moods, influences the initial decision to donate because of selfish concerns (to avoid regret or feel better). However, how a person feels about the deservingness of the recipient determines how much to donate. Human sympathy in donation behavior can influence the amount of aid given to people and regions that are in need. Increasing how emotional a description is, presenting individual cases instead of large groups, and using less information and numerical data can positively influence giving behavior. Sympathy also plays a role in maintaining social order. Judging people's character helps to maintain social order, making sure that those who are in need receive the appropriate care. The notion of interdependence fuels sympathetic behavior; such behavior is self-satisfying because helping someone who is connected to you through some way (family, social capital) often results in a personal reward (social, monetary, etc.). Regardless of selflessness or selfishness, sympathy facilitates the cycle of give and take that is necessary for maintaining a functional society. Healthcare Sympathy also impacts how doctors, nurses, and other members of society think about and treat people with different diseases and conditions. The level of sympathy exhibited by health care providers corresponds to patient characteristics and disease type. One factor that influences sympathy is controllability: the degree to which the afflicted individual could have avoided contracting the disease or medical condition. For example, people express less sympathy toward individuals who had control during the event when they acquired HIV. Even less sympathy is granted to individuals who have control over the means by which they contracted HIV, such as individuals who engage in prostitution. Sympathy in health-related decision making is heavily based on disease stigma. Disease stigma can lead to discrimination in the workplace and in insurance coverage. High levels of stigma are also associated with social hostility. Several factors contribute to the development of disease stigmas, including the disease's time course, severity, and the dangers that the disease might pose to others. Sexual orientation of individual patients has also been shown to affect stigma levels in the case of HIV diagnoses. Sympathy is generally associated with low levels of disease stigma. Sympathy for HIV patients is related to increased levels of knowledge regarding HIV and a lower likelihood of avoiding individuals with HIV. Neuroscience perspectives Social and emotional stimuli related to the well-being of another person can be studied with technology that tracks brain activity (such as