Empathy is crucial for the survival of our species, and so it is almost universally innate in humans. Babies as young as seven months old can form empathic bonds with others. One study monitored babies’ brains as the children watched other people touching. Seeing a person touch the back of another’s hand activated the same area in the child’s brain, as though the child had felt a touch on his or her own hand. We are born, it seems, with the ability to form unspoken bonds with other humans.
