INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL HARMONY THROUGH EMPATHY
INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL HARMONY THROUGH EMPATHY

Summary/Abstract: Empathy, a concept that involves an interpersonal experience is found in all aspects of the socialuniverse, especially in prosocial behavior, morality and regulation of aggression. In the contextof the major medical and social crisis caused by the pandemic, the need to develop empathicsocial skills becomes a pressing need. Anxiety generated by the threat of disease and death hasled to the emergence of paradoxical individual or social behaviors. Thus, by disturbing thecognitive harmony of the individual - irrational thoughts in relation to contamination and illnessor on the contrary the denial of the disease was destructured emotional harmony (anxiety,depression, psychosomatic manifestations) with adverse consequences at the individual andsubsequent social level. The objective manifestation of disharmonious cognitions and emotionsmaterialized in the manifestation of maladaptive behaviors. The present paper is an analysis ofthe two theories on empathy - Simulation Theory and Mind Theory in order to improve prosocialbehavior in a pandemic context. Studies show the significant influences of social and culturalfactors on the empathic capacity of the individual. In this sense, it is important to emphasize thatempathic skills can be learned and developed in relation to the environment and the socialcontext. Understanding the concept of social empathy is important by being able to provide amodel of thinking and action that opens new ways of contextual approach to the current situationthat could ultimately lead to alleviating the crisis and improving social conditions by adopting anadaptive behavior in according to the limits imposed by the new epidemiological situation..

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