This chapter analyses how phenomenological explorations on autism and research on the double empathy problem can mutually elucidate the intertwinement of empathy, vulnerability, and emotions in autism spectrum disorder. The chapter starts with research findings from phenomenological psychopathology concerning difficulties in affective empathy and emotions in autism spectrum disorder. What is sometimes neglected in these studies, however, are the exclusionary and stigmatizing experiences that people with autism are often exposed to. With a selection of first-person reports and insights from double empathy research, it is then analysed how individuals with autism experience the challenges of emotional regulation and empathy in social arrangements. Based on this analysis, the original hypothesis in phenomenological psychopathology is in a further step explicated as the disturbance of affective contact or resonance. The latter includes the entire social relationship among persons both with and without autism and not only unique symptoms of the autism spectrum disorders. Finally, it is discussed how both research perspectives enlighten and complement each other in exploring autism spectrum disorder.

This concluding chapter invites educators to pause and reflect deeply on the interconnections between critical reflection, effective teaching, and personal wellbeing. It challenges teachers to view classroom leadership as a practice built on self-awareness, relational responsiveness, and thoughtful decision-making. Central to this interconnectedness is the ability to manage workload, set clear priorities, and self-regulate. These elements form a foundation for teaching that is effective and sustainable over time. Through this lens, wellbeing is not treated as separate from pedagogy or professionalism; rather, it directly shapes how teachers lead with empathy, uphold integrity, and make purposeful choices. By exploring how wellbeing, emotional regulation, and reflection shape the capacity to lead and connect, this chapter encourages teachers to consider how personal and professional growth are closely linked.

This chapter details the self-inquiry of a language teacher educator (LTE) examining emotional exchanges during mentoring sessions over a semester. It focuses on the LTE’s emotion work of providing empathy and discomfort to guide a teacher learner (TL)’s critical inquiry into her emotions for professional development. Data included the TL’s weekly reflective journals and feedback, Zoom meetings, and the LTE’s field notes. Results indicate that critical inquiry into emotions fosters the TL’s emotional reflexivity and agency. However, the process demanded the LTE carefully balance creating discomfort and providing support to ensure the TL’s emotional well-being, causing significant emotional challenges. Discomforting the TL made the LTE feel vulnerable and face ethical tensions about the appropriateness and responsibility of creating discomfort for educational purposes and its justification. The LTE’s emotional experiences are further discussed in relation to her beliefs and identity. The chapter suggests that incorporating emotion as critical inquiry in teacher education foregrounds LTEs’ emotional experiences, highlighting emotion as pedagogy.

This chapter explores how psychology and human–AI interaction (HAI) principles shape successful AI products. Using failures like McDonald’s ill-fated AI drive-thru as cautionary tales, it shows how neglecting user needs such as control, trust, and comprehension can cause reputational and product damage. Drawing on human-centered design, cognitive psychology, and UX research, the authors argue that great AI experiences depend on anticipating how humans think, feel, and decide. They outline strategies for embedding empathy, transparency, and explainability into AI, highlighting that these lessons extend beyond engineering teams to anyone influencing AI adoption.

Emotion is framed as a hidden driver of human behavior that AI increasingly seeks to detect and interpret. The chapter draws parallels from Avicenna’s early recognition of psychosomatic illness to today’s multimodal emotion AI, which integrates facial, vocal, physiological, and gestural data. It explains psychological frameworks like valence–arousal–control and reviews applications in healthcare, education, and consumer research. The authors stress that while AI can recognize signals of emotion, true comprehension and emotional intuition remains uniquely human. The chapter underscores cultural and contextual complexity, raising ethical considerations around empathy, bias, and emotional data privacy.

The main question of this chapter is how group-based emotions are involved in multicultural relations. Group-based emotions help people to withdraw within their safe group boundaries, which may lead to both stronger ingroup identifications and perceptions of other groups that are characterized by distrust and negative emotions. Moreover, prolonged and enduring angry sentiments can easily lead to violent outbursts, and include feelings of contempt, hate, or moral disgust. Experiencing these group-based emotions implies that group members no longer value their relationship with the outgroup, do not foresee any future positive interactions, and display low levels of outgroup trust. In multicultural societies, such negative emotion cycles in intergroup relations can be diminished by changing one’s perspectives about others’ emotions and engaging in pro-active emotion regulation. This may create more empathy for other groups and smoother social interactions across groups.

Vigorous debate about the advantages and disadvantages of using the term ‘belief’ regarding ancient states of mind and cognition has had a profound effect on the field of ancient history (and others, such as anthropology) in recent decades. This chapter considers which of these are still relevant and which are mutual misunderstandings, and which issues have, in effect, been resolved indirectly (such as injunctions to use different words for greater clarity). The opportunities offered by cognitive science of religion (and some limits) are set in a broader context of the study of religion. Behind many of these debates (and misunderstandings), it is argued, secular hegemony intrinsically seeks to ‘contain’ religion (taken pragmatically to be the assertion of the actual existence of divinities). This insoluble tension exerts an unceasing influence on our formulation of questions and answers in history. Recently, we have seen a fruitful greater sympathy for religion and ‘believers’ develop, while an appropriate secular distance from empathy is still maintained, notwithstanding the fact that empathy may contribute to an openness to greater sympathy and understanding: the tension does, and will, persist.

