The impact of empathy and reappraisal on emotional intensity recognition

Social anxiety is associated with personal distress and disrupted recognition of negative emotions

Past research investigating the relation between social anxiety (SA), empathy and emotion recognition is marked by conceptual and methodological issues. In the present study, we aim to overcome these limitations by examining whether individuals with high (n = 40) vs. low (n = 43) social anxiety differed across these two facets of empathy and whether this could be related to their recognition of emotions. We employed a naturalistic emotion recognition paradigm in which participants watched short videos of individuals (targets) sharing authentic emotional experiences. After each video, we measured self-reported empathic concern and distress, as well as their ability to recognize the emotions expressed by the targets in the videos. Our results show that individuals with high social anxiety recognized the targets' emotions less accurately. Furthermore, high socially anxious individuals reported more personal distress than low socially anxious individuals, whereas no significant difference was found for empathic concern. The findings suggest that reduced recognition of emotions among SA individuals can be better explained by the negative effects of social stress than by a general deficit in empathy.

Why we Should Reject the Restrictive Isomorphic Matching Definition of Empathy

A growing cadre of influential scholars has converged on a circumscribed definition of empathy as restricted only to feeling the same emotion that one perceives another is feeling. We argue that this restrictive isomorphic matching (RIM) definition is deeply problematic because (1) it deviates dramatically from traditional conceptualizations of empathy and unmoors the construct from generations of scientific research and clinical practice; (2) insistence on an isomorphic form undercuts much of the functional value of empathy from multiple perspectives of analysis; and (3) combining the opposing concepts of isomorphic matching and self-other awareness implicitly requires motivational content, causing the RIM definition to implicitly require the kind of non-matching emotional content that it explicitly seeks to exclude.

Mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between schizotypy and empathy

Schizotypy is a set of personality traits existing in the general population that represents vulnerability for developing psychosis. Previous studies have suggested that negative schizotypy correlates with empathy, but mixed results have been shown for positive schizotypy. The present study aimed to explore the potential mediating role of emotion regulation upon schizotypy and empathy. The valid sample consisted of 595 college students who completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Chapman Psychosis Proneness Scales. Pearson correlations between schizotypy, emotion regulation, and empathy were performed to build potential mediating models. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap analyses were used to examine the mediation effects of emotion regulation. Our results showed that negative schizotypy was correlated with both cognitive and affective empathy whereas positive schizotypy only correlated with the Fantasy and Personal Distress subscales after multiple comparisons corrections. The Cognitive Reappraisal subscale of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire was positively correlated with empathy whereas the Expressive Suppression subscale was negatively associated with affective empathy. More importantly, there was a significant mediating effect of cognitive reappraisal on the relationship between negative schizotypy and cognitive empathy. Our findings suggest that a higher level of negative schizotypy is associated with poorer cognitive and affective empathy, and cognitive reappraisal may mediate the effect of negative schizotypy on cognitive empathy. These findings highlight the optimal usage of cognitive reappraisal in social interactions, and may help to improve empathy, especially for individuals with a high level of negative schizotypy.

Emotional Ego- and Altercentric Biases in High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Evidence

Self-other distinction is a crucial aspect of social cognition, as it allows us to differentiate our own mental and emotional states from those of others. Research suggests that this ability might be impaired in individuals on the autism spectrum, but convincing evidence of self-other distinction difficulties in the emotional domain is lacking. Here we aimed at evaluating emotional self-other distinction abilities in autistic and non-autistic adults, in two behavioral pilot studies and one fMRI study. By using a newly developed virtual ball-tossing game that induced simultaneous positive and negative emotional states in each participant and another person, we were able to measure emotional egocentric and altercentric biases (namely the tendency to ascribe self-/other-related emotions to others/ourselves, respectively). Despite no behavioral differences, individuals on the autism spectrum showed decreased activation (1) in the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) during active overcoming of the emotional egocentric bias vs. passive game viewing, and (2) in the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) during ego- vs. altercentric biases, compared to neurotypical participants. These results suggest a different recruitment of these two regions in autistic individuals when dealing with conflicting emotional states of oneself and another person. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of considering different control conditions when interpreting the involvement of rTPJ and rSMG during self-other distinction processes.

