ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on recent work illustrating that empathy is a multi-faceted phenomenon, with facets interacting differently. In considering empathy within a relationship context, the chapter is helpful to explore the related concepts of perspective taking and attitudes. The study of perspective taking is embedded in a body of literature on understanding cognitive and moral development as outlined in the early work of Piaget and further developed by Selman and Kohlberg. The development of moral reasoning skills involves the setting down of an enduring system of feelings and beliefs drawn from experience. Decety and Jackson have summarised approaches to studying the neurobiology of human emotion processing as leading to either a conceptualisation of processing as automatic or as consciously driven. Our developing understanding of empathy has been informed by extensive studies in separate but related fields including social psychology, comparative physiology, developmental science and cognitive neuroscience.
