Empathy-related responses to moving film stimuli depicting human and non-human animal targets in negative circumstances

Research supports an "ingroup empathy hypothesis" of higher empathy-related psychophysiological responses towards individuals of the same ethnicity. However, little research has investigated empathy-related responses to non-human targets graded for phylogenetic relatedness. Participants (N=73) were presented with film stimuli depicting humans, primates, quadruped mammals and birds in victimized circumstances. Phasic skin conductance responses (SCR) and subjective empathy-related ratings to the film clips increased as phylogenetic similarity to humans increased across animal groups, revealing an empathic bias towards human stimuli. Participants also completed a trait empathy scale. High trait empathy participants gave higher subjective empathy ratings than moderate and low trait empathy participants. Low trait empathy participants showed less corrugator electromyographic activity than moderate and high empathy participants. The moderate trait empathy participants showed higher SCR than the high group. The results confirm an effect of phylogenetic similarity in subjective self-report and psychophysiological measures of empathy-related responses. Additionally, convergence between subjective and objective measures of empathy-related responses was observed.     

Power of Selective Genotyping in Genetic Association Analyses of Quantitative Traits

A power calculation is described in which the power of selective genotyping in genetic association studies of quantitative traits is evaluated. The method of selective genotyping implies the selection of the extremely high and low scoring individuals from the continuous distribution of a quantitative trait. The selected individuals are genotyped and association is tested. In the power calculation the following parameters are varied: total sample size of the phenotyped group (1000, 1500, 2000); selection of extremely high and low scoring individuals (2.5%, 5%, 10%); allele frequency of the risk increasing allele (0.10 to 0.90); mode of inheritance and proportion of variance explained by the quantitative trait locus = 0.01, 0.05, 0.10). We conclude that the method of selective genotyping is a powerful method to detect association for a quantitative trait.     

Alexithymia,empathy, negative affect and physical symptoms in patients with asthma

Although alexithymia has been found to be associated with physical symptoms in psychosomatic disorders such as asthma, mechanisms linking this association are unknown. However, affective alexithymic features may be associated with physical symptoms in the presence of deficits in affective characteristics such as low empathy and high negative affect. This study aimed to assess direct effects of alexithymic traits on physical symptoms and indirect effects of these subscales through empathy and negative affect (e.g. depressive, anxious and stress symptoms) by controlling for asthma severity in patients with asthma. Three hundred patients with asthma completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale‐20 (TAS‐20), the Basic Empathy Scale (BES), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales‐21 (DASS‐21) and the Physical Symptoms Inventory (PSI). After controlling for asthma severity, the results showed that alexithymia subscales of the TAS‐20 had no direct effects on physical symptoms, but the difficulty in identifying feelings (DIF) subscale of the TAS‐20 was associated with affective empathy and negative affect. Affective empathy was significantly related to negative affect. Affective empathy and negative affect were associated with physical symptoms. The affective subscale of alexithymia on the TAS‐20, that is DIF, indirectly affected physical symptoms through affective empathy and negative affect. Findings suggest that patients with asthma who have high levels of DIF may show high physical symptoms in the presence of low affective empathy and high negative affect.     

Social support schemas, trait anger, and cardiovascular responses.

This study examined the influence of activated support schemas on cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) during an anger-recall interview. Eighty Chinese female undergraduates wrote about a supportive tie or a casual acquaintance and subsequently disclosed an anger-provoking event while their heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured. Compared to participants in the 'acquaintance' condition, those in the 'support' condition showed lower HR, SBP and DBP reactivity, as well as smaller state anger increases and less negative appraisals of the recalled anger event. Reactivity increased as a function of trait anger. High trait anger individuals also had greater increases in state anger and more negative appraisals of the recalled event compared to their low trait anger counterparts. Support schema activation reduced the effects of trait anger on CVR such that high trait anger individuals in the 'support' condition had significantly lower CVR compared to high trait anger individuals in the 'acquaintance' condition. These findings suggest that social support schemas may have beneficial effects even in the absence of actual, enacted support.     

Effects of trait dominance on psychological and cardiovascular responses to social influence attempts: the role of gender and partner dominance.

