You're watching a friend hang a picture on the wall of your house.

你正看著朋友在你家牆上掛一幅圖片。

She swings the hammer.

她舉起鐵鎚。

Her hand slips, and she smashes her thumb. Ouch!

她手一滑，敲到她的大拇指。好痛啊！

You rush to her side to make sure she's okay, not just because you don't want her to sue you, but because she's your friend and a fellow human.

你趕緊衝到她旁邊確認她是否還好，不只是因為你不希望她告你，也因為她是你朋友，和你一樣是人。

You can imagine what she's going through.

你可以想像她正經歷的痛苦。

What's happening in your brain is a complex process that we've evolved to help us survive as a species.

你的腦袋正進行一項複雜的程序，它是為了幫助我們人類生存演化而來的。

It's called empathy, and it's "the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing".

這個叫做同理心，也就是「能夠理解或感受他人處境的能力」。

It's different from sympathy in that you're putting yourself in someone else's place and understanding what they're going through, not just feeling sorry for them.

它和同情心不同，同理心是想像自己正處於對方的處境並切身瞭解對方的經歷，而不只是可憐對方。

While empathy can be seen in other species—dogs and primates come to mind—it's actually rare in the animal kingdom.

雖然其他物種身也有同理心，例如狗和靈長類動物，但其實它在動物界裡很少見。

So how did you lucky humans develop it?

所以幸運如人類，如何發展出同理心？

Well humans gained empathy in three steps.

人類透過三個步驟獲得同理心。

First, humans began pair bonding with our mates as a way of raising our young.

首先，人類為了提攜後代而開始尋找伴侶。

The need to cooperate with another person to keep babies alive encouraged our brains to grow.

必須和另一半合作養育小孩刺激了我們腦部的進化。

Second, humans started living in communities.

第二，人類開始群居生活。

Having to regularly deal with other people made us smarter.

我們必須經常與人交流，這讓我們變得更聰明了。

If you've ever had roommates who refused to pick up after themselves on occasion, then you know how important it is to be alive together in peace and throw out the garbage once in a while!

如果你曾有那種往往不收拾自己製造的髒亂的室友，你就知道要能和平共存，以及偶爾倒一下垃圾，有多重要！

Third, human tribes had to cooperate to survive in harsh environments, where food was really scarce.

第三，人類部落必須互相合作，才能在糧食稀少的環境裡共存。

Here, we learned the importance of putting the good of all over our own desires.

我們因此了解：以多數利益為優先，而非個人慾望為主的重要性。

Essentially, relationships are the core of why we evolved the way we did.

基本上，人與人之間的關係就是人類演變的主要根源。

Everybody reach out and hug somebody.

大家趕快伸出雙手擁抱彼此吧。

I mean, someone you know, if...they're cool with it.

我是說，擁抱你認識的人，如果他們願意的話。

Don't hug strangers.

別跑去擁抱陌生人。

Studies have shown that people seeing images of others in pain experience activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula, areas of the brain that process pain.

研究指出，人們看到他人受苦的影像時，腦袋的前扣帶迴皮質和前腦島會有反應，這是腦袋處理痛苦的區域。

When you tell your friend "I feel your pain", you're not just being cliché.

當你跟朋友說「我能感受到你的痛苦」，這並不只是陳腔濫調。

You kinda do. And that's amazing.

你確實多少能了解。而那是很棒的一件事。

Human beings are still naturally self-centered however.

然而，人類的天性還是以自我為中心。

We project our life experiences and emotional states onto others.

我們會對他人投射自己的人生經驗和情緒狀態。

To compensate for that, another part of our brains, the right supramarginal gyrus, separates our emotions from those we see in others.

為了彌補這樣的天性，我們腦袋的另一個區塊，右緣上回，會將我們的情緒與我們在他人身上看到的經歷做區隔。

It keeps us from going full Johnny Bravo on people and helps us understand what they're going through, even if it's different from our own experience.

這能避免我們在他人面前化身自戀的拼命郎約翰尼，讓我們理解他人的經歷，即便它和我們的經驗不同。

Knowing this about human development, it seems obvious that empathy is part of our nature, and not just something we learned.

了解這段人類發展過程，我們應該會認為同理心是人類的本性，而非日後所學。

But that's not the whole story.

但並不全然是這樣。

We're born with the basics of empathy, but it takes work to make us empathy pros.

我們確實擁有基本的同理天性，但要成為一個富有同理心的人，還是需要額外的努力。

See, children need to be empathized with in order to fully experience empathy themselves.

要知道，小孩要先得到同理心，他們才能完整地體會同理心。

If your caretakers empathize with you, you're more likely to be an empathetic person.

若照顧你的人對你產生同理心，你未來就比較有可能成為有同理心的人。

On the other hand, you can be taught not to empathize, or to be born with a disconnect in the empathetic centers of the brain.

另一方面，你可能會被教育沒有同理心，或是一出生大腦的同理中樞就斷聯。

Some researchers believe that those who lack empathy due to, say, a difficult childhood, suffer from sociopathy, and those who are born with an inability to empathize suffer from psychopathy.

有些研究人員認為那些缺乏同理心的人，或者說童年受苦的人，可能會受反社會人格的折磨；而那些天生缺乏同理能力的人則飽受精神障礙之苦。

Words like "sociopath" and "psychopath" get thrown around casually, so it's important to know these are real conditions that people deal with, even if it's only a small percentage of the population.

像「反社會者」和「神經病」這些字眼常常被拿出來講，因此了解這些狀況是許多人親身經歷的症狀很重要，即便只有少部分的人。

Are you an empathetic person?

你是個有同理心的人嗎？

What other mental processes that we take for granted do you want to see us cover?

你想不想看還有哪些心理演化過程是我們認為理所當然的能力？

And have you ever wondered if humans are naturally born good or bad?

你有沒有想過人性本善，還是人性本惡呢？

Check out this episode.

趕快來看這集。

As always, I'm Blocko, this has been Life Noggin.

我是 Blocko，以上是 Life Noggin 的影片。

Don't forget to keep on thinking!

永遠記得保有無限好奇心！