In Just Babies, Paul Bloom describes morality as something that we are born with. He goes on to point out different aspects that assemble together to form our morality. These include empathy, fairness, punishment, family and strangers, and bodies. Empathy is something that stood out to me the most because of my forensic psychology class. Are we born with empathy and does it develop over time? If we are born without empathy how does this affect our choices and life after childhood? These are complex questions that have an abundant amount of components that go into them, but they are important. The nature vs. nurture debate is what comes to mind when trying to put forth my own opinion. I believe that empathy is innate and that it is fostered over time to become even greater. As most things in life are. What happens if infants come into this world with zero empathy? How will they affect others? I will first discuss animals because animals are studied and compared to humans all of the time due to close genetic makeups that is possible. Empathic studies done in children and infants will be an important aspect of my argument as well. Lastly, I will discuss what happens if you are born without empathy. Which is basically putting someone into the category of being considered a psychopath. People can also be “good” or “bad” psychopaths. I will progress into more detail later with that. Whilst believing that empathy is innate I reflect back to the rationalists discussed in class. One major figure such as, Descartes comes to mind. Descartes believed in innateness of knowledge. The idea that we are born with certain ideas that help us to make sense of our world. Do animals have empathy? This is an interesting question because most woul... ... middle of paper ... ...y. Science 18 May 2012: 336 (6083), 874-876. Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, Jean Decety, and Peggy Mason. Empathy and Pro-social Behavior in Rats. Science 9 December 2011:334(6061), 1427-1430 Hare, R. D. (1999). Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Huss, M. T. (2009). Forensic Psychology: Research, Clinical Practice, and Applications. Massachusetts, Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Bloom, P. (2013). Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil. New York, NY: Crown Publishers. Landow, G.P. (2008). So it is with Ourselves. Retreived from http://www.victorianweb.org/science/darwin/sympathy.html Hagerty, B. B. (2010). A Neuroscientist Uncovers a Dark Secret. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127888976 Fancher, R.E. & Rutherford, A. (2011) Pioneers of Psychology. W. W. Norton and Company.
In the book “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz, the author followed the lives of two young brothers (Lafayette and Pharoah) while they grew up in the harsh streets of Chicago in the late 1980’s. The author uses the story of the two boys’ lives to discuss the social divide in our very own society and to persuade readers that there is a major problem in “the projects” of the United States.
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry is a book by Jon Ronson, where he investigates the idea of psychopathy and the many individuals involved. Psychopathy is defined as “a person who is mentally ill, who does not care about other people, and who is usually dangerous or violent.” Ronson visited mental health professionals and psychopaths in order to determine the right way to control the diagnosis of mental health disorders. Throughout the novel, Ronson focuses on three main themes, which are the definition of madness, unnecessary mental diagnoses and the problem with confirmation bias.
For my book report, I have read and evaluated Dr. Hales book titled Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us, published by The Guilford Press. The purpose of the book was to bring awareness to psychopaths that live among us and will be describe in farther details in the paper. I will evaluated the purpose, strengths, weakness of the book and include a summarized portion for others to understand.
education-portal.com>. The "Behavioral Analysis Unit. " History of Forensic Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. The Web.
Schmalleger, Frank. Criminology: A Brief Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., Publishing as Prentice Hall., 2011.
Empathy is imperative to teach kids from a young age in order to help them recognize mental states, such as thoughts and emotions, in themselves and others. Vital lessons, such as walking in another’s shoes or looking at a situation in their perspective, apprehends the significance of the feelings of another. Our point of view must continuously be altered, recognizing the emotions and background of the individual. We must not focus all of our attention on our self-interest. In the excerpt, Empathy, written by Stephen Dunn, we analyze the process of determining the sentiment of someone.
Premack, D. (2007). Foundation of morality in the infant. Social brain matters: Stances on the neurobiology of social cognition, 190, 161-167.
McGrath, Michael G. "Criminal Profiling: Is There a Role for the Forensic Psychiatrist?." Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 28. (2000): 315-324. Web. 13 Apr 2011.
Maguire, M., Morgan, R., and Reiner, R. (2012) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. 5th ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
“Without Conscience" by Robert D. Hare is one aimed towards making the general public aware of the many psychopaths that inhabit the world we live in. Throughout the book Hare exposes the reader to a number of short stories; all with an emphasis on a characteristic of psychopaths. Hare makes the claim that close monitoring of psychopathy are vital if we ever hope to gain a hold over Psychopathy- A disorder that affects not only the individual but also society itself. He also indicates one of the reasons for this book is order to correctly treat these individuals we have to be able to correctly identify who meets the criteria. His ultimate goal with the text is to alleviate some of the confusion in the increase in criminal activity by determining how my of this is a result of Psychopathy.
Review, PubMed PMID: 19543886. Saferstein, R. (2011). Criminalistics: An introduction to forensic science (10th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
As told by professor Sapolsky, when a chimpanzee for example has become a victim of a pummeling by a higher-ranking chimp, other chimps will empathize with him by grooming. An example that I think humans would partake in is feeling sorry for children in third world countries. We see televised images of children and for some people sympathy for is felt for them. Now, for others a greater level is felt known as empathy in which they may even volunteer to go those countries to make a difference. The ability to make the lives of someone better provides them with a sense of
Greenfield, D. (2007). Introduction to forensic psychology. issues and controversies in crime and justice. Journal of Psychiatry & Law, 35(2), 201-201-204,105-106.
Morgan, R., Maguire, M. And Reiner, R. (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gaensslen, R. E., Harris, H A., & Lee, H. (2008). Introduction to Forensic Science and Criminalistics. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. .