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Assing Hvidt E, Wehberg S, Andersen CM, Søndergaard J, Larrabee Sonderlund A. Individual differences in empathy in Danish university students: A cross-sectional study. Int J Soc Psychiatry 2024; 70:113-121. [PMID: 37649338 DOI: 10.1177/00207640231196751] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/01/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Empathy is widely recognized as a multi-dimensional construct, involving emotional and cognitive components. These may cause distinct experiences and behaviors that can be both beneficial and deleterious to individuals' well-being and mental health. AIM We wished to examine the association between emotional and cognitive empathy of Danish university students as measured by the multidimensional Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and study major, sex, age, and parental status. Additionally, we aimed to gauge the validity of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy - Student version (JSE-S) as a measure of primarily cognitive empathy in the context of medical majors by comparing JSE-S scores with IRI cognitive scores. METHODS In our national, cross-sectional study, conducted in October 2020, we used survey data from students in their first, third, and final study year. All students from University of Southern Denmark were invited to fill out IRI, and all medical students at Denmark's four medical educations were additionally invited to fill out the JSE-S. Associations were estimated by linear regression models. RESULTS Of 14,072 invited, 2,595 students completed the questionnaire. Health majors scored statistically significantly higher on cognitive empathy than students from other study majors. The JSE-S correlated significantly with the cognitive empathy subscales of the IRI. Furthermore, the effects found in relation to sex, age-, and parental status were significant. CONCLUSION Our study results show that large differences in empathy exist between university students and study majors. Overall, our results highlight (1) the relevance of investigating empathy as a multidimensional versus a global construct in young adult populations (including university students) and (2) the importance of focusing on differences in empathy across different student characteristics.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sonja Wehberg
- The Research Unit for General Practice, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
| | | | - Jens Søndergaard
- The Research Unit for General Practice, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
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Plusquellec P, Smart K, Denault V. Facial Reactivity to Emotional Stimuli is Related to Empathic Concern, Empathic Distress, and Depressive Symptoms in Social Work Students. Psychol Rep 2023:332941231181027. [PMID: 37395094 DOI: 10.1177/00332941231181027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/04/2023]
Abstract
Helping professionals are exposed daily to the emotional burden of their vulnerable clients and are at risk of unconscious emotional contagion that may lead to stress and emotional distress. Being aware of their own susceptibility to emotional contagion, however, can improve their well-being. This study aimed to propose an objective measure of emotional contagion, complementary to the Emotional Contagion Scale, and to evaluate its construct and predictive validity. To do so, we turned to FACET, an automatic facial coding software using the Facial Action Coding System, to measure participants' facial expressions as they watched movie clips eliciting specific emotional responses. Results show that both tools to measure emotional contagion (objective and self-reported) are complementary, but they do not measure the same psychosocial constructs. Also, the new objective measure of emotional contagion seems to predict emotional empathy and the risk of developing depressive symptoms among this study's participants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pierrich Plusquellec
- Centre for Studies in Nonverbal Communication Sciences, Research Centre, Montreal Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, Canada
- School of Psychoeducation, University of Montreal, PO Box 6128, Centre-ville-STN, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada
| | - Kaylee Smart
- School of Psychoeducation, University of Montreal, PO Box 6128, Centre-ville-STN, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada
| | - Vincent Denault
- Centre for Studies in Nonverbal Communication Sciences, Research Centre, Montreal Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, Canada
- Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University, 3700 McTavish Street Montreal, Quebec H3A 1Y2, Canada
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3
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Toller G, Cobigo Y, Callahan P, Appleby BS, Brushaber D, Domoto-Reilly K, Forsberg LK, Ghoshal N, Graff-Radford J, Graff-Radford NR, Grossman M, Heuer HW, Kornak J, Kremers W, Lapid MI, Leger G, Litvan I, Mackenzie IR, Pascual MB, Ramos EM, Rascovsky K, Rojas JC, Staffaroni AM, Tartaglia MC, Toga A, Weintraub S, Wszolek ZK, Boeve BF, Boxer AL, Rosen HJ, Rankin KP. Multisite ALLFTD study modeling progressive empathy loss from the earliest stages of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. Alzheimers Dement 2023; 19:2842-2852. [PMID: 36591730 PMCID: PMC10314956 DOI: 10.1002/alz.12898] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2022] [Revised: 10/19/2022] [Accepted: 10/27/2022] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Empathy relies on fronto-cingular and temporal networks that are selectively vulnerable in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). This study modeled when in the disease process empathy changes begin, and how they progress. METHODS Four hundred thirty-one individuals with asymptomatic genetic FTD (n = 114), genetic and sporadic bvFTD (n = 317), and 163 asymptomatic non-carrier controls were enrolled. In sub-samples, we investigated empathy measured by the informant-based Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) at each disease stage and over time (n = 91), and its correspondence to underlying atrophy (n = 51). RESULTS Empathic concern (estimate = 4.38, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.79, 5.97; p < 0.001) and perspective taking (estimate = 5.64, 95% CI = 3.81, 7.48; p < 0.001) scores declined between the asymptomatic and very mild symptomatic stages regardless of pathogenic variant status. More rapid loss of empathy corresponded with subcortical atrophy. DISCUSSION Loss of empathy is an early and progressive symptom of bvFTD that is measurable by IRI informant ratings and can be used to monitor behavior in neuropsychiatry practice and treatment trials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gianina Toller
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Yann Cobigo
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Patrick Callahan
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Hilary W. Heuer
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - John Kornak
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | | | | | - Gabriel Leger
- University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - Irene Litvan
- University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - Ian R. Mackenzie
- University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
| | | | | | | | - Julio C. Rojas
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Adam M. Staffaroni
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | | | - Arthur Toga
- University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Sandra Weintraub
- Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
| | | | | | - Adam L. Boxer
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Howard J. Rosen
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Katherine P. Rankin
- University of California, San Francisco, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
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4
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Shalev I, Eran A, Uzefovsky F. Empathic disequilibrium as a new framework for understanding individual differences in psychopathology. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1153447. [PMID: 37275732 PMCID: PMC10236526 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1153447] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2023] [Accepted: 05/05/2023] [Indexed: 06/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Empathy is part of basic social cognition and is central to everyday interactions. Indeed, emotional and cognitive empathy deficits are related to various psychopathologies, yet the links reported have been inconsistent. Thus, the mechanism underlying these inconsistent links is poorly understood. At least a partial answer may lie in that the dependency between cognitive and emotional empathy has been overlooked. Here, we examined the (dis)equilibrium between emotional and cognitive empathy and how it relates to individual differences in clinical traits. We further examined a possible mediator of these links-emotional reactivity. Methods Participants (N = 425) from the general population reported on their empathy, emotional reactivity, autistic traits, psychopathic tendencies, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Results Beyond empathy, both extremes of empathic disequilibrium were associated with various features of clinical conditions; Higher emotional relative to cognitive empathy was related to the social domain of autism and anxiety, while higher cognitive relative to emotional empathy was related to the non-social domain of autism, depression symptoms, and psychopathic tendencies. The associations with autistic traits, anxiety, and psychopathic tendencies were mediated by emotional reactivity. Discussion Our findings suggest a new framework for understanding how individual variability in empathy is expressed in various psychopathologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ido Shalev
