Abstract
Previous studies have found that individuals exhibit empathic responses when others are treated unfairly. However, there remains a lack of clarity over the extent to which self-interest regulates these empathic responses, and in identifying which component of empathy is more likely to be affected. To investigate these issues, an experiment was designed based on a money distribution task with two conditions [observation condition (OC) vs. participation condition (PC)], and carried out using scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs). Behavioral data showed that the participants’ empathic responses were consistent with their coplayers’ emotional expressions in the OC, whereas they were inconsistent with the coplayers’ expressions in the PC. The electrophysiological data showed that the neural encoding of facial expressions (reflected in the N170) was not affected by self-interest. However, the late stage of empathic responses (LPP) showed a decline when participants’ self-interest was involved. Disadvantageous inequality and relatively fair distribution to others elicited a more pronounced feedback-related negativity (FRN) than advantageous inequality distribution in both the OC and PC. As the late stage of empathic responses is also indexed by the LPP amplitude, these results indicate that the participants were more concerned for their own outcomes than for others’ benefits when self-interest was involved, which reduced their empathy toward their coplayers at the late stage of empathic responses.
Highlights
Empathy is an important contributor to successful social interaction and a key motivator for altruistic behavior, allowing us to predict and understand others’ behavior and to react
Our analyses focused on three distinct event-related potentials (ERPs) components: N170, late stage of empathic responses (LPP), and feedbackrelated negativity (FRN)
Further simple effect analysis revealed that in the observation condition (OC), participants rated themselves as feeling more unpleasant in the disadvantageous inequality (DI) situation (3.192 ± 0.176) than in the anterior insula (AI) [0.673 ± 0.149; t(25) = 10.455, p < 0.001], and relatively fair (RF) situations [1.551 ± 0.162; t(25) = 7.285, p < 0.001]
Summary
Empathy is an important contributor to successful social interaction and a key motivator for altruistic behavior, allowing us to predict and understand others’ behavior and to react . Numerous studies on the neural bases of empathy have shown the anterior insula (AI) and mid-anterior cingulate cortex (mACC) to be implicated in first-hand and vicarious experiences of pain (Singer et al, 2004; Farrell et al, 2005; Salimi-Khorshidi et al, 2009; CorradiDell’Acqua et al, 2011; Lamm et al, 2011); disgust (Murphy et al, 2003; Wicker et al, 2003; Jabbi et al, 2007; Vytal and Hamann, 2010); and unfairness (Sanfey et al, 2003; Civai et al, 2012; Corradi-Dell’Acqua et al, 2013; Gabay et al, 2014; Feng et al, 2015) The findings of these studies suggest that we feel unpleasant when unfair treatment is meted out to ourselves or to others. Our empathy for others may promote altruistic behavior, a preference for fairness, and disgust toward unfair transactions or distributions
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