The University of Chicago
Department of Psychology
5848 South University Ave
Chicago, IL 60637
Office Phone: (773) 834-3711
Fax: (773) 702-0886
Office: Kelly Hall, 308
Labs: Kelly Hall, 310, 312, 314 and 315
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Jean Decety
Biography
Dr. Jean Decety is Irving B. Harris Professor at the University of Chicago and its College, with a primary appointment in the Department of Psychology and a secondary appointment in the Department of Psychiatry. He previously was a research director at the INSERM (National Medical Research Institute) in Lyon, France until 2001, and a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the head of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (2001-2005).
Professor Decety received a Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University Claude Bernard (Lyon, France) in 1989, and then completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in Sweden, at Lund University Hospital and at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm in the Departments of Clinical Neurophysiology and Neuroradiology.
Jean Decety is an Executive Committee Member of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, and a member of The Center for Integrative Neuroscience and Neuroengineering. He is the Editor of the new journal Social Neuroscience and serves on the editorial board of Neuropsychologia as well as the Scientific World Journal in the domain of higher level brain function.
Dr. Decety is the co-director of the Brain Research Imaging Center (BRIC) at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Research Interests and Skills
- Developmental social and affective neuroscience
- Antisocial personality disorder
- Conduct disorder
- Psychopathy
- Emotion regulation
- Empathy and sympathy
- Interpersonal processes
- Social cognition
- Imitation and mimicry
- Implicit moral reasoning
- Intersubjectivity
- Human neuroanatomy and neurophysiology
Selection of Recent Publications
Akitsuki, Y., & Decety, J. (2009). Social context and perceived agency modulate brain activity in the neural circuits underpinning empathy for pain: an event-related fMRI study. NeuroImage, Epub ahead of print.
Decety, J., Echols, S.C., & Correll, J. (2009). The blame game: the effect of responsibility and social stigma on empathy for pain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Epub ahead of print.
Yamada, M., & Decety, J. (2009). Unconscious affective processing and empathy: An investigation of subliminal priming on the detection of painful facial expressions. Pain, 143, 71-75.
Lamm, C., Meltzoff, A.N. & Decety, J. (2009). How do we empathize with someone who is not like us? Insights from event-related and effective connectivity measurements. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Epub ahead of print.
Decety, J., Michalska, K.J., Akitsuki, Y., & Lahey, B.B. (2009). Atypical empathic responses in adolescents with aggressive conduct disorder: a functional MRI investigation. Biological Psychology, 80, 203-211.
Decety, J., Michalska, K., & Akitsuki, Y. (2008). Who caused the pain? A functional MRI investigation of empathy and intentionality in children. Neuropsychologia, 46, 2607-2614.
Decety, J., & Meyer, M. (2008). From emotion resonance to empathic understanding: A social developmental neuroscience account. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 1053-1080.
Decety, J., & Moriguchi, Y. (2007). The empathic brain and its dysfunction in psychiatric populations: implications for intervention across different clinical conditions. BioPsychoSocial Medicine, 1, 22-65.
Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2007). The role of the right temporoparietal junction in social interaction: How low-level computational processes contribute to meta-cognition. The Neuroscientist, 13, 580-593.
Cheng, Y., Lin, C., H.L., Hsu, Y., Hung, D., & Decety, J. (2007). Expertise modulates the perception of pain in others. Current Biology, 17, 1708-1713.
Decety, J., & Batson, C.D. (2007). Social neuroscience approaches to interpersonal sensitivity. Social Neuroscience, 2 (3/4), 151-157.
Lamm, C., Batson, C.D., & Decety, J. (2007). The neural basis of human empathy - Effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal: An event-related fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 42-58.
Selection of Book Chapters
Decety, J., & Batson, C.D. (2009). Empathy and morality: Integrating social and neuroscience approaches. In J. Braeckman, J. Verplaetse and J. De Schrijver (Eds.), The Moral Brain. Berlin: Springer Verlag.
Decety, J., & Meyer, M. (2009). Imitation as a stepping stone to empathy. In M. de Hann & M. Gunnar (Eds.), The Handbook of Developmental Social Neuroscience (pp. 142-158). New York: Guilford Publications.
Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2009). Empathy and intersubjectivity. In J. T. Cacioppo & G. G. Berntson (Eds.), Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2009). Empathy versus personal distress - Recent evidence from social neuroscience. In J. Decety & W. Ickes (Eds.), The Social Neuroscience of Empathy (pp. 199-213). Cambridge: MIT press.
Decety, J., & Stevens, J. (2008). Action representation and its role in social interaction. In K.D. Markman, W.M.P. Klein and J.A. Suhr (Eds.), The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation (pp. 3-20). New York: Psychology Press.
Decety, J., & Sommerville, J.A. (2008). Action representation as the bedrock of social cognition: A developmental neuroscience perspective. In E. Morsella, J. Bargh, & P. Gollwitzer (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Human Action (pp. 250-275). New York: Oxford University Press.
Decety, J., & Hodges, S.D. (2006). The social neuroscience of empathy. In: P.A.M. Van Lange (Ed.), Bridging Social Psychology: Benefits of Transdisciplinary Approaches (pp. 103-109). Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Books as an Editor
Decety, J. & Cacioppo, J.T. (in preparation). The Handbook of Social Neuroscience. New York: Oxford University Press.
Decety, J., & Ickes, W. (2009). The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Decety, J., & Batson, C.D. (2007). Interpersonal Sensitivity: Entering Others' World. Hove: Psychology Press.
Nadel, J. & Decety, J. (2002). Imiter pour Découvrir l’Humain. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Decety, J. (1998). Perception and Action: Recent Advances in Cognitive Neuropsychology (1998). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Courses
- Windows to the social mind
- The social neuroscience of empathy and sympathy
- Brain mapping workshop
- The Mind III
More Information
Dr. Jean Decety Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab web site
Where, among other things, you can download PDF reprints, learn about current research projects, meet with the people working with me, and much more!