This study investigated the influence of trait dominance on cardiovascular reactivity to and recovery from a dyadic interaction task requiring active social influence attempts. Thirty-six male and 36 female normotensive high-school students characterized as either high or low in trait dominance engaged in a mixed-gender discussion with a high or low dominant partner. Trait dominance substantially influenced cardiovascular reactivity to the interpersonal stressor. High dominant participants displayed higher increases in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and pulse pressure (PP), but lower diastolic elevations than low dominant participants. The difference in diastolic reactivity was particularly pronounced in females. Recovery from stress was influenced by level of partner dominance. Participants interacting with a dominant partner showed delayed diastolic recovery. The observed cardiovascular effects seem to reflect greater task engagement and efficient coping in dominant subjects. Group differences in cognitive task appraisals and affective experiences are consistent with this interpretation. Differences in psychological responding were not found to mediate the relation between trait dominance and cardiovascular responses, however.     

Scoring of nonmetric cranial traits: a methodological approach

The purpose of the present study was to analyse the replicability of the scoring of discontinuous traits. This was assessed on a sample of 100 skulls from the Frassetto collection (Dipartimento di Biologia Evoluzionistica Sperimentale of Bologna University) analysed through intraobserver comparisons: the discontinuous traits were determined on the same skulls and by the same observer on 3 separate occasions. The scoring was also assessed through interobserver comparisons: 3 different observers performed an independent survey on the same skulls. The results show that there were no significant differences in the discontinuous trait frequencies between the 3 different scorings by the same observer, but there were sometimes significant differences between different observers. Caution should thus be taken in applying the frequencies of these traits to population research. After an indispensable control of material conditions (subject age included), consideration must be given to standardisation procedures between observers, otherwise this may be an additional source of variability in cranial discontinuous trait scoring.     

The influence of subclinical psychopathic traits on responding to others’ awkward requests

Introduction: Psychopathy is characterised by a postulated deficit in emotional empathy, with intact cognitive empathy. Although studies have examined performance on laboratory tasks within incarcerated populations, there is a paucity of work exploring how subclinical psychopathic traits translate into everyday social interactions.

Methods: The present study investigated this by screening 502 university students with the Psychopathic Personality Inventory and comparing 20 high-scoring (10F; mean age?=?19.85 years) and 19 low-scoring (15F; mean age?=?21.00 years) participants on their responses to the Social Strategy Task. This comprises social scenarios that each end with an awkward request posed by the main character. Participants provided verbal responses and rated the awkwardness of each situation. Verbal responses were classified into positive or negative social strategies, denoting the extent of compliance with requests.

Results: The groups were compared using analysis of variance and t-tests. The high psychopathic trait group used fewer positive social strategies than the low group was less polite in emotional tone and perceived situations as less awkward.

Conclusions: The findings are considered in relation to the postulated dissociation between intact cognitive empathy and impaired emotional empathy. The potential implications for clinical interventions are briefly discussed.     

The Cognitive,Affective, and Somatic Empathy Scales (CASES) for Children

Although the assessment of empathy has moved from general empathy to differentiating between cognitive and affective empathy, no instruments have assessed somatic (motor) empathy, and none have separated positive from negative affect empathy. The main objective of this study was to develop a 30-item self-report cognitive, affective, and somatic empathy scale (CASES) with positive and negative affect components for use with children and adolescents. A community sample of 428 male and female 11-year-olds completed the CASES together with validity questionnaires and were assessed on IQ. Caregivers reported on callous-unemotional traits, behavior problems, social adversity, and paternal criminality. Confirmatory factor analysis provided support for a 3-factor cognitive—affective—somatic structure of CASES and support for a broader 6-factor model of empathy. Configural and metric factor invariance across genders was established. Good internal consistency was obtained for the main scales. Criterion validity was established by lower empathy in callous-unemotional children. Incremental and predictive validity was documented by empathy at baseline predicting 12 months later to callous-unemotional traits after controlling for baseline callous-unemotional traits. Discriminant validity was documented by empathy being unrelated to internalizing behavior problems and differentially related to proactive and reactive forms of aggression. Construct validity was documented by lower empathy being associated with lower IQ, being male, more externalizing behavior problems, and criminality in the biological parent. Results provide initial support for a brief but multidimensional empathy scale with good sampling and face validity that can be used with children and adolescents.     

Empathy,schizotypy, and visuospatial transformations

Introduction. Adopting another person's visuospatial perspective has been associated with empathy, which involves adopting the psychological perspective of another individual. Both reduced empathy and abnormal visuospatial processing have been observed in those with schizophrenia and schizophrenia-related personality traits. In the current study, we sought to explore the relationship between empathy, schizotypy, and visuospatial transformation ability.