Arendt asks, “Is our ability to judge, to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly, dependent upon our faculty of thought?” Her answer is yes, and this chapter argues that this thinking–judging connection is central to her moral philosophy. She derives the connection indirectly, by reflecting on three Socratic propositions: that thinking consists in the back and forth of inner dialogue; that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it; and that wrongdoing leads to inner disharmony. The chapter examines these, and from this examination it reconstructs Arendt’s argument for the thinking–judging connection. The chapter connects Arendt's and Kant's conception of “enlarged thinking” with Adam Smith’s sympathy-based moral theory. It spells out additional implications that Arendt never drew explicitly, and concludes by comparing Arendt’s views with those of Stuart Hampshire, who believes that inner conflict is in fact “the best condition of mankind,” contrary to the Socratic and Aristotelian moral psychology – an important corrective that requires modification to Arendt’s view.

This chapter discusses an innovative program at the Los Angeles County jail that showcases the transformative impact of compassionate care provided by inmate Mental Health Assistants (MHAs) for incarcerated patients with serious mental illness. The MHAs undergo extensive training in trauma-informed care and work to bridge the communication gap between patients and clinical staff. The chapter outlines the philosophy, structure, and goals of the program, emphasizing the need for a restorative environment and meaningful services within the jail. The core framework of the Mental Health Assistant model focuses on advocating for proper care and creating change for marginalized individuals. The program aims to promote healing, reduce recidivism, and uplift everyone involved through a culture of love, unselfishness, integrity, teamwork, and organized effort. The chapter details the impactful role of MHAs, the institutional mental health support program, and a step-by-step guide for implementing a transformative mental health care model within the corrections system.

Stay positive without complaining. Compliment what team members are doing well. Link financial rewards and delegate leadership to those showing effective actions. Take personal responsibility as a leader by getting into the arena, working alongside colleagues. Listen without interrupting patients and colleagues for at least one minutes. Recognize sacredness and joy in the relationship with that person as you build trust. Mirror back with empathy what you heard and offer actionable steps that provide comfort. Empower the patient to decide what is the best action. Hold regularly recurring meetings, even if logistics require video conferencing, where all team members can see outcomes and reasons to institute new protocols with a chance to voice their input. Thank people after concluding each conversation.

This clinical vignette guides learners through the emotionally complex task of delivering bad news in the emergency department. After stabilizing a critically ill patient with a life-threatening variceal GI bleed, the physician must update the patient’s spouse with honesty, empathy, and professionalism. This case models how to initiate these conversations using the SPIKES framework and demonstrates the importance of setting, pacing, and word choice when conveying grave prognoses. Learners are introduced to the emotional “residue” left behind by such encounters and are encouraged to process it using Dr. Cline’s DR5 model for reflective practice. By observing and emulating this structured, compassionate approach, trainees develop the communication tools necessary to lead with clarity and kindness; skills that define maturity in emergency medicine and build trust in times of crisis.

This chapter argues that the wellspring of theatre can be found in childhood pretend play – a universal human phenomenon that leaves us all capable of theatrical behavior, whether as performers who enact make-believe “realities” or as audience members who imaginatively engage in others’ make-believe. Such play is likely associated with an evolutionary adaptation for advanced symbolic thinking. Theatre might be a by-product of pretend play, carried over into adult life, but it might be an exaptation in which childhood pretend play has been co-opted for the new evolutionary purpose of allowing performers and audiences to explore “what-if” situations in ways that compel attention through the performers’ presence and artistry, and the empathy given to their enacted characters by the audience. The universality of pretend play suggests this behavioral trait evolved more than 50,000 years ago, at which point humans had begun their globalizing expansion from Africa.

This chapter focuses on the case study of Northern Ireland to interrogate the intersection between victimhood, victims’ groups as drivers of first-generation transitional justice, and the mobilisation of empathy. The chapter argues that while agency and participation are often presented as exclusively positive attributes, the moral economy of victimhood can compel individuals and groups to convey their suffering in a particular register to make their losses ‘matter’ and to ‘mobilise empathy’. In Northern Ireland, the absence of a formal process of dealing with the past and ongoing contest over the legal definition of a victim or survivor of the conflict has made these dynamics particularly acute. From situating victims’ groups as ‘moral communities’ to exploring how victimhood and demands for transitional justice are expressed in different registers across the two communities, this chapter adds a new lens to the study of victims and victim engagement in transitional justice.