Empathy Is Killed By Popular Painkiller Found In 600 Different Drugs

[Ahanu]

i am wondering if aspirin also has this effect?!

Empathy Is Killed By Popular Painkiller Found In 600 Different Drugs - PsyBlog

Dr Way explained the results of the experiment on social pain:

“In this case, the participants had the chance to empathize with the suffering of someone who they thought was going through a socially painful experience.

Still, those who took acetaminophen showed a reduction in empathy.

They weren’t as concerned about the rejected person’s hurt feelings.”

The researchers are now moving on to ibuprofen to see if the findings are the same.

 

[Richiebogie]

Do we empathize better when we are a little stressed ourselves?

How useful is empathy? Maybe not getting emotionally involved in someone else's suffering enables one to be more helpful...

You wouldn't want a trauma surgeon to cry whenever a new motorcycle accident victim turns up to hospital...

 

[allblues]

Acetaminophen increases brain serotonin, adding aspirin inhibits the serotonergic effect
Aspirin curtails the acetaminophen-induced rise in brain norepinephrine levels. - PubMed - NCBI
Acetaminophen raises serotonin/adrenaline, aspirin lowers it

When combined with acetaminophen, aspirin overrides the reduced serotonin turnover induced by acetaminophen.

SSRIs are notorious for making people disinterested, unempathic.
Might be part of the explanation.

 

[Ahanu]

How useful is empathy?

It depends of course but i think there are numbers of examples that show how important empathy is:

In studies by the Management Research Group, empathy was found to be the strongest predictor of ethical leadership behavior out of 22 competencies in its management model, and empathy was one of the three strongest predictors of senior executive effectiveness.
WebCite query result

 

[Ahanu]

Acetaminophen increases brain serotonin, adding aspirin inhibits the serotonergic effect
Aspirin curtails the acetaminophen-induced rise in brain norepinephrine levels. - PubMed - NCBI



SSRIs are notorious for making people disinterested, unempathic.
Might be part of the explanation.

yes, could be. thank you!! so if this is the case then there is no problem with the aspirin regarding empathy, right ?