Methods. 32 subjects (16 women) performed a visuospatial perspective-taking task and a mental letter rotation task. Response times and accuracy were analysed in relation to dimensions of self-reported empathy, indexed using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and schizotypy, as measured by the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire.

Results. We found that: (1) greater cognitive and affective empathy were associated with reduced negative schizotypy, and, in men, greater cognitive empathy was associated with reduced positive schizotypy; (2) improved accuracy for imagined self–other transformations in the perspective-taking task was associated with greater self-reported cognitive empathy in women and higher positive schizotypy across genders; (3) faster mental letter rotation was associated with reduced cognitive empathy and increased negative schizotypy in women.

Conclusions. Together, the findings partially support the commonalities in visuospatial transformation ability, empathy, and schizotypy, and posit an interesting link between spatial manipulations of our internal representations and interactions with the physical world.     

Genetic markers associated with high versus low performance on episodic memory tasks

Associations were studied between six serum protein polymorphisms (C3, BF, HP, ORM, TF, and GC) and high versus low scoring on episodic memory tasks in an attempt to identify QTL (quantitative trait loci) contributing to the heritability of this quantitative trait. Since a highly significant sex difference (p=.00002) was found with respect to the distribution of high and low scoring, with men showing a poorer performance, associations were studied separately for males and females. In females significant differences (p<.05) between the high and the low groups were found in four of six marker systems (C3, HP, TF, and CG), whereas in males a significant difference was found only in the HP system. Significant differences from population frequencies were also found more frequently in females than in males. The strongest marker associations were found with complement C3 and the acute-phase reactant HP, which suggests that immune response factors may be of importance in preserving episodic memory function. The overall results appear to indicate that episodic memory is a multifactorial and heritable quantitative trait where sex is an important determinant.     

暴力犯的冷酷无情特质在暴力风险水平和恐惧情绪识别之间的中介作用

目的:探讨暴力风险水平、冷酷无情特质(CU)、认知共情能力和情绪识别之间的关系。方法:使用暴力风险评估量表在某监狱400余名暴力犯中挑选出高暴力风险组和低暴力风险组各30名,并使用冷酷无情量表、观眼读心测试和情绪识别任务分析比较两组之间的特点。结果:高暴力风险组冷酷无情量表得分(t=4.03,P0.01)和恐惧(F=10.69,P0.01)、悲伤(F=7.01,P0.01)情绪面孔识别错误率都显著高于低暴力风险的暴力犯,观眼读心测试结果在两组之间没有显著差异(t=-1.22,P=0.531)。暴力风险水平对恐惧情绪识别有正向预测作用(β=0.114,P0.01),冷酷无情特质对恐惧情绪识别有正向预测作用(β=0.002,P0.01),综合预测力为20.6%,冷酷无情特质在暴力风险水平和恐惧情绪识别错误率之间起了完全中介的作用(β=0.38,P0.01),中介效应占总效应的62.4%。结论:高暴力风险罪犯表现出了更高的冷酷无情水平和更差的情绪识别,CU特质可以较好预测暴力犯的恐惧情绪识别缺陷。     

暴力犯罪服刑人员的隐性自恋与共情能力

目的探讨暴力犯罪服刑人员的隐性自恋人格和共情的关系。方法采用中文版人际反映指针量表(IRI-C)和自恋人格问卷对111名在监男性暴力犯罪服刑人员施测。结果 1特权感和易感质分别与个人隐忧呈显著正相关(r=0.256,0.229;P0.01);特权感与同情关怀呈显著负相关(r=-0.277,P0.01);易感质与观点采择呈显著负相关(r=-0.204,P0.01);2特权感对同情关怀有显著的负向预测作用(β=-0.277,P0.01),对个人隐忧有显著的正向预测作用(β=0.256,P0.01);易感质对观点采择有显著的负向预测作用(β=-0.204,P0.01)。结论暴力犯罪服刑人员的隐性自恋人格对其共情能力具有一定影响作用。     

Anger expression, hostility, anxiety, and patterns of cardiac reactivity to stress.

