Empathic Concern For Others Research Articles

Which Aspects of Parenting Predict the Development of Empathic Concern During Infancy?

This study examined which parenting behaviors predict the development of infants' empathic concern for others in distress. We distinguished between three forms of sensitive/responsive parenting: mothers' responsiveness to infant distress, their responsiveness to the infant's nondistress cues, and maternal expression of positive affect and affection in nondistress. Although in prior work these parenting behaviors were frequently combined, or subsumed under a single global construct, such as "sensitive responsiveness", the three forms of parenting are theoretically distinct. We hypothesized that once all three were examined simultaneously, only responsiveness to distress would emerge as a unique predictor of empathy. A sample of 165 Israeli infants (50% girls) was assessed from 3 to 18 months. Parenting measures were coded from mother-infant interactions at 3 and 6 months, and infants' empathic concern was assessed using three distressed stimuli at ages 3, 6, 12, and 18 months. Path analysis models revealed that, consistent with the hypothesis, only responsiveness to distress uniquely predicted infants' subsequent empathic concern, over and above the other forms of parenting and preexisting empathy levels; conversely, being responsive or affectionate when infants were not distressed did not predict their empathic abilities. The findings underscore the importance of differentiating between theoretically distinct forms of parenting, even when they are correlated. The discussion addresses the role of responsiveness to infants' distress in the early development of empathic capacity, and highlights avenues for future research.

When do children begin to care for others? The ontogenetic growth of empathic concern across the first two years of life

Empathic concern for others plays a central role for human cooperation and is proposed to be key in moral development. Developmental theories disagree on the age of emergence of empathic concern in human ontogeny and the factors supporting its early development. To assess different theoretical views, the current study longitudinally assessed infants’ (N = 127) reactions towards an experimenter and their mothers simulating pain at 6, 10, 14, and 18 months. As an emotional control condition, infants’ reactions towards a laughing experimenter were assessed. Maternal sensitivity, children’s temperamental emotionality, and self-recognition were included as predictors. True intraindividual change models were applied to capture the growth of empathic concern in early development. Overall, there were minor and inconsistent differences in children’s responses to laughing and crying others in the first year of life, whereas clear differences emerged in the second year. At 6 months, scale values of empathic concern were significantly related to measures of infant distress suggesting that infants experience emotional contagion and not veridical empathic concern. At 18 months, children’s concern towards the experimenter was related to their concern towards their mother. Maternal sensitivity, negative emotionality and self-recognition were related to children’s empathic concern within the second year. These findings suggest that empathic concern emerges in the second year and point to a gradual emergence of concern for others in human ontogeny.

Evaluating the relationship of empathic concern to college students’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective: Empathic concern (EC) for others may be related to COVID-19 pandemic responses. Participants and methods: The purpose of this survey study was to examine differences in pandemic responses in 1,778 college students rated as low (LE) versus high (HE) on the EC subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Results: HE participants reported greater concerns in numerous pandemic-related domains, including acquiring COVID-19; access to COVID-19 treatment; number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths reported; staying employed; and being isolated for long periods of time. Generalized anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and perceived stress scores were significantly higher for individuals in the HE group compared to the LE group. The HE group reported being significantly more adherent to health and safety recommendations than the LE group. Conclusions: Empathic concern for others is important for promoting college student prosocial behavior but is associated with anxiety and depression symptomatology during times of traumatic stress.

Why help others? Insights from rodent to human early childhood research.

Helping behavior are actions aiming at assisting another individual in need or to relieve their distress. The occurrence of this behavior not only depends on automated physiological mechanisms, such as imitation or emotional contagion, that is, the individual's emotion and physiological state matching with others, but also needs motivation to sustain. From a comparative and developmental perspective, we discover that the motivation for helping behavior has a deep foundation both phylogenetically and ontogenetically. For example, empathic concern for others, relieving personal distress and the desire for social contact are universal motivations across rodents, non-human primates and human early childhoods. Therefore, a circle-layered model integrating evidences for motivation for helping behavior from rodent to human early childhood research is proposed: the inner circle contains the emotional-behavioral system and the outer circle contains the affective-cognitive system. The application of this model has significance for both behavioral neuroscience research and cultivating prosocial behavior in human society.

