About

Jean Decety is a Professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Psychology. His research activities focus on socioemotional processing, empathy, moral cognition, and the neural mechanisms underlying these functions. He has conducted extensive studies on empathy deficits, psychopathy, and moral decision-making, utilizing neuroimaging techniques to explore the structural and functional aspects of the brain related to social and emotional behaviors. His work also investigates the impact of childhood abuse, neurodegenerative disorders, and traumatic brain injury on empathy and moral processing. Decety's contributions include advancing understanding of the neural correlates of moral and social cognition, and he has been involved in research examining the effects of social norms, psychopathic traits, and neurodevelopmental factors on social behavior and emotional regulation.

Research topics

• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive psychology
• Psychotherapist
• Cognitive science
• Psychiatry
• Medicine
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• The role of social norms, empathy, and religiosity in assisted dying decisions: an fMRI study

  Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience · 2026-05-06

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  PublisherDOI

• Cortical Structure in Relation to Empathy and Psychopathy in 800 Incarcerated Men

  Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science · 2026-01-23

  articleOpen access

  Background: Reduced empathy is a hallmark of individuals with high (i.e., clinical) levels of psychopathy, who are overrepresented among incarcerated men. However, a comprehensive, well-powered mapping of cortical structure in relation to empathy and psychopathy is still lacking. Methods: In 804 incarcerated adult men, we administered the Perspective Taking (IRI-PT) and Empathic Concern (IRI-EC) subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; with interpersonal/affective [F1] and lifestyle/antisocial [F2] factors), and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging to quantify cortical thickness (CT), surface area (SA), and structural-covariance gradients. Results: PCL-R F1 was uniquely negatively related to IRI-EC, while PCL-R F2 was uniquely negatively related to IRI-PT. Cortical structure was not related to the IRI subscales. In contrast, CT was related to PCL-R F1 (mostly positively), SA was related to both PCL-R factors (only positively), and both cortical indices demonstrated out-of-sample predictive utility for PCL-R F1. Compared to men with low psychopathy, men with high psychopathy had uniquely lower IRI-EC scores and increased SA (but not CT); effect sizes across the cortex were largest in the paralimbic class and somatomotor network, while spatial overlap with meta-analytic task-based activations was highest for (social-)affective/sensory clusters. Finally, the total sample revealed anterior-posterior structural-covariance gradients; in men with high psychopathy, the gradient of CT (but not SA) was globally compressed. Conclusions: Men with high psychopathy had reduced empathic concern, increased SA, and a compressed macroscale organization of CT, indicating selective co-alterations in empathy and cortical structure. Future work should build on these novel insights in both the general and incarcerated populations to inform the treatment of psychopathy.

  PublisherDOI

• The role of empathy in prosocial behavior in autistic and neurotypical children

  Child Development · 2026-01-09

  article

  This study examined the role of empathy in prosocial behavior among Chinese autistic and neurotypical children aged 4-8 between July 2018 and August 2021. Study 1 included 79 autistic children (89% boys) and 81 neurotypical children (77% boys) in a sharing task and found empathy-inducing context increased sharing in both groups, and informant-report empathy positively predicted sharing behavior. Study 2 recruited 57 autistic (82% boys) and 50 neurotypical children (78% boys) in a pain-related empathy task combining eye-tracking and a sharing task. Autistic children showed reduced visual attention to others' pain but intact emotional arousal. Across both groups, greater visual attention to others' pain predicted more sharing. These findings indicate that enhancing empathy can promote prosocial behavior in young children.