- Psychology Department, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheba, Israel
| | - Alal Eran
- Computational Health Informatics Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
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Li Y, Wang Y, Guan X, Yue J, Wu HE, Zhen S, He SC, Zhang XY. Genotype-genotype interactions of the OXTR gene polymorphisms are associated with self-reported daytime dysfunction, sleep latency and personal distress. J Sleep Res 2023; 32:e13668. [PMID: 35706410 DOI: 10.1111/jsr.13668] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2021] [Revised: 05/20/2022] [Accepted: 05/22/2022] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
The oxytocin receptors located in the corticotropin-releasing factor neurons of the paraventricular nucleus are stimulated by oxytocin. Oxytocin functions as the regulator of the corticotropin-releasing factor system and in turn promotes sleep quality. The objective of this study was to examine the main and genotype-genotype interactive effects of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphisms on sleep quality. A total of 324 participants were randomly recruited from a university in Beijing, China. Sleep quality was measured with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The OXTR single-nucleotide polymorphisms (rs2254298, rs2268498, rs13316193, rs2268490 and rs2268491) were genotyped. The results showed that gender and age were associated with various empathy traits (all p < 0.001). The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was positively correlated with the Personal Distress subscale of empathy (p < 0.001). Both rs2254298 and rs2268491 interacted with rs13316193 to influence daytime dysfunction and Personal Distress (all p < 0.05), indicating that in individuals with rs13316193 CC/CT genotype, those with rs2254298 AA/AG or rs2268491 TT/TC genotypes displayed higher daytime dysfunction and Personal Distress scores than those with rs2254298 GG or rs2268491 CC genotypes. Conversely, among the individuals with rs2254298 GG or rs2268491 CC genotypes, the rs13316193 C allele carriers had lower daytime dysfunction and Personal Distress scores than rs13316193 TT homozygotes. There was also a significant interaction between rs2268490 and rs2268498 on the sleep latency dimension of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Our findings reveal for the first time the genotype-genotype interactions of the OXTR gene on sleep quality, which may open new research avenues for studying psychopathology involving sleep problems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuling Li
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Yuan Wang
- PLA Strategic Support Force Medical Center, Beijing, China
| | - Xin Guan
- PLA Strategic Support Force Medical Center, Beijing, China
| | - Jingyan Yue
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
| | - Hanjing Emily Wu
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
| | - Shiqian Zhen
- Institute of Circulation and Consumption, Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Beijing, China
| | - Shu-Chang He
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xiang-Yang Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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Shalev I, Warrier V, Greenberg DM, Smith P, Allison C, Baron‐Cohen S, Eran A, Uzefovsky F. Reexamining empathy in autism: Empathic disequilibrium as a novel predictor of autism diagnosis and autistic traits. Autism Res 2022; 15:1917-1928. [PMID: 36053924 PMCID: PMC9804307 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2794] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
A large body of research showed that autistic people have intact emotional (affective) empathy alongside reduced cognitive empathy. However, there are mixed findings and these call for a more subtle understanding of empathy in autism. Empathic disequilibrium refers to the imbalance between emotional and cognitive empathy and is associated with a higher number of autistic traits in the typical population. Here we examined whether empathic disequilibrium predicts both the number of autistic traits and autism diagnosis. In a large sample of autistic (N = 1905) and typical individuals (N = 3009), we examined empathic disequilibrium and empathy as predictors of autistic traits and autism diagnosis, using a polynomial regression with response surface analysis. Empathy and autistic traits were measured using validated self-report questionnaires. Both empathic disequilibrium and empathy predicted linearly and non-linearly autism diagnosis and autistic traits. Specifically, a tendency towards higher emotional than cognitive empathy (empathic disequilibrium towards emotional empathy) predicted both autism diagnosis and the social domain of autistic traits, while higher cognitive than emotional empathy was associated with the non-social domain of autism. Empathic disequilibrium was also more prominent in autistic females. This study provides evidence that beyond empathy as was measured thus far, empathic disequilibrium offers a novel analytical approach for examining the role of empathy. Empathic disequilibrium allows for a more nuanced understanding of the links between empathy and autism. LAY SUMMARY: Many autistic individuals report feelings of excessive empathy, yet their experience is not reflected by most of the current literature, typically suggesting that autism is characterized by intact emotional and reduced cognitive empathy. To fill this gap, we looked at both ends of the imbalance between these components, termed empathic disequilibrium. We show that, like empathy, empathic disequilibrium is related to autism diagnosis and traits, and thus may provide a more nuanced understanding of empathy and its link with autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ido Shalev
- Psychology DepartmentBen Gurion University of the NegevBeer‐ShebaIsrael,Zlotowski Center for NeuroscienceBen Gurion University of the NegevBeer‐ShebaIsrael
| | - Varun Warrier
- Department of Psychiatry, Autism Research CentreUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK
| | - David M. Greenberg
- Department of Psychiatry, Autism Research CentreUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK,Interdisciplinary Department of Social Sciences and Department of MusicBar‐Ilan UniversityRamat GanIsrael
| | - Paula Smith
- Department of Psychiatry, Autism Research CentreUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK
| | - Carrie Allison
- Department of Psychiatry, Autism Research CentreUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK
| | - Simon Baron‐Cohen
- Department of Psychiatry, Autism Research CentreUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK
| | - Alal Eran
- Zlotowski Center for NeuroscienceBen Gurion University of the NegevBeer‐ShebaIsrael,Life Sciences DepartmentBen Gurion University of the NegevBeer‐ShebaIsrael,Computational Health Informatics ProgramBoston Children's HospitalBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Florina Uzefovsky
- Psychology DepartmentBen Gurion University of the NegevBeer‐ShebaIsrael,Zlotowski Center for NeuroscienceBen Gurion University of the NegevBeer‐ShebaIsrael
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Khalaila R. Does emotional empathy moderate the association between caregiver burden and burnout among Arab family caregivers of older relatives? Health Soc Care Community 2022; 30:e2478-e2488. [PMID: 35285558 DOI: 10.1111/hsc.13689] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2021] [Revised: 11/09/2021] [Accepted: 12/09/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between caregiver's burden and three components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and sense of personal accomplishment) among family caregivers, as well as the moderating effects of emotional empathy on these associations. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 300 informal caregivers caring for their elderly relatives in the Arab community in Israel, using face-to-face structured interviews in Arabic. Three hierarchical regressions were applied to examine the factors related to each of the burnout components. Additional bootstrapping with resampling strategies was used to test the moderation effects of emotional empathy. The results showed positive correlations between caregiver's burden and two burnout components, emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation, but not with personal accomplishment. Greater emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation levels were related to higher emotional empathy. Perceived social support is linked negatively with emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation levels, and positively with personal accomplishment. In addition, emotional empathy emerged as a moderator in the associations between caregiver burden and two components of burnout: emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. Interventions for familial caregivers should aim to heighten social support and to educate caregivers on effectively regulating their emotional empathy to reduce caregiver's burden and burnout.