Do I care for you or for me? Processing of protected and non-protected moral values in subjects with extreme scores on the Dark Triad

Protected moral values facilitate empathic concern for others, who are exposed to an existential threat, so that one spontaneously helps without taking into account utilitarian cost–benefit considerations. Subjects scoring high on the “Dark Triad” machiavellism, psychopathy, and narcissism are prone to ignore such appeals for selfless help. Until now, data on moral processing and moral decision-making following requests for altruistic help, which directly contrast appeals to protected and non-protected values in subjects with high and low scores on Dark Triad traits, have been missing. In this pilot study 25 healthy subjects with high and 27 with low Dark Triad scores participated in this functional magnetic resonance imaging study. We used a script-driven imagery paradigm to directly contrast requests for selfless help appealing to protected versus non-protected, negotiable moral values. Appeals to protected versus non-protected moral values elicited stronger activations in a large network including insula, amygdala, supramarginal gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Non-protected values evoked stronger activation in superior frontal sulcus, occipito-temporal junction, and posterior cingulate cortex. During decision-making, high-scorers on the Dark Triad showed increased activations in the superior parietal lobule, precuneus, and intraparietal sulcus. Behaviorally, protected versus non-protected values strongly reduced the reliance on personal cost–benefit calculations in low-scorers, while high-scorers continued to rely on utilitarian deliberations. Data suggest that appeals to protected versus non-protected values activate distinct brain regions associated with strong moral emotions, other-directed cognition, and rule-based decision-making processes. High-scorers display an increased reliance on cost–benefit calculations, which persists even when protected values are threatened.

Nietzsche’s Theory of Empathy

Nietzsche is not known for his theory of empathy. A quick skimming of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on empathy demonstrates this. Arthur Schopenhauer, Robert Vischer, and Theodor Lipps are among those whose views are considered representative, but Nietzsche has been simply forgotten in discussion of empathy. Nietzsche’s theory of empathy has not yet aroused sufficient interest among commentators. I believe that his views on this subject merit careful consideration. Nietzsche scholars have been interested in his naturalistic accounts of other phenomena, but there seems to be relatively limited interest in his naturalistic account of a phenomenon that is so central to his disagreement with Schopenhauer, namely, empathic concern for others. This is surprising because Nietzsche makes a valuable contribution; he has views more in keeping with contemporary theories of empathy than others of his time. My goal here is to fill in this gap in the scholarship and provide the first thorough analysis of Nietzsche’s theory of empathy, which appears most clearly in Dawn.

Computational and Neurobiological Substrates of Cost-Benefit Integration in Altruistic Helping Decision

Although altruistic behaviors, e.g., sacrificing one's own interests to alleviate others' suffering, are widely observed in human society, altruism varies greatly across individuals. Such individual differences in altruistic preference have been hypothesized to arise from both individuals' dispositional empathic concern for others' welfare and context-specific cost-benefit integration processes. However, how cost-benefit integration is implemented in the brain and how it is linked to empathy remain unclear. Here, we combine a novel paradigm with the model-based fMRI approach to examine the neurocomputational basis of altruistic behaviors. Thirty-seven adults (16 females) were tested. Modeling analyses suggest that individuals are likely to integrate their own monetary costs with nonlinearly transformed recipients' benefits. Neuroimaging results demonstrate the involvement of an extended common currency system during decision-making by showing that selfish and other-regarding motives were processed in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and right inferior parietal lobule in a domain-general manner. Importantly, a functional dissociation of adjacent but different sub-regions within anterior insular cortex (aINS) was observed for different sub-processes underlying altruistic behaviors. While dorsal aINS and inferior frontal gyrus were involved in valuation of benefactors' costs, ventral aINS and middle insular cortex (vaINS/mINS), as empathy-related regions, reflected individual variations in valuating recipients' benefits. Multivariate analyses further suggest that both vaINS/mINS and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex reflect individual variations in general altruistic preferences which account for both dispositional empathy and context-specific other-regarding tendency. Together, these findings provide valuable insights into our understanding of psychological and neurobiological basis of altruistic behaviors.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT:Altruistic behaviors play a crucial role in facilitating solidarity and development of human society, but the mechanisms of the cost-benefit integration underlying these behaviors are still unclear. Using model-based neuroimaging approaches, we clarify that people integrate personal costs and non-linearly transformed other's benefits during altruistic decision-making and the implementations of the integration processes are supported by an extended common currency neural network. Importantly, multivariate analyses reveal that both empathy- and cognitive control-related brain regions are involved in modulating individual variations of altruistic preference, which implicate complex psychological and computational processes. Our results provide a neurocomputational account of how people weigh between different attributes to make altruistic decisions and why altruistic preference varies to a great extent across individuals.

Psychological Flexibility With Prejudices Increases Empathy and Decreases Distress Among Adolescents: A Spanish Validation of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-Stigma.

Empathy is an emotional response that may facilitate prosocial behavior and inhibit aggression by increasing empathic concern for others. But the vicarious experience of other’s feelings may also turn into personal distress when the person has poor regulation skills and holds stigmatizing beliefs. In thinking about the processes that may trigger the experience of personal distress or empathic concern, research on the influence of psychological flexibility and inflexibility on stigma is showing promising results. Both processes are assessed with the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire–Stigma (AAQ-S). The current study sought to carry out a validity study of a Spanish version of the AAQ-S with a sample of adolescents aged 11–17 years. The study included an expanded test of its predictive validity with measures at three times to evaluate the role of psychological flexibility and inflexibility as risk or protective variables for the development of personal distress and/or empathic concern in the stigmatizer. Statistical analyses confirmed a two-correlated-factor solution, the adequate reliability of both factors, and their construct and predictive validity in the expected direction. The stigmatizer’s inflexible reaction to their stigmatizing thoughts predicted the occurrence of personal distress, whereas the stigmatizer’s flexible reaction to their stigmatizing thoughts predicted the occurrence of empathic concern for others. These findings confirm the importance of considering the role of regulatory skills in the experience of empathic concern or personal distress in the presence of stigmatizing thoughts, with possible implications for the promotion of prosocial behavior and the reduction of aggressive behavior among adolescents.

Are attitudes toward peace and war the two sides of the same coin? Evidence to the contrary from a French validation of the Attitudes Toward Peace and War Scale.

Bizumic et al. (2013) have recently shown that attitudes towards peace and war reflect two distinct constructs rather than two poles of a single dimension. We present an attempt at validating the French version of their 16-item Attitudes toward Peace and War Scale (APWS) on five distinct (mainly Belgian) French-speaking samples (total N = 808). Confirmatory factor and criterion validity analyses confirmed that attitudes toward peace and war, although negatively related, are distinct in terms of their antecedents and consequences. On the one hand, antecedents of attitudes toward peace included egalitarian ideological beliefs and empathic concern for others, and consequences included intentions to engage in pro-peace behaviors. On the other hand, antecedents of attitudes toward war included national identification and authoritarian ideological beliefs, and consequences included intentions to engage in pro-war behaviors. Furthermore, both attitudes toward peace and war were, respectively, negatively and positively related to (a right-wing) political orientation. Unexpectedly however, attitudes toward war were positively related to nonegalitarian ideological beliefs and were not related to personal distress. Scores on the translated scale were unrelated to socially desirable responding. In terms of known-groups validity, men had, respectively, more and less positive attitudes toward war and peace than women. Finally, based on exploratory factor analyses, the inclusion of some items for the factorial structure of the measure is questioned and a shortened form of the measure is validated. Overall, these findings are in line with Bizumic et al. and suggest that attitudes toward peace and war also reflect two distinct constructs in a French-speaking population.

The impacts of Val158Met in Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene on moral permissibility and empathic concern

Dopamine levels in the brain influence emotional experiences and empathic responses to others' misfortune. Inspired by roles of Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) in dopamine degradation and the link between moral judgment and empathic responses, this study investigated to what extent the Val158Met polymorphism of COMT gene contributes to individual differences in moral permissibility and empathic dispositions. One thousand two hundred and seventy-two Chinese Han college students, who were differentiated with the COMT Val158Met (rs4680) polymorphism, rated permissibility of harm in moral dilemmas and scored their empathic dispositions with Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The results showed a significant association between COMT Val158Met and the moral permissibility of committing harm. Individuals with the Val/Val genotype, which is associated with lower levels of dopamine, endorsed impersonal harm as more impermissible than those with the Val/Met and Met/Met genotypes. Results also showed that individuals with the Val/Val genotype showed higher empathic concern for others' misfortune. The findings provide the first evidence for the link between COMT gene and the moral permissibility, highlighting the roles of dopamine in social cognition.

Beyond Empathy: Strategies and Ideals of Democratic Deliberation

This paper problematizes empathy-centered approaches to deliberation, challenging the feasibility of such approaches as well as the suitability of empathy as a central goal or ideal in models of democratic deliberation. With the deliberative turn in democratic theory came a new emphasis on empathy. Empathy on the part of citizens – the ability to engage in perspective taking and to feel empathic concern for others – is often cited as crucial for the success and improvement of democratic discourse. I first identify several limits to achieving empathy in practice. I then show that even when achieved, empathy does not sustain deliberative practices. In place of empathy, I propose a “difference approach” to improving democratic deliberation. I argue that differences rather than commonalities are a more democratic resource for helping citizens cultivate greater openness and better listening practices. The difference approach better reflects the ideals of the deliberative model of democracy.

Can Video Engender Empathic Concern for Others? Testing a Positive Affect Arousing Intervention

Empathy is widely recognized as the psychological foundation for prosocial behavior, yet very little is known about methods to increase affective empathy in students and trainees. The present research sought to assess the reliability and potential boundary conditions of one such intervention—a brief emotional video featuring a boy diagnosed with cancer. Study 1 found that the video succeeded in indirectly increasing empathic concern for an African American victim of police abuse among an ethnically diverse student sample in a classroom setting. Study 2 replicated the effect in an online environment among a population of near-racially homogeneous adults. The effect of this brief, convenient, positive-affect intervention is in line with other practice-based and negative-affect interventions.

High stress-responder eat less but swallow more: A laboratory study of stress-induced cortisol and eating behavior

Lack of empathy is a critical factor impacting on social functioning and quality of life in schizophrenia. There is, however, a paucity of research into the underlying neurophysiological correlates of empathy deficits in this disorder. Accordingly, we sought: (1) to identify whether dysfunctional empathic abilities in schizophrenia are related to alterations in early or late brain processes, and (2) to explore the potential relationship between brain activity and mood, self-reported empathy and symptom severity. Eighteen patients with schizophrenia and 21 healthy matched controls performed an empathy-for-pain paradigm where photographs of hands in neutral or painful situations were shown while we recorded their electroencephalography (EEG), and we examined mood, empathic concern for others and symptom severity. Significant group differences between patients and controls emerged in early (50–150 ms after stimulus onset) and late (after 300 ms) timeframes. Moreover, brain activity was related with unpleasantness ratings in all participants, with self-reported empathic concern only in controls and with negative mood and personal distress only in patients. Differences in social behavior in schizophrenia may be explained by early as well as late differences, affecting mostly the early frontocentral ERPs, i.e. those suggested to correspond to the emotional sharing component of empathy.

Alterations in event-related potential responses to empathy for pain in schizophrenia

Lack of empathy is a critical factor impacting on social functioning and quality of life in schizophrenia. There is, however, a paucity of research into the underlying neurophysiological correlates of empathy deficits in this disorder. Accordingly, we sought: (1) to identify whether dysfunctional empathic abilities in schizophrenia are related to alterations in early or late brain processes, and (2) to explore the potential relationship between brain activity and mood, self-reported empathy and symptom severity. Eighteen patients with schizophrenia and 21 healthy matched controls performed an empathy-for-pain paradigm where photographs of hands in neutral or painful situations were shown while we recorded their electroencephalography (EEG), and we examined mood, empathic concern for others and symptom severity. Significant group differences between patients and controls emerged in early (50–150ms after stimulus onset) and late (after 300ms) timeframes. Moreover, brain activity was related with unpleasantness ratings in all participants, with self-reported empathic concern only in controls and with negative mood and personal distress only in patients. Differences in social behavior in schizophrenia may be explained by early as well as late differences, affecting mostly the early frontocentral ERPs, i.e. those suggested to correspond to the emotional sharing component of empathy.

Helping behavior induced by empathic concern attenuates anterior cingulate activation in response to others’ distress

Helping behavior is motivated by empathic concern for others in distress. Although empathic concern is pervasive in daily life, its neural mechanisms remain unclear. Empathic concern involves the suppression of the emotional response to others’ distress, which occurs when individuals distance themselves emotionally from the distressed individual. We hypothesized that helping behavior induced by empathic concern, accompanied by perspective-taking, would attenuate the neural activation representing aversive feelings. We also predicted reward system activation due to the positive feeling resulting from helping behavior. Participant underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while playing a virtual ball-toss game. In some blocks (“concern condition”), one player (“isolated player”) did not receive ball-tosses from other players. In this condition, participants increased ball-tosses to the isolated player (helping behavior). Participants then evaluated the improved enjoyment of the isolated player resulting from their helping behavior. Anterior cingulate activation during the concern condition was attenuated by the evaluation of the effect of helping behavior. The right temporoparietal junction, which is involved in perspective-taking and the dorsal striatum, part of the reward system, were also activated during the concern condition. These results suggest that humans can attenuate affective arousal by anticipating the positive outcome of empathic concern through perspective-taking.

Neural substrates of socioemotional self‐awareness in neurodegenerative disease

BackgroundNeuroimaging studies examining neural substrates of impaired self-awareness in patients with neurodegenerative diseases have shown divergent results depending on the modality (cognitive, emotional, behavioral) of awareness. Evidence is accumulating to suggest that self-awareness arises from a combination of modality-specific and large-scale supramodal neural networks.MethodsWe investigated the structural substrates of patients' tendency to overestimate or underestimate their own capacity to demonstrate empathic concern for others. Subjects' level of empathic concern was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and subject-informant discrepancy scores were used to predict regional atrophy pattern, using voxel-based morphometry analysis. Of the 102 subjects, 83 were patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) or semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA); the other 19 were healthy older adults.ResultsbvFTD and svPPA patients typically overestimated their level of empathic concern compared to controls, and overestimating one's empathic concern predicted damage to predominantly right-hemispheric anterior infero-lateral temporal regions, whereas underestimating one's empathic concern showed no neuroanatomical basis.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that overestimation and underestimation of one's capacity for empathic concern cannot be interpreted as varying degrees of the same phenomenon, but may arise from different pathophysiological processes. Damage to anterior infero-lateral temporal regions has been associated with semantic self-knowledge, emotion processing, and social perspective taking; neuropsychological functions partly associated with empathic concern itself. These findings support the hypothesis that—at least in the socioemotional domain—neural substrates of self-awareness are partly modality-specific.

Development of socio-emotional competence in bonobos

Social and emotional skills are tightly interlinked in human development, and both are negatively impacted by disrupted social development. The same interplay between social and emotional skills, including expressions of empathy, has received scant attention in other primates however, despite the growing interest in caring, friendships, and the fitness benefits of social skills. Here we examine the development of socio-emotional competence in juvenile bonobos (Pan paniscus) at a sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, focusing on the interplay between various skills, including empathy-related responding. Most subjects were rehabilitated orphans, but some were born at the sanctuary and mother-reared there. We observed how juveniles with different rearing backgrounds responded to stressful events, both when the stress affected themselves (e.g., a lost fight) or others (e.g., witnessing the distress of others). The main dependent variable was the consolation of distressed parties by means of calming body contact. As in children, consolation was predicted by overall social competence and effective emotion regulation, as reflected in the speed of recovery from self-distress and behavioral measures of anxiety. Juveniles more effective at self-regulation were more likely to console others in distress, and such behavior was more typical of mother-reared juveniles than orphans. These results highlight the interplay between the development of social and emotional skills in our ape relatives and the importance of the mother-offspring bond in shaping socio-emotional competence.

On the (In)Compatibility of Attitudes Toward Peace and War

Although attitudes toward peace and war are usually treated as two opposite poles of one dimension, in this article we argue that they may represent two distinct dimensions. To investigate this idea, we developed and tested a new balanced measure, the Attitudes Toward Peace and War (APW) Scale, in three studies (N = 4,742) in the United States and Denmark. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that attitudes toward peace and war formed two distinct, though negatively related, factors. Structural equation modeling showed that antecedents of attitudes toward peace included egalitarian ideological beliefs, the values of international harmony and equality, and empathic concern for others, and consequences included intentions to engage in peace‐related activities. On the other hand, antecedents of attitudes toward war included authoritarian ideological beliefs, the values of national strength and order, and less personal distress, and consequences included intentions to engage in warlike activities. Results also showed that political affiliation had an impact on the relationship between peace and war attitudes, with conservatives less likely to find the attitudes incompatible. The findings support the view that attitudes toward peace and war represent two distinct dimensions.

Associations Between Violent Video Gaming, Empathic Concern, and Prosocial Behavior Toward Strangers, Friends, and Family Members

Exposure to media violence, including violent video gaming, can have a cognitive desensitization effect, lowering empathic concern for others in need. Since emerging adulthood offers increased opportunities to volunteer, strengthen relationships, and initiate new relationships, decreases in empathic concern and prosocial behavior may prove inhibitive to optimal development during this time. For these reasons, the current study investigated associations between violent video gaming, empathic responding, and prosocial behavior enacted toward strangers, friends, and family members. Participants consisted of 780 emerging adults (M age = 19.60, SD = 1.86, range = 18–29, 69% female, 69% Caucasian) from four universities in the United States. Results showed small to moderate effects between playing violent video gaming and lowered empathic concern for both males and females. In addition, lowered empathic concern partially mediated the pathways between violent video gaming and prosocial behavior toward all three targets (at the level of a trend for females), but was most strongly associated with lower prosocial behavior toward strangers. Discussion highlights how violent video gaming is associated with lower levels of prosocial behavior through the mechanism of decreased empathic concern, how this association can affect prosocial behavior differently across target, and finally what implications this might have for development during emerging adulthood.

Perceived Maternal Control and Responsiveness to Distress as Predictors of Young Adults’ Empathic Responses

Two studies examined the relations between young adults' empathic responding and their perceptions of two maternal behaviors. As predicted from self-determination theory, perceived maternal control had unique negative associations with empathic support of one's romantic partner (indicated by both self-reports and partner reports) and with empathic concern for others in general, and a unique positive association with personal distress in response to others in need. Perceived maternal responsiveness to distress was a unique positive predictor of empathic concern. The findings suggest that the experience of one's mother as controlling is likely to interfere with one's empathic responding and that high levels of perceived maternal responsiveness do not cancel the negative effects of the experience of controlling parenting. Furthermore, the findings suggest that high levels of perceived maternal responsiveness might exacerbate the negative relations between perceived maternal control and personal distress in response to others in need.