are doing just that. Put down your cell phone when you're having a conversation with someone, look the person in the eye, and really engage without distractions or interruptions.

In her book The Empath's Survival Guide, Dr. Judith Orloff, a psychiatrist, notes that she is an empath herself, and in her practice has treated empaths for more than two decades. When describing empaths, she says, "We feel everything, often to an extreme, and have little guard up between others and ourselves. As a result, we are often overwhelmed by excessive stimulation and are prone to exhaustion and sensory overload" (p. 1).

In some individuals, empathy is genetic, but in others, it might relate to an environmental condition during childhood, such as emotional neglect; early trauma; or being raised by an alcoholic, depressed, or narcissistic parent. In fact, empaths like myself are targets for narcissists, and we need to be particularly mindful of people who are "emotional vampires."

As an empath, I feel others' emotions, physical symptoms, and energy. When I was a child, I was often viewed as being overly sensitive, and was advised to get a "thicker skin." Energy fields were not discussed back then, but now I can see that my energy field was easily penetrated by others. Later in life, I was taught to create an invisible "egg" around my body when in the presence of emotional vampires who wanted to zap my energy.

To protect ourselves, we empaths sometimes get involved with drugs during adolescence as a form of self-protection. While I don't advocate this practice, it's a good idea to be aware of the effects of being an empath.

Dr. Orloff suggests that there are different types of empaths-physical empaths, who are attuned to the physical symptoms of others; emotional empaths, who soak up both the happy and sad feelings of others; and intuitive empaths, who have extraordinary perception in dreams, and so on.

Ever since my first cancer diagnosis, I intuitively wanted to remove emotional vampires from my life. I didn't realize at the time that by surrounding myself with positive-thinking individuals, I was protecting myself as an empath. Learning how to cope with being an empath is crucial for survival.

In the end, I would rather be an empath than not be one, because the life journey is one filled with passion and joy, and it is a beautiful thing when one is tuned into all its many aspects. We empaths feel a strong sense of interconnectedness that others might not experience. However, I do realize that being an empath has its challenges. I've been known to have a large heart and instinctively know when others are in need. That is, I am the one who shows up when others don't. Because we feel things more intensely, we empaths can be taken in by the aforementioned emotional vampires, and we are also susceptible to feeling lonely and isolated. Also, female empaths, in particular, need to set boundaries, because we easily fall into the caretaker role.

As Dr. Orloff says, "We are in the in the midst of an evolution of human consciousness, and empaths are the path forgers. A sacred responsibility comes with our sensitivities which demand more of us than simply retreating into isolation. It's vital that we avoid feeling overwhelmed so that we can fully shine our power in the world" (pp. 26-27).

Here are some journaling prompts to honor your empathy:

Write about a time when you deeply felt a loved one's pain.

Write about a time when empathy or compassion helped you survive a difficult situation.

Write about a time when you felt helpless, but your loving care and empathy helped you navigate the situation.

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Empathy can be learned, and it is the medicine the world needs right now, as having this trait can bring about greater success, both personally and professionally. Being empathetic can also lead to happiness, because when others feel what you're feeling, that inspires a sense of inner contentment.

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Is Empathy learned?

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Empathy. It's the bedrock of intimacy and close connection; in its absence, relationships remain emotionally shallow, defined largely by mutual interests or shared activities.

Without empathy, we could live and work side-by-side with other people, and remain as clueless about their inner selves and feelings as we are about those of strangers on a crowded subway car. Empathy isn't just the engine for closeness and prosocial behavior; it also puts on the brakes when we are behaving badly and become aware of the pain we're causing. Those of us who've had the misfortune of being intimate with someone high in narcissistic traits, combined with impaired empathy, know the devastation that can ensue. When there are no brakes and an excess of self-interest, you end up with scorched earth.

Yet for all the emphasis and value our culture places on empathy-especially as an antidote to bullying and other anti-social behavior-there's real confusion about what it is and isn't. Here's what science knows about empathy:
1. Empathy and sympathy aren't synonyms.
People often use the words interchangeably, but they are, in fact, separate processes. When you feel sympathy for someone, you identify with the situation that the person finds him or herself in. This can be a perfectly genuine feeling; you can feel sympathy for people you've never met and for a plight you've personally never experienced, as well as for people you know and scenarios that are familiar to you.

But feeling sympathy doesn't necessarily connect you to the person or what he or she is feeling. You can be sympathetic to someone's situation while being completely clueless about his feelings and thoughts. Sympathy rarely compels you into action except, perhaps, writing a check when you see heartrending photos of abused dogs set to weepy music on television commercials. Sympathy doesn't build connection.

The emotional process called empathy is something else; it involves identifying with what someone is feeling and, additionally, actually feeling those feelings yourself. This isn't a metaphor like walking a mile in someone else's shoes, but more literal than not, as neuroscience has shown. Sympathy is feeling for someone; empathy involves feeling with them.
2. Empathy isn't about intuition.
Research shows that most people think of empathy as intuitive, more of a gut reaction than a function of reasoning, somehow connected to feeling or associated with the popular term " mindfulness."