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Terranova JI, Yokose J, Osanai H, Marks WD, Yamamoto J, Ogawa SK, Kitamura T. Hippocampal-amygdala memory circuits govern experience-dependent observational fear. Neuron 2022; 110:1416-1431.e13. [PMID: 35139362 PMCID: PMC9035063 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.01.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2021] [Revised: 12/10/2021] [Accepted: 01/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The empathic ability to vicariously experience the other's fearful situation, a process called observational fear (OF), is critical to survive in nature and function in society. OF can be facilitated by both prior similar fear experience in the observer and social familiarity with the demonstrator. However, the neural circuit mechanisms of experience-dependent OF (Exp OF) remain unknown. Here, we demonstrate that hippocampal-basolateral amygdala (HPC-BLA) circuits in mice without involving the anterior cingulate cortex, considered a center of OF, mediate Exp OF. Dorsal HPC neurons generate fear memory engram cells in BLA encoding prior similar fear experiences, which are essential for Exp OF. On the other hand, ventral HPC neurons respond to the familiar demonstrator's aversive situation during Exp OF, which reactivates the fear memory engram cells in BLA to elicit Exp OF. Our study provides new insights into the memory engram-dependent perception-action coupling that underlies empathic behaviors like Exp OF.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph I Terranova
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Jun Yokose
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Hisayuki Osanai
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - William D Marks
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Jun Yamamoto
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Sachie K Ogawa
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Takashi Kitamura
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA; Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA.
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Hua AY, Wells JL, Brown CL, Levenson RW. Emotional and Cognitive Empathy in Caregivers of Persons with Neurodegenerative Disease: Relationships with Caregiver Mental Health. Clin Psychol Sci 2021; 9:449-466. [PMID: 34194871 PMCID: PMC8240761 DOI: 10.1177/2167702620974368] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
Caregiving for a person with dementia or neurodegenerative disease (PWD) is associated with increased rates of depression and anxiety. As the population ages and dementia prevalence increases worldwide, mental health problems related to dementia caregiving will become an even more pressing public health concern. The present study assessed emotional empathy (physiological, behavioral, and self-reported emotional responses to a film depicting others suffering) and two measures of cognitive empathy (identifying the primary emotion experienced by another person; providing continuous ratings of the valence of another person's changing emotions) in relation to mental health (standard questionnaires) in 78 caregivers of PWDs. Greater emotional empathy (self-reported emotional responses) was associated with worse mental health, even after accounting for known risk factors. Neither measure of cognitive empathy was associated with mental health. A relationship between high levels of emotional empathy and poor mental health in caregivers suggests possible risk indicators and intervention targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alice Y Hua
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
| | - Jenna L Wells
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
| | - Casey L Brown
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
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10
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Alkan Härtwig E, Aust S, Heekeren HR, Heuser I. No Words for Feelings? Not Only for My Own: Diminished Emotional Empathic Ability in Alexithymia. Front Behav Neurosci 2020; 14:112. [PMID: 33061894 PMCID: PMC7517829 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2019] [Accepted: 06/08/2020] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study has been designed to disentangle cognitive and emotional dimensions of empathy in a group of mentally healthy and highly alexithymic individuals (ALEX, n = 24) and well-matched controls (n = 26) through questionnaire Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Multifaceted Empathy Task (MET) used during the fMRI and after the fMRI. Simultaneously, Skin Conductance Response (SCR) has been acquired as an implicit measure of emotional reaction. Results show an impaired emotional empathic ability in alexithymic individuals, with lower levels of SCR and higher activation in prefrontal brain regions such as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Cognitive empathy was not impaired in the alexithymic group and the results were accompanied by a higher activation left IFG. The study leads to the conclusion that alexithymia does not only involve a diminished ability to identify and describe one's own emotions. Furthermore, it is related to a deeper disability of emotion regulation, which becomes visible through impaired emotional concern for others and higher levels of personal distress.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elif Alkan Härtwig
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Sabine Aust
- Department of Psychiatry, Charité University Medicine, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Hauke R Heekeren
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Isabella Heuser
- Department of Psychiatry, Charité University Medicine, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
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Le J, Kou J, Zhao W, Fu M, Zhang Y, Becker B, Kendrick KM. Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts. Front Neurosci 2020; 14:803. [PMID: 32848571 PMCID: PMC7432151 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00803] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2020] [Accepted: 07/08/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
One of the most robust effects of intranasal oxytocin treatment is its enhancement of emotional empathy responses across cultures to individuals displaying emotions in realistic contexts in the Multifaceted Empathy Task (MET). However, it is not established if this effect of oxytocin on emotional empathy is due to altered visual attention toward different components of the stimulus pictures or an enhanced empathic response. In the current randomized placebo-controlled within-subject experiment on 40 healthy male individuals, we both attempted a further replication of emotional empathy enhancement by intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) and used eye-tracking measures to determine if this was associated by altered visual attention toward different components of the picture stimuli (background context, human face, and body posture). Results replicated previous findings of enhanced emotional empathy in response to both negative and positive stimuli and that this was associated with an increased proportion of time viewing the faces of humans in the pictures and a corresponding decrease in that toward the rest of the body and/or background context. Overall, our findings suggest that enhanced emotional empathy following oxytocin administration is due to increased attention to the faces of others displaying emotions and away from other contextual and social cues. Clinical Trial Registration:www.ClinicalTrials.gov Oxytocin Modulates Eye Gaze Behavior During Social Processing; registration ID: NCT03293511; URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03293511.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiao Le
- The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Juan Kou
- The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Weihua Zhao
- The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Meina Fu
- The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Yingying Zhang
- The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Benjamin Becker
- The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Keith M Kendrick
- The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
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Kopiś N, Francuz P, Zabielska-Mendyk E, Augustynowicz P. Feeling Other People's Pain: An Event-Related Potential Study on Facial Attractiveness and Emotional Empathy. Adv Cogn Psychol 2020; 16:169-175. [PMID: 32685061 PMCID: PMC7355155 DOI: 10.5709/acp-0294-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Empathy is the ability to understand and react to other people's inner states. Neuroimaging evidence suggests that there are two aspects of empathy which are subserved by distinct brain networks. The emotional aspect of empathy is reflected by bottom-up processes and the cognitive aspect of empathy is influenced by top-down processes. Both aspects can be studied by measuring the reaction of participants exposed to the pictures of models who feel physical pain, for example, having a needle stuck in their cheek. The early event-related potential (ERP) N2 has been reported in observing other’s physical pain and has been suggested as a biomarker of the emotional aspect of empathy. The present study investigated the time course of processing other’s pain and the influence of face attractiveness on the early ERP component. Participants (N = 24) viewed photos of physically attractive and unattractive men and women during painful (a needle in the check) and nonpainful stimulation (Q-tip touching the skin). N1 and P2 components were sensitive to face attractiveness. The amplitude of the N2 component was more positive for the stimuli associated with pain than for neutral stimuli, but only for unattractive faces. Therefore, we suggest that a difference in the N2 amplitude to pain in unattractive faces most likely reflects a difference in emphatic response depending on facial attractiveness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalia Kopiś