The neural networks underlying reappraisal of empathy for pain

Emotion regulation plays a central role in empathy. Only by successfully regulating our own emotions can we reliably use them in order to interpret the content and valence of others’ emotions correctly. In an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-based experiment, we show that regulating one’s emotion via reappraisal modulated biased emotional intensity ratings following an empathy for pain manipulation. Task-based analysis revealed increased activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) when painful emotions were regulated using reappraisal, whereas empathic feelings that were not regulated resulted in increased activity bilaterally in the precuneus, supramarginal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus (MFG), as well as the right parahippocampal gyrus. Functional connectivity analysis indicated that the right IFG plays a role in the regulation of empathy for pain, through its connections with regions in the empathy for pain network. Furthermore, these connections were further modulated as a function of the type of regulation used: in sum, our results suggest that accurate empathic judgment (i.e. empathy that is unbiased) relies on a complex interaction between neural regions involved in emotion regulation and regions associated with empathy for pain. Thus, demonstrating the importance of emotion regulation in the formulation of complex social systems and sheds light on the intricate network implicated in this complex process.

Identifying Variables That Predict Depression Following the General Lockdown During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study aimed to define the psychological markers for future development of depression symptoms following the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Based on previous studies, we focused on loneliness, intolerance of uncertainty and emotion estimation biases as potential predictors of elevated depression levels. During the general lockdown in April 2020, 551 participants reported their psychological health by means of various online questionnaires and an implicit task. Out of these participants, 129 took part in a second phase in June 2020. Subjective loneliness during the lockdown rather than objective isolation was the strongest predictor of symptoms of depression 5 weeks later. Younger age and health related worry also predicted higher non-clinical levels of depression and emotional distress. The results support the diathesis-stress model, which posits that a combination of preexisting vulnerabilities along with stressors such as negative life events are among the factors affecting the development of psychopathology. Moreover, our results correspond with those of previous studies conducted worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Taken together, these findings call for focusing on psychological factors, especially among younger people, to identify individuals at risk for future development of depression and to promote new strategies for prevention.

Different faces of empathy: Feelings of similarity disrupt recognition of negative emotions

Empathizing with others is widely presumed to increase our understanding of their emotions. Little is known, however, about which empathic process actually help people recognize others' feelings more accurately. Here, we probed the relationship between emotion recognition and two empathic processes: spontaneously felt similarity (having had a similar experience) and deliberate perspective taking (focus on the other vs. oneself). We report four studies in which participants (total N = 803) watched videos of targets sharing genuine negative emotional experiences. Participants' multi-scalar ratings of the targets' emotions were compared with the targets' own emotion ratings. In Study 1 we found that having had a similar experience to what the target was sharing was associated with lower recognition of the target's emotions. Study 2 replicated the same pattern and in addition showed that making participants' own imagined reaction to the described event salient resulted in further reduced accuracy. Studies 3 and 4 were preregistered replications and extensions of Studies 1 and 2, in which we observed the same outcome using a different stimulus set, indicating the robustness of the finding. Moreover, Study 4 directly investigated the underlying mechanism of the observed effect. Findings showed that perceivers who have had a negative life experience similar to the emotional event described in the video felt greater personal distress after watching the video, which in part explained their reduced accuracy. These results provide the first demonstration that spontaneous empathy, evoked by similarity in negative experiences, may inhibit rather than increase our understanding of others' emotions.

The Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Recognition of Ambiguous Emotional Facial Expressions in Individuals With ADHD

Objective: The present study sought to investigate whether young adults with ADHD have more difficulty recognizing emotional facial expressions compared with young adults without ADHD, and whether such a difference worsens following sleep deprivation. Method: Thirty-one young men (M = 25.6) with (n = 15) or without (n = 16) a diagnosis of ADHD were included in this study. The participants were instructed to sleep 7 hr or more each night for one week, and their sleep quality was monitored via actigraph. Subsequently, the participants were kept awake in a controlled environment for 30 hr. The participants completed a visual emotional morph task twice-at the beginning and at the end of this period. The task included presentation of interpolated face stimuli ranging from neutral facial expressions to fully emotional facial expressions of anger, sadness, or happiness, allowing for assessment of the intensity threshold for recognizing these facial emotional expressions. Results: Actigraphy data demonstrated that while the nightly sleep duration of the participants with ADHD was similar to that of participants without ADHD, their sleep efficiency was poorer. At the onset of the experiment, there were no differences in recognition thresholds between the participants with ADHD and those without ADHD. Following sleep deprivation, however, the ADHD group required clearer facial expressions to recognize the presence of angry, sad, and, to a lesser extent, happy faces. Conclusion: Among young adults with ADHD, sleep deprivation may hinder the processing of emotional facial stimuli.