Compassion: Easier For A Broken Leg Than Heart

Antonio Damasio (the David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at USC and the director of USC's Brain and Creativity Institute) says brain scans showed that even the most complex psychological emotions engaged many of the same brain systems that responded to physical states.

That suggests these emotions "go deep in our brain and they also go deep in our body, in our flesh," he says.

But Immordino-Yang notes that it took the brain up to six seconds to react to a complex emotion like emotional pain, while reactions to physical pain occurred almost instantly. Reactions to emotional pain also took much longer to dissipate.

That raises questions about the effects of news programs and video games in which a traumatic psychological event may flash by in a just a second or two, Damasio says.

He says that might not be long enough for children who are still learning compassion.

"What if it is happening to a child who does not have parents or a guardian around who can say, well, 'Wait a minute, there are terrible implications for the person who just underwent that particular event'?" Damasio says.

Without that sort of help, some children may not acquire the full range of compassion for other people, Damasio says. They also might not develop admiration for people who do virtuous things.

Damasio says that would be a big problem because compassion and admiration help anchor moral systems — and society itself.

Compassion: Easier For A Broken Leg Than Heart by Jon Hamilton on NPR.