- Department of Experimental Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland1
| | - Piotr Francuz
- Department of Experimental Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland1
| | - Emilia Zabielska-Mendyk
- Department of Experimental Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland1
| | - Paweł Augustynowicz
- Department of Experimental Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland1
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13
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Wu X, Xu F, Chen X, Wang L, Huang W, Wan K, Ji GJ, Xiao G, Xu S, Yu F, Zhu C, Xi C, Wang K. The Effect of High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Right Inferior Frontal Gyrus on Empathy in Healthy Individuals. Front Hum Neurosci 2018; 12:446. [PMID: 30483081 PMCID: PMC6240690 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2018] [Accepted: 10/17/2018] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Empathy, including cognitive and emotional empathy, refers to the ability to infer the mental states of others and to the capacity to share emotions. The neural mechanisms involved in empathy are complex and not yet fully understood, and previous studies have shown that both cognitive and emotional empathy are closely associated with the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). In this study, we examined whether empathy can be modulated by high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) of the right IFG. Twenty-three healthy participants took part in all three experimental conditions (i.e., anodal, cathodal and sham stimulation) in a randomized order. Participants then completed the Chinese version of the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET), which assesses both cognitive and emotional empathy. The results show that scores obtained for cognitive empathy following cathodal stimulation are significantly lower than those obtained following sham stimulation. In addition, scores obtained for cognitive empathy following anodal stimulation are higher than those obtained following sham stimulation, though the difference is only marginally significant. However, the results fail to show whether the stimulation of the right IFG via HD-tDCS plays a role in emotional empathy. Our results suggest that the right IFG plays a key role in cognitive empathy and indicate that HD-tDCS can regulate cognitive empathy by inducing excitability changes in the right IFG.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoling Wu
- Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China
| | - Feifei Xu
- Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China
| | - Xingui Chen
- Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China.,Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Lu Wang
- Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Wanling Huang
- Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Ke Wan
- Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Gong-Jun Ji
- Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China
| | - Guixian Xiao
- Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Sheng Xu
- Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Fengqiong Yu
- Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China
| | - Chunyan Zhu
- Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China
| | - Chunhua Xi
- Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China.,Department of Neurology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Kai Wang
- Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui, China.,Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
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14
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Giannopulu I, Terada K, Watanabe T. Emotional Empathy as a Mechanism of Synchronisation in Child-Robot Interaction. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1852. [PMID: 30459664 PMCID: PMC6232761 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01852] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2018] [Accepted: 09/11/2018] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Simulating emotional experience, emotional empathy is the fundamental ingredient of interpersonal communication. In the speaker-listener scenario, the speaker is always a child, the listener is a human or a toy robot. Two groups of neurotypical children aged 6 years on average composed the population: one Japanese (n = 20) and one French (n = 20). Revealing potential similarities in communicative exchanges in both groups when in contact with a human or a toy robot, the results might signify that emotional empathy requires the implication of an automatic identification. In this sense, emotional empathy might be considered a broad idiosyncrasy, a kind of synchronisation, offering the mind a peculiar form of communication. Our findings seem to be consistent with the assumption that children's brains would be constructed to simulate the feelings of others in order to ensure interpersonal synchronisation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irini Giannopulu
- Interdisciplinary Centre for the Artificial Mind (iCAM), Faculty of Society & Design, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
| | - Kazunori Terada
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, Gifu University, Gifu, Japan
| | - Tomio Watanabe
- Department of Systems Engineering, Okayama Prefectural University, Okayama, Japan
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15
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Geng Y, Zhao W, Zhou F, Ma X, Yao S, Hurlemann R, Becker B, Kendrick KM. Oxytocin Enhancement of Emotional Empathy: Generalization Across Cultures and Effects on Amygdala Activity. Front Neurosci 2018; 12:512. [PMID: 30108475 PMCID: PMC6079225 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00512] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2018] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Accumulating evidence suggests that the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) can enhance empathy although it is unclear which specific behavioral and neural aspects are influenced, and whether the effects are modulated by culture, sex, and trait autism. Based on previous findings in Caucasian men, we hypothesized that a single intranasal dose of OXT would specifically enhance emotional empathy (EE) via modulatory effects on the amygdala in an Asian (Chinese) population and explored the modulatory role of sex and trait autism on the effects. We first conducted a double-blind, randomized between-subject design experiment using a modified version of the multifaceted empathy task to determine whether OXT’s facilitation of EE can be replicated in Chinese men (n = 60). To further explore neural mechanisms behind and potential sex differences, functional MRI and skin conductance measures were acquired in an independent experiment incorporating men and women (n = 72). OXT enhanced EE across experiments and sex, an effect that was accompanied by reduced amygdala activity and increased skin conductance responses. On the network level OXT enhanced functional coupling of the right amygdala with the insula and posterior cingulate cortex for positive valence stimuli but attenuated coupling for negative valence stimuli. The effect of OXT on amygdala functional connectivity with the insula was modulated by trait autism. Overall, our findings provide further support for the role of OXT in facilitating EE and demonstrate that effects are independent of culture and sex and involve modulatory effects on the amygdala and its interactions with other key empathy regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yayuan Geng
- The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Weihua Zhao
- The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Feng Zhou
- The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Xiaole Ma
- The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Shuxia Yao
- The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Rene Hurlemann
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.,Division of Medical Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Benjamin Becker
- The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Keith M Kendrick
- The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
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16
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Bilevicius E, Kolesar TA, Smith SD, Trapnell PD, Kornelsen J. Trait Emotional Empathy and Resting State Functional Connectivity in Default Mode, Salience, and Central Executive Networks. Brain Sci 2018; 8:brainsci8070128. [PMID: 29986390 PMCID: PMC6071260 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci8070128] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2018] [Revised: 06/27/2018] [Accepted: 07/03/2018] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Emotional empathy is the ability to experience and/or share another person’s emotional states and responses. Although some research has examined the neural correlates of emotional empathy, there has been little research investigating whether this component of empathy is related to the functional connectivity of resting state networks in the brain. In the current study, 32 participants answered a trait emotional empathy questionnaire in a session previous to their functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Results indicate that emotional empathy scores were correlated with different patterns of functional connectivity in the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), and left and right central executive networks. For example, within the DMN, emotional empathy scores positively correlated with connectivity in the premotor cortex. Within the SN, empathy scores were positively correlated with the fusiform gyrus and cuneus. These findings demonstrate that emotional empathy is associated with unique patterns of functional connectivity in four of the brain’s resting state networks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elena Bilevicius
- Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3E 0J9, Canada.