Psychologists Jean Decety and Claus Lamm suggest that empathy consists not just of emotion sharing (a largely unconscious process), but executive control to regulate and modulate the experience. Both are supported by specific and interacting neural systems. Research shows that mimicry is part of human interaction, and it happens on an unconscious level; we mimic the facial expressions of those we interact with, along with their vocalizations, postures, and movements. Talk to a frowning person and you'll probably end up with a frown on your face too. This unconscious mimicry probably helped early humans communicate and feel kinship; it's the component that precedes empathy. Neuroscience also confirms that seeing someone in pain activates the parts of your brain that register pain.

Being able to take on the perspective of someone else-a cognitive function-is also part of empathy; it's thought that children begin to see how others see them around the age of four and, in turn, they are able to see others by shifting perspective. Finally, the ability to regulate and modulate emotion is part of empathy. Since science knows that moods can be "contagious," the ability to self-regulate stops us from going down for the count when we empathize with someone who's suffering. Clearly being thrust into the depths of emotional turmoil yourself would be a deterrent to empathizing with anyone.

An interesting series of experiments at Harvard didn't just look at the belief that empathy is intuitive; they also compared empathic accuracy when intuitive and systematic ways of thinking were employed. The participants in these studies were largely seasoned, high-level business professionals. In the first study, they asked participants whether, if they were specifically hiring for people good at assessing other people's emotional and mental states, they would coach employees in an intuitive and instinctive way, or if they'd use systematic and analytical thinking. Three-quarters chose intuitive coaching! But three following studies showed that individuals who used systematic thinking were better able to read other people-whether in a dyadic interview, interpreting expression and emotion in a photograph, or other situations.
3. Empathy engages specific neural circuitry in the brain.
Experiments in neuroscience, using MRI imaging, provide physical evidence that bolsters the theoretical understanding of empathy by pinpointing the parts of the brain involved. That's what research by Boris C. Bernhardt and Tania Singer showed in an extensive review of the scientific literature, including their own work. Mimicry and mirroring-key parts of the theoretical understanding of empathy-actually take place in specific areas of the brain as well.
4. Empathy is learned behavior even though the capacity for it is inborn.
The best way to think about empathy is an innate capacity that needs to be developed, and to see it as a detail in a larger picture. Infants learn to identify and regulate their emotions through successful dyadic interactions with their caretakers, primarily their mothers. An attuned mother who's receptive to her child's needs and cues is one who permits her baby to thrive and develop emotionally. By having his or her emotional states recognized and responded to, the groundwork is laid not just for the child's sense of self but sense of other. In time, that seed grows into empathy and the capacity for intimate connection. (This is called secure attachment.)

Children who don't experience this kind of dyadic interaction have a diminished sense of self, difficulties managing and regulating emotions, and sometimes an impaired capacity for empathy. The avoidantly attached individual isn't comfortable in intimate settings, and has trouble recognizing his or her own emotions, as well as those of others. The anxiously attached adult may lack the ability to moderate emotions and may end up being swept up in someone else's emotions. That isn't empathy.
5. The capacity for empathy varies from one person to the next.
Not surprisingly, the extent of your own emotional intelligence-your ability to know what you're feeling, to accurately label and name different emotions with precision, and to use your emotions to inform your thinking-will make it easier or harder for you to be empathic. The more connected you are to your own emotions, the greater your ability to feel for others. Again, once you realize that empathy has a cognitive component, this makes perfect sense. It should come as no surprise that research shows adolescents who consider friendships and social connections important and are "embedded" in their social networks are more likely to display empathy than those who don't and consider themselves outsiders. And for all the press focused on the exclusionary chivvying of mean girls, it turns out that girls value social networks and friends more than boys.
6. Empathy might be dyadic and not just about the individual.
That's the contrarian point of view put forth by anthropologists who underscore that psychology's way of looking at empathy-as an individual's trait-has its limitations. A study by Simone Roerig and others emphasized that anthropologists view empathy as depending on "what others are willing or able to tell about themselves." By seeing the dynamic as dyadic, the point is made that the character of the person who's the target of empathy is as important as the empathizer. Additionally, they stress that cultural and social norms also act as moderators of empathy. In a study of Dutch school children, they found that kids were more empathetic when reminded by a teacher to "be a good classmate," but that empathy declined when it came to choosing sides for a game. Friends who were chosen last and were upset about it were comforted; mere classmates who felt this way were labeled "crybabies." Social convention and contexts play a role in how empathic a person is in a given situation, regardless of the individual capacity for empathy.
Visit me on Facebook. Copyright ©2017 by Peg Streep

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Empathy. It's the bedrock of intimacy and close connection; in its absence, relationships remain emotionally shallow, defined largely by mutual interests or shared activities. Without empathy, we could live and work side-by-side with other people, and remain as clueless about their inner selves and feelings as we are about those of strangers on a crowded subway car.

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Using empathy though storytelling helps others connect with the story.

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Not only is it a human emotion but it is an animal one too.

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Empathy is the ability to feel and understand feelings of others