Higher Empathy Research Articles

Empathy and Perceived Stress among College Students

In the present study, the researchers have attempted to assess the relationship between empathy and perceived stress among college students of Karnataka and West Bengal in India. The data was collected using the Basic Empathy Scale for Adults (BES-A) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) from a sample of 214 college students, in which 107 were boys and 107 were girls. The study found that there was no significant relationship between their cognitive empathy and perceived stress but a significant relationship between their affective empathy and perceived stress was found and the correlation was found to be positive. The study also found that there was a significant gender difference in empathy among college students and girls had a higher empathy than boys, whereas in case of perceived stress, no significant gender difference was found; although the girls showed higher perceived stress levels than boys but the difference in their perceived stress levels was minimal. The implications of nurturing empathy and reducing perceived stress among the college students are discussed.

What factors are associated with affective and cognitive empathy in informal and formal caregivers of older people?

To analyse factors associated with affective and cognitive empathy in informal and formal caregivers of older people. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 111 formal and informal caregivers divided into three groups (lower, intermediate and higher empathy) based on the Multidimensional Interpersonal Reactivity Index score (total, affective and cognitive empathy). A sociodemographic questionnaire, the Zarit Burden Inventory, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Functional Assessment Questionnaire were applied. The participants were predominantly women (91%), and median [IQR] age was 46 [33-57] years. In the multinomial regression analysis being an informal caregiver, being older and having depressive symptoms were associated with higher levels of empathy (total score and the affective domain). No associations were found for the cognitive domain. A high level of empathy, especially affective empathy, was associated with depressive symptoms, older age and being an informal caregiver. Family relationships and the lack of training among informal caregivers should be explored.

Social orienting is reduced in williams syndrome

IntroductionWilliams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder caused by a deletion at chromosome 7q1123. WS is associated with high empathy, relatively good face memory and low social anxiety. Despite these strengths, WS individuals typically have an intellectual disability, difficulties with visuospatial perception, non-social anxiety and complex social cognition. Attention to other’s eyes is crucial for adaptive social understanding. Consequently, eyes trigger quick and automatic gaze shifts in typically developing individuals. It is not known whether this process is atypical in WS.ObjectivesTo examine visual attention to other’s eyes in Williams syndrome.MethodsIndividuals with WS (n = 35; mean age 23.5 years) were compared to controls (n = 167) in stratified age groups (7 month, 8-12 years, 13-17 years, adults). Participants were primed to look at either the eyes or the mouth of human faces. The latency and likelihood of a first gaze shift from, or to the eyes, was measured with eye tracking.ResultsWS individuals were less likely, and slower to orient to the eyes than typically developing controls in all age groups from eight years of age (all p <.001), but did not differ from 7 months old infants. In contrast to healthy individuals from eight years and above, WS individuals did not show a preference to orient towards the eyes relative to the mouth.ConclusionsDespite the hyper-social behavioral phenotype, WS is associated with reduced attention to other’s eyes during early stages of processing. This could contribute to the difficulties with complex social cognition observed in this group.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

The Influence of Emotion and Empathy on Decisions to Help Others

Many decisions to help others are made in emotionally associated circumstances. Empathy is known to motivate prosocial behavior. However, no studies have investigated the interaction between empathy and emotion in deciding to help others. In total, 151 students scoring either high or low in empathy viewed three types of emotional clips (anger vs. sadness vs. neutrality) and completed the “Help for Another Study” task. Analysis of variance showed that participants chose to invest more time in helping others when they felt sadness than anger. Participants with high empathy chose to spend more time helping others than those with low empathy. Pearson’s correlation revealed a significant positive correlation between perspective-taking, empathic concern, and willingness to invest time in assistance under anger state; perspective-taking and fantasy were significantly correlated with willingness to invest time under sadness state. The results suggest that both emotion (i.e., sadness) and empathy (i.e., high trait empathy) are vital motivators that exert impact on prosocial helping decisions.

The Influence of Empathy on Moral Judgments

Empathy is expected to correlate with pro-social attitude s, but what effect does empathy have on judgments of distributive fairness? In our study, we found that participants with higher empathy scores on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) were more likely to: (a) favor the use of egalitarian distribution when the joint effort is involved, and (b) deem overly self-interested or opportunistic behavior unfair. Female participants were more consistent in the exercise of moral judgments across diverse scenarios. Furthermore, empathy has several dimensions (e.g., perspective-taking or empathetic concern) and we observed that they interacted with gender and the nature of the hypothetical problem differently in some cases. Although the findings of the study are not counterintuitive, it has identified some avenues for further explorations and highlighted some potential methodological shortcomings of the IRI as a measure of empathetic traits.

Investigating 4D movie audiences’ emotional responses to motion effects and empathy

Designing 4D effects corresponding to audiences' emotional responses is important because 4D effects are critical components of 4D movies that provide rich emotional experiences. The recent increasing popularity of 4D content has led to the development of motion effect technology, which involves motions of the chair according to the scene. However, it is difficult to find studies that systematically investigated the influence of motion effects on audiences' emotional responses. This study investigated the emotional responses of a 4D movie audience to motion effects according to their level of empathy. Participants (mean: 25.0 years, standard deviation: 5.0) with varying levels of empathy watched movie clips provided with or without single pitch motion effects. The degree that the motion effect and empathy affected the elicited emotions differed depending on the emotion type. For example, participants with high empathy reported stronger intensity of fear when short and weak motion effects were exhibited than when there was no motion effect. Distinct motion effect design guidelines that can be adopted to enhance audiences’ emotional experiences were proposed. The findings can be referred to when investigating the emotional responses of 4D movie audiences.

Studi persepsi visual perempuan pengendara terhadap desain sepeda motor skuter matik di Indonesia

This study is an evaluation of perception and identification of attractive scooter design by female motorcycle riders. Survey with questionaire using Likert scale was conducted on 150 female scooter riders who provided assesment of six scooter design representing design of scooter in Indonesia. Descriptive analysis results show that scooter designs in Indonesia have perception: quality, comfortable to use, can be used by all family members, fun to use, relax and easy, and give confidence, which included in physio, socio, and psycho-pleasure also only reached the visceral and behavioral stage.Female riders’ perception is inline with the female gender characteristics, communal and have high empathy or emotional skill. Attractive scooter design for female riders has ideo-pleasure related perception and is determined from the details of the product design. From the factor analysis, it is described the pleasurability factors has different perception for each design. Conclusion of this study is beside size, type, and design characters, total shape as well as the details of the shape from the scooter design are the things that will affect the perception of the female rider and may provide a different perception of pleasurability evaluation from the female riders.

Implicit-explicit power motives congruence and forgiveness in the workplace conflict: the mediating role of empathy

PurposeIn the workplace, forgiveness can increase positive interactions between the victim and offender in the aftermath of a conflict. As an important intrapersonal factor in an organization, a victim’s power motives may shape one’s forgiveness. However, previous research shows inconsistent results because it only considers explicit power motives while ignoring the possible contingent role of implicit power motives in influencing forgiveness. This paper aims to consider both implicit and explicit power motives and aims to examine their joint effect on interpersonal forgiveness in the workplace conflict.Design/methodology/approachPolynomial regressions with response surface analysis were conducted with 415 Amazon Mechanical Turk users. Implicit power motives were measured by using a modified picture story exercise technique, whereas explicit power motives were measured via self-response scales.FindingsFirst, congruence in power motives was associated with higher empathy and forgiveness than incongruence. In addition, high-implicit/high explicit power motives led to higher level of empathy and forgiveness than low-implicit/low-explicit power motives. Furthermore, directional power motive incongruence had an additive effect on forgiveness, such that discrepantly low-implicit/high-explicit power motives were more detrimental to empathy and forgiveness than discrepantly high-implicit/low-explicit power motives. Finally, empathy underlies the combined effect of implicit and explicit power motives on forgiveness.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that in a workplace conflict, managers should consider an employee’s explicit and implicit motives. To build the harmony group work climate, managers can improve intrapersonal implicit–explicit power motive congruence by providing developmental support and training focusing on self-enhancement and self-affirmation with the low-explicit-powerful employees. Further, to promote forgiveness in a conflict, organizations can use empathy-based exercise and provide team building activities to increase employees’ empathy and perspective-taking toward others.Originality/valueBy integrating implicit–explicit framework, this paper conciliates previous studies investigating the relationship between power and forgiveness by proposing that the two types of power motives, implicit and explicit power motives, jointly influences a victim’s forgiving tendency. This study serves as a meaningful touchstone for future research to consider both implicit and explicit power motives into the organizational conflict framework.

Interoception and Empathy Impact Perspective Taking

Adopting the perspective of another person is an important aspect of social cognition and has been shown to depend on multisensory signals from one’s own body. Recent work suggests that interoceptive signals not only contribute to own-body perception and self-consciousness, but also to empathy. Here we investigated if social cognition – in particular adopting the perspective of another person – can be altered by a systematic manipulation of interoceptive cues and further, if this effect depends on empathic ability. The own-body transformation task (OBT) – wherein participants are instructed to imagine taking the perspective and position of a virtual body presented on a computer screen – offers an effective way to measure reaction time differences linked to the mental effort of taking an other’s perspective. Here, we adapted the OBT with the flashing of a silhouette surrounding the virtual body, either synchronously or asynchronously with the timing of participants’ heartbeats. We evaluated the impact of this cardio-visual synchrony on reaction times and accuracy rates in the OBT. Empathy was assessed with the empathy quotient (EQ) questionnaire. Based on previous work using the cardio-visual paradigm, we predicted that synchronous (vs. asynchronous) cardio-visual stimulation would increase self-identification with the virtual body and facilitate participants’ ability to adopt the virtual body’s perspective, thereby enhancing performance on the task, particularly in participants with higher empathy scores. We report that participants with high empathy showed significantly better performance during the OBT task during synchronous versus asynchronous cardio-visual stimulation. Moreover, we found a significant positive correlation between empathic ability and the synchrony effect (the difference in reaction times between the asynchronous and synchronous conditions). We conclude that synchronous cardio-visual stimulation between the participant’s body and a virtual body during an OBT task makes it easier to adopt the virtual body’s perspective, presumably based on multisensory integration processes. However, this effect depended on empathic ability, suggesting that empathy, interoception and social perspective taking are inherently linked.

Social relationships and depression during the COVID-19 lockdown: longitudinal analysis of the COVID-19 Social Study.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to measures that reduced social contact and support. We explored whether UK residents with more frequent or supportive social contact had fewer depressive symptoms during March-August 2020, and potential factors moderating the relationship. A convenience sample of UK dwelling participants aged ⩾18 in the internet-based longitudinal COVID-19 Social Study completed up to 22 weekly questionnaires about face-to-face and phone/video social contact frequency, perceived social support, and depressive symptoms using the PHQ-9. Mixed linear models examined associations between social contact and support, and depressive symptoms. We examined for interaction by empathic concern, perspective taking and pre-COVID social contact frequency. In 71 117 people with mean age 49 years (standard deviation 15), those with high perceived social support scored 1.836 (1.801-1.871) points lower on PHQ-9 than those with low support. Daily face-to-face or phone/video contact was associated with lower depressive symptoms (0.258 (95% confidence interval 0.225-0.290) and 0.117 (0.080-0.154), respectively) compared to no contact. The negative association between social relationships and depressive symptoms was stronger for those with high empathic concern, perspective taking and usual sociability. We found during lockdown that those with higher quality or more face-to-face or phone/video contact had fewer depressive symptoms. Contact quality was more strongly associated than quantity. People who were usually more sociable or had higher empathy had more depressive symptoms during enforced reduced contact. The results have implications for COVID-19 and potential future pandemic management, and for understanding the relationship between social factors and mental health.

When Empathy Leads to Passive Bystanding or Defending of the Victim in a Bullying Situation: Interaction With the Perceived Popularity of the Bully

The interactions between individual factors (i.e., cognitive empathy, affective empathy) and situational factors (i.e., perceived popularity of a bully) in predicting passive bystanding or defending of the victim in a bullying situation were examined. A total of 522 Korean secondary school students answered survey questions and responded to vignettes depicting bullying scenarios that included the different popularity statuses of the bully. The results revealed that high affective empathy positively predicted defending negatively predicted passive bystanding regardless of the perceived popularity of the bully. However, when bystanders had low affective empathy and high cognitive empathy, as the perceived popularity of the bully increased, their intention to remain passive also increased but their intention to defend the victim decreased.

Empathizing with the End User: Effect of Empathy and Emotional Intelligence on Ideation

ABSTRACT Trait emotional intelligence and evoked empathy may help in a task where emotion-evoking source material is utilized to ideate solutions and services for the end-user. Participants of the current study read life stories of different persons, with perspective-taking instruction to evoke either high or low empathy. The reading was followed with ideation tasks, first identifying problems that the person of the story is facing, and then creating initial ideas for products or services to help with these problems. The perspective-taking empathy manipulation had an expected effect to the self-reported state empathy; however, it did not have an effect on the performance in the ideation tasks. Trait emotional intelligence was related to the detection of the problems and to the generating of more ideas. The results imply that emotional intelligence may be beneficial in ideation process where perspective of the customer or end user has to be considered.

The Fox and the Lion: Investigating Associations between Empathy and Emotion Perspective-Taking in Aesop's Fables

Empathy is essential in story comprehension as it requires understanding of the emotions and intentions of the characters. Our study aimed to evaluate the sensitivity of an emotional perspective-taking task using Aesop’s Fables in relation to empathy. Participants ( N = 301) were presented with 15 short fables and were asked to rate on a Likert scale the intensity of the emotions they would feel adopting the perspective of one of the characters (offender, victim) or the observer’s perspective. The given emotions were anger, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, joy, trust, and anticipation. A data-driven approach revealed that participants’ responses were related to the content of each fable, i.e. whether the offender tricked/hurt the victim or whether the victim managed to avoid the offender’s plot, suggesting successful emotional perspective-taking. Participants also seemed to sympathize with the victim rather than the offender, demonstrating affective sharing processes. Further, participants with high empathy scores exhibited stronger negative emotions from the victim’s perspective compared to those with low empathy, independently of their level of distress. As observers, subjects with both high empathy and distress experienced the strongest negative emotions compared to subjects with low empathy and/or distress. Finally, our task seemed to not be influenced by gender effects. We might therefore suggest that the Aesop’s Fables could be employed in an emotional perspective-task to tap onto different empathy components, thus providing an indirect instrument to study empathy.

Multiple cross-sectional assessments of empathy in medical undergraduate students.

Introduction:Empathy a cognitive phenomenon, with affective and behavioral components; helps improve clinical competence. It varies depending on physicians' gender and specialty. While some western studies reported significant fall in empathy levels when they progressed from non-clinical to clinical training years, Asian studies including Indian had varied results. We hypothesize that empathy will decrease among medical undergraduates over four years while they progress from non- clinical to clinical rotations and that female medical students and those opting for clinical specialties will have higher empathy than male medical students and those opting for non clinical specialty.Methodology:This study was carried out in a medical college from the year 2012 to 2015. Each year at the beginning of academic session all students were asked to complete Jefferson's -Scale for Physician's Empathy (JSPE student) student version. Over next three years similar assessments were repeated for all batches. The results were tabulated and analyzed using EpiInfo7 software.Results:Over four years 481, 416, 412 and 354 medical students in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year respectively from seven different batches were evaluated. Choice of specialty differed significantly in each year different batches. The empathy score had no relation to gender or choice of specialty. Empathy declines from first year onwards till third year but is not statistically significant.Conclusion:In this large multiple sample cross sectional study, it is evident empathy drops from 1st to 3rd year therefore there is an urgent need to evaluate why empathy falls.

Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Compassion Satisfaction as Risk/Protective Factors from Burnout and Compassion Fatigue in Healthcare and Education Professionals

The study analyzes sensory processing sensitivity and the compassion satisfaction as risk/protective factors against burnout and compassion fatigue, during the first period of the COVID-19 health emergency. A sample of 1566 Spanish adult healthcare (n = 694) and education (n = 872) professionals was evaluated. An ad hoc questionnaire for sociodemographic data, and the highly sensitive person scale (HSPS), Maslach burnout inventory (MBI) and professional quality of life scale (ProQOL-vIV) were administered. Burnout and compassion fatigue were observed in the healthcare and education professionals, where personal realization and depersonalization were higher in healthcare and compassion fatigue in education. The protective role of compassion satisfaction was confirmed, as was sensory processing sensitivity as a risk factor, except for its low sensory threshold dimension, which positively influenced personal realization. The findings of this study demonstrate the presence of burnout and compassion fatigue in healthcare and education professionals, displaying compassion fatigue as an emerging psychosocial risk in education, which was made more severe under the conditions of study, which is at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The importance of incorporating adequate management strategies for high sensitivity, empathy and compassion satisfaction in prevention programs is emphasized.

Evaluation of empathy and fatigue among physicians and surgeons in tertiary care hospitals of Rawalpindi.

Background and Objectives:Clinicians need to build an astute doctor-patient relationship. The term clinical empathy is the ability of doctor to cognitively appreciate a patient’s perspective, experiences, and deliver such an understanding back to patient. Studies associate high physician empathy with improved patient trust and clinical outcomes. In Pakistan, there is paucity of research data on this relationship. This study assessed the empathy and its relation to fatigue levels among physicians and surgeons.Methods:This was a cross-sectional analytical study involving 262 Physicians and Surgeons (1:1) chosen by convenience sampling method. Physicians and Surgeons were included from three hospitals in Rawalpindi from September 2017 to February 2018 and RAO soft sample calculator was used. The Jefferson Scale for Physician empathy (JSPE) (score range 20-140) and Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) (score range 20-100) were used as data collection tools. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 23. Statistical tests including T-test and Pearson Correlation were used.Results:Overall, mean score of empathy was found to be 98.8±21.9 (range; 46-138). The empathy in Physicians (106.8±18.3) was found to be greater than Surgeons (89.4±22.1) and the difference was statistically significant (p value <0.01). Mean score of fatigue was 50.6±16.0. The fatigue level in Surgeons was greater than Physicians and the difference was found to be statistically significant (p value < 0.01). Strong negative correlation was observed between empathy and fatigue (r= -0.5, p=<0.01) using Pearson correlation.Conclusion:Overall, physicians had better empathy than surgeons, while fatigue scores were higher among surgeons. Fatigue is associated with empathy decay. This research provides an understanding of empathy deterioration and other factors responsible for it.

Does Medical Students' High Expression of Empathy Correlate with Their Choice of Primary Care Residencies?

There are many factors that influence medical students' (MS) decisions when choosing a career. Some prominent factors include life-work balance, indebtedness, and flexibility of work hours. Whereas the expression of empathy has many positive correlates with a trusting and meaningful physician-patient interaction, only a few studies have analyzed the association of MS empathy expression and primary care residency selection. The results of these studies about the relationship of MS expression of empathy and their selection of primary care specialties have been conflicting, depending on the empathy instrument used. In addition, there have been other variables that have affected career decision making in more recent years not previously encountered. The objectives of our study were to analyze the association of The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (GWU) MS Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) scores and their residency selection, to compare our results with previous studies to determine whether the IRI provided more definitive relationships between empathy and career choice, and to assess whether our results confirmed the theoretical construct linking empathy with primary care physicians. GWU third-year MS (MS3s), representing the classes of 2008-2011, completed the perspective taking and empathy subscales of the IRI, which measure cognitive and affective empathy, respectively. MS empathy scores for individual specialty were compared to those scores in internal medicine (IM) using a linear regression model. Empathy scores for patient-oriented versus technology-oriented specialties and primary versus surgical specialties were compared using the independent t test. A total of 593 (77.5%) MS3s had mean IRI scores of 45.1 (standard error 4.8), higher than a recent study involving MS. There were no significant differences between patient- and technology-oriented specialties (-0.65 to 0.88), primary care versus surgical residencies (-0.87 to 1.4), and women versus men (-0.20 to 1.4). Our study did not clarify previous conflicting studies in the literature. There are no significant differences in expression of empathy in GWU students who chose patient- versus technology-oriented and primary care versus surgical residencies. The authors can only speculate why students' high expression of empathy was not associated with selecting primary care residencies, namely, women are outnumbering men entering medicine and are selecting technology-related specialties previously identified predominantly with men, and millennials have specific traits inherent in their generation that can affect their specialty choice. The results of our study shed doubt that the theoretical construct linking MS high empathy expression and choice of primary care careers is valid today.

Who Wants to Be Alone? Antecedents of Motivation for Solitude in Adulthood

Objectives: As an inevitable part of daily life, solitude has both positive and negative consequences which are moderated by one’s motivation for solitude. Self-determined motivation correlates with few psychological risks, whereas other-determined motivation correlates with higher risks (e.g., loneliness, depression, lower well-being). However, little is known about the antecedents of different motivations for solitude. The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents of motivation for solitude in a sample with younger, middle-aged, and older adults. Methods: We recruited 468 participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk and Introduction to Psychology class (age range: 17-70, M = 30.7, 50.4 % females). Preference and motivation for solitude were measured with the Preference for Solitude Scale and Motivation for Solitude Scale-Short Form. Age, sex, marital status, education level, living arrangement, instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), civic engagement, social contact frequency, introversion, and empathy were measured as antecedents. Results: People with older age, higher empathy for fictional characters, lower personal distress, higher introversion, and females tended to have higher general preference for solitude. People with higher empathy for fictional characters tended to have higher self-determined motivation. People with higher empathy for fictional characters, lower empathic concern, higher personal distress, higher IADLs, and higher introversion were more likely to have higher other-determined motivation. Discussion: A person with an introverted personality, functional limitation, more negative empathic reactions towards others are likely to have maladaptive motivation for solitude and may need intervention. Future research should further investigate other antecedents for self-determined motivation.

EMPATHY OF THE BANCASSURANCE CHANNEL: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to assess the customers’ perception regarding empathy exhibited by the bancassurance channel and factors affecting it.&#x0D; Design/Methodology/Approach: Using random sampling, the data was collected from customers of several branches of State bank of India in Guwahati city of Assam, who have availed life insurance services from these branches. Tool of structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Mean, standard deviation, regression analysis was used to analyze the data and draw logical conclusions. &#x0D; Findings: The study shows that customer perceives bancassurance channel to have a high level of empathy towards customers. It was also found that none of the demographic variables considered in the study have any impact on influencing perception. Therefore, policymaker can adopt one fits all approach in the case of demographic aspects to improve the empathetic nature showed by the bancassurance channel.&#x0D; Research Limitations: The study takes into consideration the customers who have bought Life insurance service from various branches of State Bank of India, Guwahati, Assam, India.&#x0D; Originality: The study is first of its kind in assessing customer’s perception of empathy shown by the bancassurance channel. The study will be useful for researchers, academicians and those working in the area of bancassurance and in their understanding about factors influencing customer experience, satisfaction and retention strategy.&#x0D; Major Conclusion: The study finds that customers of the bancassurance channel perceive that the channel demonstrates high empathy. Therefore, policymaker can advocate for an increase in penetration of life insurance through the bancassurance channel. As there is no association between the demographic factors and customers’ perception towards empathy shown by the bancassurance channel, policymaker can adopt one fits all approach in the case of demographic aspects to improve the empathetic nature showed by the bancassurance channel.&#x0D;

Effects of trait empathy and expectation on the processing of observed actions

Recent evidence suggests that the processing of observed actions may reflect an action prediction error, with more pronounced mediofrontal negative event-related potentials (ERPs) for unexpected actions. This evidence comes from an application of a false-belief task, where unexpected correct responses elicited high ERP amplitudes. An alternative interpretation is that the ERP component reflects vicarious error processing, as objectively correct responses were errors from the observed person’s perspective. In this study, we aimed to disentangle the two possibilities by adding the factor task difficulty, which varied expectations without affecting the definition of (vicarious) errors, and to explore the role of empathy in action observation. We found that the relationship between empathy and event-related potentials (ERPs) mirrored the relationship between empathy and behavioral expectancy measures. Only in the easy task condition did higher empathy lead to stronger expectancy of correct responses in the true-belief and of errors in the false-belief condition. A compatible pattern was found for an early ERP component (150–200 ms) after the observed response, with a larger negativity for error than correct responses in the true-belief and the reverse pattern in the false-belief condition, but only in highly empathic participants. We conclude that empathy facilitates the formation of expectations regarding the actions of others. These expectations then modulate the processing of observed actions, as indicated by the ERPs in the present study.