- St. Boniface Hospital Research, Catholic Health Corporation of Manitoba, Compassion Project, Winnipeg, MB R2H 2A6, Canada.
- Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada.
| | - Tiffany A Kolesar
- Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3E 0J9, Canada.
- St. Boniface Hospital Research, Catholic Health Corporation of Manitoba, Compassion Project, Winnipeg, MB R2H 2A6, Canada.
| | - Stephen D Smith
- Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9, Canada.
| | - Paul D Trapnell
- Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9, Canada.
| | - Jennifer Kornelsen
- Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3E 0J9, Canada.
- St. Boniface Hospital Research, Catholic Health Corporation of Manitoba, Compassion Project, Winnipeg, MB R2H 2A6, Canada.
- Department of Radiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3A 1R9, Canada.
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17
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Wingenfeld K, Duesenberg M, Fleischer J, Roepke S, Dziobek I, Otte C, Wolf OT. Psychosocial stress differentially affects emotional empathy in women with borderline personality disorder and healthy controls. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2018; 137:206-215. [PMID: 29417987 DOI: 10.1111/acps.12856] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/17/2018] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Deficits in empathy, an important part of social cognition, have been described in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Importantly, psychosocial stress enhances emotional empathy in healthy participants. However, it remains unknown whether stress affects empathy in BPD. METHOD We randomized 47 women with BPD and 47 healthy women to either the Trier Social Stress Test or a control condition. Subsequently, all participants underwent the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET), a measure of cognitive and emotional facets of empathy. RESULTS Across groups, stress resulted in a significant increase in cortisol and stress ratings. There was a significant stress × group interaction for emotional empathy (Fdf1,92 = 5.12, P = 0.04, ηp2 = 0.05). While there was no difference between patients with BPD and healthy participants after the control condition, patients with BPD had significantly lower emotional empathy scores after stress compared to healthy individuals. There were no effects for cognitive empathy. CONCLUSION The current finding provides first evidence that stress differentially affects emotional empathy in patients with BPD and healthy individuals such that patients with BPD showed reduced emotional empathy compared to healthy women after stress. Given the strong impact of stress on acute psychopathology in patients with BPD, such a response may exacerbate interpersonal conflicts in stress contexts and may be an important target for therapeutic interventions.
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Affiliation(s)
- K Wingenfeld
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
| | - M Duesenberg
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
| | - J Fleischer
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
| | - S Roepke
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
| | - I Dziobek
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - C Otte
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
| | - O T Wolf
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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18
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Oliver LD, Vieira JB, Neufeld RWJ, Dziobek I, Mitchell DGV. Greater involvement of action simulation mechanisms in emotional vs cognitive empathy. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2018; 13:367-380. [PMID: 29462481 PMCID: PMC5928409 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsy013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2017] [Revised: 01/10/2018] [Accepted: 02/12/2018] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Empathy is crucial for successful interpersonal interactions, and it is impaired in many psychiatric and neurological disorders. Action-perception matching, or action simulation mechanisms, has been suggested to facilitate empathy by supporting the simulation of perceived experience in others. However, this remains unclear, and the involvement of the action simulation circuit in cognitive empathy (the ability to adopt another's perspective) vs emotional empathy (the capacity to share and react affectively to another's emotional experience) has not been quantitatively compared. Presently, healthy adults completed a classic cognitive empathy task (false belief), an emotional empathy task and an action simulation button-pressing task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Conjunction analyses revealed common recruitment of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), thought to be critical for action-perception matching, during both action simulation and emotional, but not cognitive, empathy. Furthermore, activation was significantly greater in action simulation regions in the left IFG during emotional vs cognitive empathy, and activity in this region was positively correlated with mean feeling ratings during the emotional empathy task. These findings provide evidence for greater involvement of action simulation mechanisms in emotional than cognitive empathy. Thus, the action simulation circuit may be an important target for delineating the pathophysiology of disorders featuring emotional empathy impairments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lindsay D Oliver
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.,The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada.,Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada
| | - Joana B Vieira
- The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Richard W J Neufeld
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.,Department of Psychiatry.,Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Isabel Dziobek
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Derek G V Mitchell
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.,The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada.,Department of Psychiatry.,Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada.,Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada
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19
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Peretti S, Tempesta D, Socci V, Pino MC, Mazza M, Valenti M, De Gennaro L, Di Dio C, Marchetti A, Ferrara M. The role of sleep in aesthetic perception and empathy: A mediation analysis. J Sleep Res 2018; 28:e12664. [PMID: 29405533 DOI: 10.1111/jsr.12664] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2017] [Revised: 12/20/2017] [Accepted: 12/21/2017] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
