Science

Affection

The science of interpersonal touch: an overview

Gallace & Spence, 2010

"In this review, we critically evaluate the results of the research on this topic that have emerged from disciplines, such as cognitive and social psychology, neuroscience, and cultural anthropology. We highlight some of the most important advances to have been made in our understanding of this topic: For example, research has shown that interpersonal tactile stimulation provides an effective means of influencing people’s social behaviors (such as modulating their tendency to comply with requests, in affecting people’s attitudes toward specific services, in creating bonds between couples or groups, and in strengthening romantic relationships), regardless of whether or not the tactile contact itself can be remembered explicitly. What is more, interpersonal touch can be used to communicate emotion in a manner similar to that demonstrated previously in vision and audition..."

Gallace, A., & Spence, C. (2010). The science of interpersonal touch: an overview. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 34(2), 246–59. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2008.10.004

Empathy

Talking about social conflict in the MRI scanner: Neural correlates of being empathized with

Seehausen, Kazzer, Bajbouj, Heekeren, Jacobs, Klann-Delius, … Prehn 2013

"This study investigated the emotional effects and neural correlates of being empathized with while speaking about a currently experienced real-life social conflict during fMRI. Specifically, we focused on the effects of cognitive empathy in the form of paraphrasing, a technique regularly used in conflict resolution... Results confirm previous findings indicating that cognitive empathy exerts a positive short-term effect on emotions in social conflict, while at the same time increasing autonomic arousal... Empathic responses engaged a fronto-parietal network with activity in the right precentral gyrus (PrG), left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), left inferior parietal gyrus (IPG), and right postcentral gyrus (PoG). Processing unempathic responses involved a fronto-temporal network with clusters peaking in the left inferior frontal gyrus, pars triangularis (IFGTr), and right temporal pole (TP). A specific modeling of feeling misunderstood activated a network consisting of the IFG, left TP, left Heschl gyrus, IFGTr, and right precuneus, extending to several limbic regions, such as the insula, amygdala, putamen, and anterior cingulate cortex/right middle cingulum(ACC/MCC). The results support the effectiveness of a widely used conflict resolution technique..."

Seehausen, M., Kazzer, P., Bajbouj, M., Heekeren, H. R., Jacobs, A. M., Klann-Delius, G., … Prehn, K. (2013). Talking about social conflict in the MRI scanner: Neural correlates of being empathized with. NeuroImage, 84C, 951–961. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.09.056

Beauty

The role of the experience of beauty in psychotherapy

Margaret Laracy, 2011

"...Beauty offers an invitation to continue to behold the object of disclosure. Rather than eliciting grasping, beauty elicits contemplation. Beauty is not known in the abstract, but in an encounter with the thing judged to be beautiful. Beauty is not intrapsychic, but relational. Something outside of the person captures his interest. What can be said of beauty at the outset, then, is that its actualization occurs within a relationship, that the impact on the subject involves an attraction toward the object for its own sake, without any utilitarian purpose. Affect and intellect are engaged..."

Laracy, M. R. (2011). The role of the experience of beauty in psychotherapy. (P. C. Vitz, Ed.)ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. The Institute for the Psychological Sciences, United States -- Virginia.

Compassion

Functional neural plasticity and associated changes in positive affect after compassion training.

Klimecki, Leiberg, Lamm, & Singer, 2013

"The development of social emotions such as compassion is crucial for successful social interactions as well as for the maintenance of mental and physical health, especially when confronted with distressing life events... Compassion training increased positive affective experiences, even in response to witnessing others in distress. On the neural level, we observed that, compared with a memory control group, compassion training elicited activity in a neural network including the medial orbitofrontal cortex, putamen, pallidum, and ventral tegmental area--brain regions previously associated with positive affect and affiliation. Taken together, these findings suggest that the deliberate cultivation of compassion offers a new coping strategy that fosters positive affect even when confronted with the distress of others."

Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Lamm, C., & Singer, T. (2013). Functional neural plasticity and associated changes in positive affect after compassion training. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 23(7), 1552–61. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs142