WRT 105 course, “Feeling Good: Empathy and Ethics” mainly focused on many aspects of how empathy affected society and the way of living for human beings. One of the occasions were discussing empathy that was portrayed in the movie, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In the movie, the main character’s daughter Scout shows empathy of a child and how adults have affected her throughout the time her lifetime. The novel-based film also described how child abuse affected the lack of empathy in Mayella Ewell, someone who claimed victimization from a black male and how that male, as a person from a background solely depended upon others’ segregation and discrimination, but a decently loving family could empathize with another person (Mayella). The man, Robinson, and Mayella both went through mentally challenging experiences, but one could empathize “better” than the other. The film also portrayed how ethics of different time periods and regions could affect decisions of the people no matter what the truth was presented.
A topic that could be generally derived from the film’s idea of empathy, in particular, is related to what every character has in common: trauma and complexes from their surroundings and home environments. Considering the fact that most human beings go through an event that creates a complex in their brains, or in critical situations, trauma, a curiosity in how they respond to their surroundings differs in individuals in a population- based on how they were raised or their cultures/ traditions: Why does childhood trauma lead to social and emotional effect in how they treat others, as adults?
From what is observed from daily lives of people, it seems that people who have gone through traumatic experiences cope with hardship in two different ways. In theory, one group of people take a positive route and uses empathy to help others in need as a part of their coping mechanism while the other group focuses on the negative side, which leads them to isolate themselves from society or leads them to believe that others deserve to go through the same things they go through as well, which is also the use of empathy. Through research, definite neurobiological reasons of why humans react a certain way to childhood trauma such as child abuse or disaster will be found to support the argument that humans act a certain way because of different chemical products that can affect the frontal lobes of the brain, which is responsible for decision making and emotion generation.
Possible Resources::
Aprawong, T. Em, Meeske, Kathleen A., Milam, Joel E., Oland, Alyssa, and Ruccione, Kathleen. “Post-Traumatic Growth Among An Ethnically Diverse Sample of Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors.” Psycho-Oncology, vol.22, Issue 10, Oct. 2013, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pon.3286/abstract. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
Blue, Laura. “Childhood Trauma Leaves Legacy of Brain Changes.” Time, 16 Jan. 2013, http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/16/childhood-trauma-leaves-legacy-of-brain-changes/. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
Brock, D., Cassell, W A., Dubey, B L, Maureen, C., and Tyrone, C. “SIS Symbols of PTSD and the Need for Empathy in Therapy.” Psychology and Mental Health, vol. , Issue 1, Jan. 2015, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1677218250?pq-origsite=summon. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
Dziobek, Isabel, Heekeren, Hauke R., Preibler, Sandra, and Roepke, Stefan. “Social Cognition in Borderline Personality Disorder” Frontiers in Neuroscience, 195, 4 Jan. 2014, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
Klein, Ehud, Palgi, Sharon, and Sharmay-Tsoory, Simone. “The Role of Oxytocin in Empathy in PTSD.” Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, vol. 9, Issue 1, Jan. 2017, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1792775903?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=13567. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
Knox, Jean. “’Feeling for’ and ‘Feeling With’: Developmental and Neuroscientific Perspectives on Intersubjectivity and Empathy.” PubMed MEDLINE, vol. 58, Issue 4, Sep. 2013, http://rochester.summon.serialssolutions.com/search?s.q=Neuroscience+trauma&submit=+&spellcheck=true&keep_r=true#!/search/document?ho=t&fvf=IsScholarly,true,f&l=en&q=Neuroscience%20trauma%20empathy&id=FETCHMERGED-LOGICAL-c1579-49d0846c6071ef67f8bea499e55ab9f56099b6361c96dfec32f1bfa839d273952. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
LeDoux, Joseph, and Yehuda, Rachel. “Response Variation Following Trauma: A Translational Neuroscience Approach to Understanding PTSD.” Neuron Cell Press, vol. 56, Issue 1, Oct. 2007, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627307007040. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
Smith, Adam Jeremy. “What is the Relationship Between Stress and Empathy?.” Greater Good Magazine, 13 Aug. 2015, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_is_the_relationship_between_stress_and_empathy. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.
Szalavitz, Maia. “How Disasters and Trauma Can Affect Children’s Empathy.” Time, 22 Jan. 2013, http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/22/how-disasters-and-trauma-can-affect-childrens-empathy/. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.