The ability to experience aesthetics plays a fundamental role in human social interactions, as well as the capacity to feel empathy. Some studies have shown that beauty perception shares part of the neural network underlying emotional and empathic abilities, which are also known to affect sleep quality and duration. In this study, we evaluated for the first time the effects of sleep on the relation between aesthetic perception and empathic abilities in healthy subjects using a mediation analysis approach. One-hundred and twenty-six subjects participated in this study. One-hundred and one subjects slept at home (Sleep Group). The remaining 25 subjects were tested as controls after 1 night of sleep deprivation to assess the effects of lack of sleep on aesthetic perception and empathy (Sleep-Deprived Group). All participants underwent one testing session in which they performed a battery of empathy tests and an aesthetic perception task (Golden Beauty). The results showed that sleep duration mediates the relationship between empathy and aesthetic perception in the sleep group. The mediation effect of sleep was more evident on the emotional empathy measures. Conversely, in the sleep deprivation group the lack of correlations among empathy, aesthetic perception and sleep variables did not allow to perform the mediation analysis. These results suggest that adequate sleep duration may play a significant role in improving cognitive and emotional empathic abilities as well as the capability to give accurate aesthetic judgements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sara Peretti
- Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Coppito (L'Aquila), Italy
| | - Daniela Tempesta
- Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Coppito (L'Aquila), Italy
| | - Valentina Socci
- Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Coppito (L'Aquila), Italy
| | - Maria C Pino
- Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Coppito (L'Aquila), Italy
| | - Monica Mazza
- Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Coppito (L'Aquila), Italy
| | - Marco Valenti
- Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Coppito (L'Aquila), Italy
| | - Luigi De Gennaro
- Department of Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy
| | - Cinzia Di Dio
- Department of Psychology, University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Antonella Marchetti
- Department of Psychology, University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Michele Ferrara
- Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Coppito (L'Aquila), Italy
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20
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Abstract
Empathy entails the ability to recognize emotional states in others and feel for them. Since empathy does not take place in a static setting, paradigms utilizing more naturalistic, dynamic stimuli instead of static stimuli are perhaps more suited to grasp the origin of this highly complex social skill. The study was set up to test the effect of stimulus dynamics and gender on empathic responses. Participants were 80 healthy volunteers (N = 40 males) aged 22.5 years on average. Behavioral empathy was tested with the multifaceted empathy test, including static emotional stimuli, and the multidimensional movie empathy test (MMET), including dynamic stimuli. Findings showed emotional empathy (EE) responses were higher to negative emotional stimuli in both tasks, i.e., using static as well as dynamic stimuli. Interestingly a gender-dependent response was only seen in the MMET using dynamic stimuli. It was shown that females felt more aroused and were more concerned with people in negative affective states. It was concluded that the MMET is suited to study gender differences in EE.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kim P C Kuypers
- Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht UniversityMaastricht, Netherlands
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21
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Abstract
Using the empathizing-systemizing theory as our framework, we investigated how people with high self-reported empathizing (having good social skills and being interested in people) and systemizing (being interested in physical things and processes) differ in the social information processing of emotionally negative photographs of people during "spontaneous watching" and emotional and cognitive empathy tasks. Empathizers evaluated the pictures as more emotionally touching and the reactions in the photographs more understandable than the systemizers. Compared to the empathizers, systemizers had stronger activations in the posterior cingulate cortex, an area related to cognitive empathy, as well as in the left superior temporal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus when watching emotional photographs spontaneously. During guided emotional and cognitive empathy tasks, these differences disappeared. However, during the emotional empathy task, higher systemizing was associated with weaker activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus /insula. Furthermore, during emotional and cognitive empathy tasks, empathizing was related to increased activations of the amygdala which were in turn related to higher behavioral ratings of emotional and cognitive empathy. The results suggest that empathizers and systemizers engage in social information processing differently: systemizers in more cognitive terms and empathizers with stronger automatic emotional reactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tapani Riekki
- a Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine , University of Helsinki , Helsinki , Finland
| | - Annika M Svedholm-Häkkinen
- a Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine , University of Helsinki , Helsinki , Finland
| | - Marjaana Lindeman
- a Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine , University of Helsinki , Helsinki , Finland
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22
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Abstract
Previous placebo-controlled experimental studies have shown that a single dose of MDMA can increase emotional empathy in the multifaceted empathy test (MET) without affecting cognitive empathy. Although sufficiently powered to detect main effects of MDMA, these studies were generally underpowered to also validly assess contributions of additional parameters, such as sex, drug use history, trait empathy and MDMA or oxytocin plasma concentrations. The present study examined the robustness of the MDMA effect on empathy and investigated the moderating role of these additional parameters. Participants ( n = 118) from six placebo-controlled within-subject studies and two laboratories were included in the present pooled analysis. Empathy (MET), MDMA and oxytocin plasma concentrations were assessed after oral administration of MDMA (single dose, 75 or 125 mg). Trait empathy was assessed using the interpersonal reactivity index. We confirmed that MDMA increased emotional empathy at both doses without affecting cognitive empathy. This MDMA-related increase in empathy was most pronounced during presentation of positive emotions as compared with negative emotions. MDMA-induced empathy enhancement was positively related to MDMA blood concentrations measured before the test, but independent of sex, drug use history and trait empathy. Oxytocin concentrations increased after MDMA administration but were not associated with behavioral effects. The MDMA effects on emotional empathy were stable across laboratories and doses. Sex did not play a moderating role in this effect, and oxytocin levels, trait empathy and drug use history were also unrelated. Acute drug exposure was of significant relevance in the MDMA-induced emotional empathy elevation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kim PC Kuypers
- Department of Neuropsychology & Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Maastricht University, the Netherlands,Kim PC Kuypers, Department of Neuropsychology & Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, Maastricht, 6200 MD, the Netherlands.
