Abstract
Although emotion regulation has been proposed to be crucial for empathy, investigations on emotion regulation have been primarily limited to intrapersonal processes, leaving the interpersonal processes of self-regulation rather unexplored. Moreover, studies showed that emotion regulation and empathy are related with increased autonomic activation. How emotion regulation and empathy are related at the autonomic level, and more specifically during differently valenced social situations remains an open question. Healthy adults viewed a series of short videos illustrating a target who was expressing positive, negative, or no emotions during a social situation (Positive, Negative, or Neutral Social Scenes). Prior to each video, participants were instructed to reappraise their own emotions (Up-regulation, Down-regulation, or No-regulation). To assess autonomic activation, RR intervals (RRI), high frequency (HF) components of heart rate variability (HRV), and electrodermal activity phasic responses (EDRs) were calculated. Situational empathy was measured through a visual analogue scale. Participants rated how empathic they felt for a specific target. Up- and Down-regulation were related to an increase and a decrease in situational empathy and an increase in RRI and HF, respectively, compared to the control condition (No-regulation). This suggests increased activity of the parasympathetic branch during emotion regulation of situational empathic responses. Positive compared to Negative Social Scenes were associated with decreased situational empathy, in addition to a slightly but non-significantly increased HF. Altogether, this study demonstrates that emotion regulation may be associated with changes in situational empathy and autonomic responses, preferentially dominated by the parasympathetic branch and possibly reflecting an increase of regulatory processes. Furthermore, the current study provides evidence that empathy for different emotional valences is associated with distinct changes in situational empathy and autonomic responses.
Highlights
Empathy, the ability to feel and understand others’ affective states, is deeply rooted in everyday social interactions [1]
Negative compared to Positive Social Scenes (d = 3.043, df = 1, p < .001) were related with higher situational empathy
Negative (d = 15.161, df = 1, p < .001) and Positive (d = 11.190, df = 1, p < .001) compared to Neutral Social Scenes were related to higher situational empathy
Summary
The ability to feel and understand others’ affective states, is deeply rooted in everyday social interactions [1]. The affective component refers to vicariously sharing others’ emotions, while the cognitive component refers to the ability to understand others’ feelings [1]. In the process model of emotion regulation, emotion regulation, which entails a variety of sub-types of regulatory mechanisms and strategies, is defined as the ability to shape the nature and/or to reduce (i.e. downregulate) or promote (i.e. up-regulate) the intensity of our own emotions [7]. In the models of empathy, emotion regulation is described as a cognitive top-down process that can down-regulate [1, 3], and up-regulate [2], the spontaneous affective reactions resulting from the observation of the emotional states of others. The function of emotion regulation is thereby to influence (i.e. to increase or decrease) the intensity of the affective component, which in turn promotes an adapted empathic response [8]
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