  PublisherDOI

• Who would you save? Children and mothers' life-or-death decisions

  Cognition · 2026-02-03

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Childhood abuse and neglect are differentially related to perceived discrimination and structural change in empathy-related circuitry

  Scientific Reports · 2025-05-10 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Behavioral studies indicate that adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are associated with altered empathic responding, but the neural mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. Given the significance of empathy in contexts marred by historical conflict and systemic inequality, work on these mechanisms is particularly important in such contexts. The current study extends previous work by (1) examining associations of different dimensions of ACE with volumetric change in empathy-related circuitry, (2) distinguishing between trait and state empathy, and (3) including perceived discrimination as an additional psychosocial stressor. Thirty-nine healthy South African adults from the general population (Mage = 40.6 years) underwent 3 T MRI. FreeSurfer v6.0 was used to extract predefined volumes subserving empathy. Results showed that childhood abuse and perceived discrimination were associated with reduced state empathic concern, whereas childhood neglect was associated with reduced trait cognitive empathy. Childhood abuse was furthermore associated with volumetric increases in frontolimbic (hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)) and neocortical (superior frontal and temporal) regions subserving affective and cognitive empathy, and uniquely mediated the relationship between ACC volume and perceived discrimination. The association of ACE with altered empathic responding may thus be underpinned by specific circuitry reflective of adversity type, with childhood abuse contributing to heightened responsivity to socioemotional cues.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Benefits and Costs of Empathy in Moral Decision Making

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-02-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A School-Based Electroencephalography (EEG)/Event-Related Potential (ERP) Study Into Children’s Moral and Empathic Development: Principles of Design and Praxis

  2025-01-01

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• The Dark Side of Moral Conviction—Integrating Political Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience

  Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025-10-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Morality is a pervasive characteristic of human societies, with social norms and codes of conduct defining acceptable and unacceptable behaviors across cultures. Our evolved moral sense facilitates group living by regulating interpersonal interactions and promoting cooperation beyond the bounds of kinship ties. Moral beliefs that are held with high certainty and perceived as absolute and universally applicable can motivate a strong commitment to justice and benevolent collective action. They also have a darker side. Moral conviction can foster dogmatism, intolerance, and punitive actions, including vigilantism and violence. This article integrates theories and empirical evidence from evolutionary social psychology, cognitive science, political psychology, and neuroscience to examine both the ultimate and proximate mechanisms of moral conviction. This interdisciplinary approach clarifies the functional architecture and potential deleterious consequences of moral conviction.

  PublisherDOI

• The cross-cultural temporal neurodynamics of fairness: A developmental machine-learning neuroscience investigation.

  Developmental Psychology · 2025-11-06

  articleSenior author

  A sense of fairness is deeply rooted in human nature, and plays a fundamental role in supporting cooperation. This study investigated the electrophysiological responses to third-party resource allocations and behavioral economics games assessing costly sharing and distributive justice decisions in early and middle childhood across three countries, France, Taiwan, and the United States. To examine the temporal dynamics and cultural differences in the neural development of fairness considerations, both traditional event-related potential and artificial neural network methods were employed. Results demonstrate a marked lack of cross-cultural differences in the electrophysiological profile of fairness yet notable cross-cultural differences in the functional link between electrophysiology and actual distributive behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Social Neuroscience

  2025-05-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Social neuroscience seeks to understand how the brain mediates the dynamic relations between cognition and behavior in social contexts ... such as synchrony, social connections, social network, social hierarchies, dominance and status, motivated cognition, group dynamics, social influence on decision-making, and cooperation.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01MH084934

  NIH · $1.5M · 2015

• Cognitive Neuroscience of Empathy

  NSF · $650k · 2007–2013

• NIH Grant R01MH087525

  NIH · $1.6M · 2016

• Socioemotional processing in female offenders - Resubmission 01

  NIH · $3.6M · 2016–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Kent A. Kiehl

  Mind Research Network

  89 shared

• Agustín Ibáñez

  Adolfo Ibáñez University

  70 shared

• Christoph Segebarth

  Grenoble Institute of Neurosciences

  51 shared

• Carla L. Harenski

  Mind Research Network

  49 shared

• Yawei Cheng

  National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

  37 shared

• Marc Jeannerod

  32 shared

• Jason M. Cowell

  University of Wisconsin–Green Bay

  32 shared

• Chantal Delon‐Martin

  Inserm

  28 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology

  University of Chicago

  1993

• M.A., Psychology

  University of Chicago

  1989

• B.A., Psychology

  University of Paris

  1986