| | - Patrick C Dolder
- Psychopharmacology Research, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Clinical Research, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Switzerland
| | - Johannes G Ramaekers
- Department of Neuropsychology & Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Maastricht University, the Netherlands
| | - Matthias E Liechti
- Psychopharmacology Research, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Clinical Research, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Switzerland
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23
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Tamayo CA, Rizkalla MN, Henderson KK. Cognitive, Behavioral and Emotional Empathy in Pharmacy Students: Targeting Programs for Curriculum Modification. Front Pharmacol 2016; 7:96. [PMID: 27148055 PMCID: PMC4835498 DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2016.00096] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2016] [Accepted: 03/29/2016] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Introduction: Empathy is an essential trait for pharmacists and is recognized as a core competency that can be developed in the classroom. There is a growing body of data regarding levels of empathy in pharmacy students; however, these studies have not measured differences in behavioral, cognitive, and emotional empathy. The goal of this study was to parse the underlying components of empathy and correlate them to psychosocial attributes, with the overall goal of identifying curriculum modifications to enhance levels of empathy in pharmacy students. Methods: IRB approval was obtained to measure empathy levels in pharmacy students attending Midwestern University. An online, anonymous survey administered through a secure website (REDCap) was used. This survey utilized the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (Medical Student version) and included questions regarding demographics and personality traits. Empathy questions were sub-divided into behavioral, cognitive, and emotional categories. Data are presented as mean ± SEM with significance set at P ≤ 0.05. Results: Three hundred and four pharmacy students at Midwestern University participated in a fall survey with an overall response rate of 37%. The average empathy score was 110.4 ± 0.8 on a scale of 20–140; which is comparable to empathy scores found by Fjortoft et al. (2011) and Van Winkle et al. (2012b). Validating prior research, females scored significantly higher than males in empathy as well as behavioral, cognitive, and emotional subcomponents. For the entire population, emotional empathy was significantly higher than cognitive and behavioral empathy (P < 0.05). Furthermore, negative correlations to empathy were observed for self-serving behavior (R D 0.490, P < 0.001), medical authoritarianism (R D 0.428, P < 0.001), and experience of coercion (R D 0.344, P < 0.001). Conclusion: Overall, empathy levels in pharmacy students are similar to prior studies with females scoring higher than males. Emotional empathy may play a greater role than cognitive and behavioral empathy in this group of students. Targeted programs that promote volunteerism and activities that foster responsiveness to patient needs may attenuate self-serving behavior and medical authoritarianism and, therefore, improve empathy levels in pharmacy students.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cassandra A Tamayo
- Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, Midwestern University, Downers Grove IL, USA
| | - Mireille N Rizkalla
- Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, Midwestern University, Downers GroveIL, USA; Department of Clinical Integration, Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, Midwestern University, Downers GroveIL, USA
| | - Kyle K Henderson
- Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, Midwestern University, Downers GroveIL, USA; Department of Physiology and Department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, Midwestern University, Downers GroveIL, USA
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Michalska KJ, Zeffiro TA, Decety J. Brain response to viewing others being harmed in children with conduct disorder symptoms. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2016; 57:510-9. [PMID: 26472591 PMCID: PMC4789171 DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12474] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/03/2015] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Deficient empathic processing is thought to foster conduct disorder (CD). It is important to determine the extent to which neural response associated with perceiving harm to others predicts CD symptoms and callous disregard for others. METHODS A total of 107 9- to 11-year-old children (52 female) were recruited from pediatric and mental health clinics, representing a wide range of CD symptoms. Children were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing brief video clips of persons being harmed intentionally or accidentally. RESULTS Perceiving harm evoked increased hemodynamic response in the anterior insula (aINS), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), amygdala, periaqueductal gray (PAG), caudate, and inferior parietal lobe (IPL) across all participants. Intentionally caused, relative to unintentional harm was associated with greater activity in the aINS, amygdala, and temporal pole. There was an inverse association of number of CD symptoms with right posterior insula in both the Harm > No Harm and the Intentional > Unintentional Harm contrasts. Furthermore, an inverse association between callousness and posterior insula activation was found in the Harm > No Harm contrast, with the opposite pattern for reactive aggression scores. An interaction revealed a stronger association in girls between CD symptoms and the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in the Intentional Harm versus Unintentional Harm contrast. CONCLUSIONS Children with greater CD and callousness exhibit dampened hemodynamic response to viewing others being harmed in the insula, a region which plays a key role in empathy and emotional awareness. Sex differences in the neural correlates of CD were observed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kalina J. Michalska
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, IL, USA,National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA,Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Thomas A. Zeffiro
- Neural Systems Group, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA
| | - Jean Decety
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, IL, USA,Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago Medicine, IL, USA
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Willis ML, Lawson DL, Ridley NJ, Koval P, Rendell PG. The contribution of emotional empathy to approachability judgments assigned to emotional faces is context specific. Front Psychol 2015; 6:1209. [PMID: 26347680 PMCID: PMC4541147 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01209] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2014] [Accepted: 07/30/2015] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous research on approachability judgments has indicated that facial expressions modulate how these judgments are made, but the relationship between emotional empathy and context in this decision-making process has not yet been examined. This study examined the contribution of emotional empathy to approachability judgments assigned to emotional faces in different contexts. One-hundred and twenty female participants completed the questionnaire measure of emotional empathy. Participants provided approachability judgments to faces displaying angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, neutral, and sad expressions, in three different contexts—when evaluating whether they would approach another individual to: (1) receive help; (2) give help; or (3) when no contextual information was provided. In addition, participants were also required to provide ratings of perceived threat, emotional intensity and label facial expressions. Emotional empathy significantly predicted approachability ratings for specific emotions in each context, over and above the contribution of perceived threat and intensity, which were associated with emotional empathy. Higher emotional empathy predicted less willingness to approach people with angry and disgusted faces to receive help, and a greater willingness to approach people with happy faces to receive help. Higher emotional empathy also predicted a greater willingness to approach people with sad faces to offer help, and more willingness to approach people with happy faces when no contextual information was provided. These results highlight the important contribution of individual differences in emotional empathy in predicting how approachability judgments are assigned to facial expressions in context.
