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
Email me
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 a member of the Committee on Neurobiology, an Executive 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, Frontiers in Emotion Science, 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
- Affective neuroscience
- Antisocial personality disorder
- Conduct disorder
- Developmental neuroscience
- Emotion
- Empathy
- Interpersonal processes
- Intersubjectivity
- Moral reasoning
- Prosocial behavior
- Psychopathy
- Social neuroscience
Selection of Recent Publications
Cheng, Y., Hung, A., & Decety, J. (2012). Dissociation between affective sharing and emotion understanding in juvenile psychopaths. Development and Psychopathology, in press.
Decety, J., Michalska, K. J., & Kinzler, K. D. (2012). The contribution of emotion and cognition to moral sensitivity: A neurodevelopmental study. Cerebral Cortex, 22, 209-220.
Decety, J., & Sveltova, M. (2012). Putting together phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspectives on empathy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, 1-24.
Ben-Ami Bartal, I., Decety, J., & Mason, P. (2011). Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats. Science, 334, 1427-1430.
Decety, J. (2011). The neuroevolution of empathy. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1231, 35-45.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Decety, J. (2011). Challenges and opportunities in social neuroscience. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1224, 162-173.
Decety, J. (2011). Dissecting the neural mechanisms mediating empathy. Emotion Review, 3, 92-108.
Decety, J. (2010). The neurodevelopment of empathy in humans. Developmental Neuroscience, 32, 257-267.
Decety, J., & Michalska, K. J. (2010). Neurodevelopmental changes in the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood. Developmental Science, 13, 886-899.
Decety, J., Yang, C. Y., & Cheng, Y. (2010). Physicians down-regulate their pain empathy response: An event-related brain potential study. NeuroImage, 50, 873-882.
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, 47, 722-734.
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, 22, 985-997.
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, 22, 362-376.
Decety, J., Michalska, K. J., Akitsuki, Y., & Lahey, B. (2009). Atypical empathic responses in adolescents with aggressive conduct disorder: a functional MRI investigation. Biological Psychology, 80, 203-211.
Decety, J., Michalska, K. J., & 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 functional MRI 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 (pp. 109-127). 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 G. G. Berntson & J. T. Cacioppo (Eds.), Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences (pp. 940-957). 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. (2012). Empathy: from Bench to Bedside. Cambridge: MIT press.
Decety, J. & Cacioppo, J. T. (2011). The Oxford 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.
Courses
- Developmental and neuroscience perspectives on social cognition.
- The social brain and empathy
- Functional MRI workshop
- Topics in developmental science: Empathy and moral reasoning
- The Mind III (altruism and prosocial behavior)
- Windows to the social brain
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!
