#ProsocialBehavior

A groundbreaking new study has found that empathy—a capacity long assumed to be innate or difficult to cultivate—can actually be trained by associating another person’s happiness with personal emotional rewards. This discovery, published in Psychological Science by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, indicates that emotional conditioning can strengthen empathy and encourage genuine acts of kindness, even in the absence of ongoing rewards (Neuroscience News).

Groundbreaking neuroscientific research has revealed that empathy—long considered an immutable personality trait—can be systematically enhanced through sophisticated emotional conditioning techniques that associate another person’s happiness with personal emotional rewards. This transformative discovery, published in Psychological Science by researchers at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, demonstrates that empathy represents a trainable capacity capable of generating genuine kindness behaviors that persist even after reward systems cease, offering profound implications for Thai society’s emphasis on social harmony and collective wellbeing.

A recent study has unlocked key insights into the brain mechanisms behind why some individuals are more inclined to help others, highlighting the powerful role of social bonding and neural responses. The findings, based on experiments with rats, provide a scientific window into the roots of prosocial behavior—those acts of kindness and assistance that strengthen communities, families, and friendships. For Thai readers, these results could help explain the diversity of helpfulness observed in daily life, from simple acts of hospitality to the outpouring of aid during national disasters.