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Affiliation(s)
- Megan L Willis
- School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University , Strathfield, NSW, Australia ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Australian Catholic University , Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Danielle L Lawson
- School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University , Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Nicole J Ridley
- School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University , Strathfield, NSW, Australia
| | - Peter Koval
- School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University , Melbourne, VIC, Australia ; Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven , Leuven, Belgium
| | - Peter G Rendell
- School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University , Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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Wu N, Shang S, Su Y. The arginine vasopressin V1b receptor gene and prosociality: Mediation role of emotional empathy. Psych J 2015; 4:160-5. [PMID: 26354157 DOI: 10.1002/pchj.102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/13/2014] [Accepted: 05/04/2015] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
The vasopressin V1b receptor (AVPR1B) gene has been shown to be closely associated with bipolar disorder and depression. However, whether it relates to positive social outcomes, such as empathy and prosocial behavior, remains unknown. This study explored the possible role of the AVPR1B gene rs28373064 in empathy and prosociality. A total of 256 men, who were genetically unrelated, non-clinical ethnic Han Chinese college students, participated in the study. Prosociality was tested by measuring the prosocial tendencies of cognitive and emotional empathy using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs28373064, was genotyped using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis. The results suggest that the AVPR1B gene rs28373064 is linked to emotional empathy and prosociality. The mediation analysis indicated that the effect of the AVPR1B gene on prosociality might be mediated by emotional empathy. This study demonstrated the link between the AVPR1B gene and prosociality and provided evidence that emotional empathy might mediate the relation between the AVPR1B gene and prosociality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nan Wu
- Department of Psychology, Peking University, Teacher's College of Beijing Union University, Beijing, China
| | - Siyuan Shang
- Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Yanjie Su
- Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China
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Abstract
Empathy is a core prerequisite for human social behavior. Relatively, little is known about how empathy is influenced by social stress and its associated neuroendocrine alterations. The current study was designed to test the impact of acute stress on emotional and cognitive empathy. Healthy male participants were exposed to a psychosocial laboratory stressor (trier social stress test, (TSST)) or a well-matched control condition (Placebo-TSST). Afterwards they participated in an empathy test measuring emotional and cognitive empathy (multifaceted empathy test, (MET)). Stress exposure caused an increase in negative affect, a rise in salivary alpha amylase and a rise in cortisol. Participants exposed to stress reported more emotional empathy in response to pictures displaying both positive and negative emotional social scenes. Cognitive empathy (emotion recognition) in contrast did not differ between the stress and the control group. The current findings provide initial evidence for enhanced emotional empathy after acute psychosocial stress.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oliver T Wolf
- a Department of Cognitive Psychology , Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum , Germany
| | - Judith M Schulte
- a Department of Cognitive Psychology , Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum , Germany
| | - Hanna Drimalla
- b Department of Social Cognition , Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität Berlin , Berlin , Germany , and
| | - Tanja C Hamacher-Dang
- b Department of Social Cognition , Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität Berlin , Berlin , Germany , and
| | - Daria Knoch
- c Social Psychology and Social Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern , Switzerland
| | - Isabel Dziobek
- b Department of Social Cognition , Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität Berlin , Berlin , Germany , and
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de Greck M, Bölter AF, Lehmann L, Ulrich C, Stockum E, Enzi B, Hoffmann T, Tempelmann C, Beutel M, Frommer J, Northoff G. Changes in brain activity of somatoform disorder patients during emotional empathy after multimodal psychodynamic psychotherapy. Front Hum Neurosci 2013; 7:410. [PMID: 23966922 PMCID: PMC3744921 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00410] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2013] [Accepted: 07/11/2013] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Somatoform disorder patients show a variety of emotional disturbances including impaired emotion recognition and increased empathic distress. In a previous paper, our group showed that several brain regions involved in emotional processing, such as the parahippocampal gyrus and other regions, were less activated in pre-treatment somatoform disorder patients (compared to healthy controls) during an empathy task. Since the parahippocampal gyrus is involved in emotional memory, its decreased activation might reflect the repression of emotional memories (which—according to psychoanalytical concepts—plays an important role in somatoform disorder). Psychodynamic psychotherapy aims at increasing the understanding of emotional conflicts as well as uncovering repressed emotions. We were interested, whether brain activity in the parahippocampal gyrus normalized after (inpatient) multimodal psychodynamic psychotherapy. Using fMRI, subjects were scanned while they shared the emotional states of presented facial stimuli expressing anger, disgust, joy, and a neutral expression; distorted stimuli with unrecognizable content served as control condition. 15 somatoform disorder patients were scanned twice, pre and post multimodal psychodynamic psychotherapy; in addition, 15 age-matched healthy control subjects were investigated. Effects of psychotherapy on hemodynamic responses were analyzed implementing two approaches: (1) an a priori region of interest approach and (2) a voxelwise whole brain analysis. Both analyses revealed increased hemodynamic responses in the left and right parahippocampal gyrus (and other regions) after multimodal psychotherapy in the contrast “empathy with anger”—“control.” Our results are in line with psychoanalytical concepts about somatoform disorder. They suggest the parahippocampal gyrus is crucially involved in the neurobiological mechanisms which underly the emotional deficits of somatoform disorder patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moritz de Greck
- Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medicine Mainz Mainz, Germany ; Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Leipzig Leipzig, Germany
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Dehning S, Girma E, Gasperi S, Meyer S, Tesfaye M, Siebeck M. Comparative cross-sectional study of empathy among first year and final year medical students in Jimma University, Ethiopia: steady state of the heart and opening of the eyes. BMC Med Educ 2012; 12:34. [PMID: 22624580 PMCID: PMC3432612 DOI: 10.1186/1472-6920-12-34] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2012] [Accepted: 05/24/2012] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND There is general consent that empathy is crucial for the physician-patient relationship and thus an important issue in medical education. This comparative study was designed to examine the differences in empathy between first year and final year medical students in Jimma University, Ethiopia. METHODS A comparative cross-sectional study among 131 first year and 106 final year medical students was conducted in Jimma University, Ethiopia on academic year 2010/11. The study subjects were selected using simple random sampling technique from the list of the students. Study participation was voluntary. The Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) was used for the detection of "heart-reading", i.e. emotional empathy and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (RME-R test) to evaluate "mind-reading", i.e. cognitive empathy. We performed t-test to compare the mean difference in empathy and RME-R scores between the two groups of students. A linear regression was computed to identify potential factors influencing the BEES and RME-R. RESULTS Out of the total 237 students, 207 (87.3%) were males. The mean age of first year and final year students was 19.3 ± 1.1 and 24.0 ± 1.4 years respectively. First year students have scored 40.6 ± 23.8 while final year students scored 41.5 ± 20.8 mean in the BEES measuring emotional empathy score. However, this difference was not statistically significant (t = -0.30, df = 231, P-value >0.05). Final year students had significantly higher mean cognitive empathy score (17.8 ± 4.5) than first year students (14.4 ± 4.8) [β = 2.7, 95%CI (1.20, 4.13)]. Males had scored lower cognitive [β = -2.5, 95%CI (-4.37, -0.66)] and emotional empathy [β = -12.0, 95%CI (-21.66, -5.46)]. CONCLUSIONS Low emotional (BEES) and cognitive empathy sores were found in first year and final year students of Jimma University could have implications on the medical education curricula. Medical education targeted at enhancing emotional empathy and increasing cognitive empathy is required by segmenting with gender for effective physician-patient interaction. The influence of empathy on clinical competence should be studied using more rigorous design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sandra Dehning
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
| | - Eshetu Girma
- Department of Health Education and Behavioral Sciences, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia
| | - Sarah Gasperi
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
| | - Sebastian Meyer
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
| | - Markos Tesfaye
- Department of Psychiatry, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia
| | - Matthias Siebeck
- Department of Surgery, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
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