The majority of studies investigating the relationships between psychological characteristics and cardiovascular reactivity to stress use a research strategy in which discrete traits are evaluated in isolation. The present study examined the effects of additive and/or interactive relationships among traits on cardiac reactivity to a mental arithmetic task. In addition, impedance cardiographic techniques were employed to examine potential relationships between such psychological traits and a specific measure--pre-ejection period (PEP)--of sympathic influence on the heart. Forty-nine undergraduate men performed a mental arithmetic task while continuous measures of PEP and interbeat interval (IBI) were collected. The subjects then completed questionnaires measuring anger expression, hostility, and trait anxiety. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) showed a significant main effect for anger-out on PEP change from baseline, but not for IBI. Results also showed that anger-in interacted with anger-out and hostility to affect both PEP and IBI changes significantly. Other results indicated that subjects in the high anger-in/low anger-out and high anger-in/low hostility groups did not show significant PEP change, although they nevertheless showed significant IBI change. These results highlight the importance of the consideration of interactions among traits in predicting cardiac reactivity and of the importance of measuring specific indexes of sympathetic arousal.     

Three Mutually Informative Ways to Understand the Genetic Relationships Among Behavioral Disinhibition, Alcohol Use, Drug Use, Nicotine Use/Dependence, and Their Co-occurrence: Twin Biometry, GCTA, and Genome-Wide Scoring

Behavioral disinhibition is a trait hypothesized to represent a general vulnerability to the development of substance use disorders. We used a large community-representative sample (N = 7,188) to investigate the genetic and environmental relationships among measures of behavioral disinhibition, Nicotine Use/Dependence, Alcohol Consumption, Alcohol Dependence, and Drug Use. First, using a subsample of twins (N = 2,877), we used standard twin models to estimate the additive genetic, shared environmental, and non-shared environmental contributions to these five traits. Heritabilities ranged from .42 to .58 and shared environmental effects ranged from .12 to .24. Phenotypic correlations among the five traits were largely attributable to shared genetic effects. Second, we used Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis (GCTA) to estimate as a random effect the aggregate genetic effect attributable to 515,384 common SNPs. The aggregated SNPs explained 10–30 % of the variance in the traits. Third, a genome-wide scoring approach summed the actual SNPs, creating a SNP-based genetic risk score for each individual. After tenfold internal cross-validation, the SNP sumscore correlated with the traits at .03 to .07 (p < .05), indicating small but detectable effects. SNP sumscores generated on one trait correlated at approximately the same magnitude with other traits, indicating detectable pleiotropic effects among these traits. Behavioral disinhibition thus shares genetic etiology with measures of substance use, and this relationship is detectable at the level of measured genomic variation.     

The evolution of empathy research: Models,muddles, and mechanisms

The word empathy enters the English language in 1909, translated incompletely from German by a British-born psychologist interested in introspection. In the ensuing 100+ years, the term has been defined in a range of different ways by researchers and scholars. The biopsychosocial framework developed by George Engel comes closest to capturing empathy as a biological, psychological and social phenomenon. In this paper, I explore the psychological and social/communicative dimensions of empathy. Psychologists ask the question, How does the capacity for empathy vary across individuals? By contrast, interaction scholars ask, How is empathy communicated from one person (a healthcare provider) to another (a sufferer)? A communication focus involves the accuracy and impact of empathic communication as evidenced in a sufferer’s response. The two views of empathy, as a quality or capacity or as co-created in interaction, are contradictory, and are a source of confusion and contentiousness in the research literature. As in theoretical physics, where an as yet unresolved 80 year controversy has marked the debate about whether light is a particle or wave, research on empathy will likely remain paradoxical, unresolved and a source of creativity and innovation in the science and art of human caring.     

The association between oxytocin receptor gene polymorphism (OXTR) and trait empathy

BackgroundOxytocin exerts well accepted effects on one of the key social processes: empathy. Previous researches have demonstrated that oxytocin promotes emotional and cognitive aspects of empathy, by exogenous administration as well as on gene level. However, the effect of diverse gene locus haplotypes of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) on trait empathy lacks reliable evidence.MethodsParticipants consisted of 101 genetically unrelated, non-clinical Chinese subjects (46 males and 55 females). Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was applied to measure the trait empathy from four dimensions: empathy concern, personal distress, perspective taking and fantasy. Fantasy and perspective taking measured cognitive aspect of empathy, while empathy concern and personal distress measured emotional aspect of empathy. Ten single tagging SNPs on OXTR rs2268491, rs1042778, rs53576, rs7632287, rs2254298, rs13316193, rs237897, rs237887, rs4686302, and rs2268493 were tested.ResultsGenotype difference in emotional empathy was found on rs237887 and rs4686302 whereas cognitive empathy varied on SNPs rs2268491 and rs2254298 between homozygous and variant carriers. For IRI score, there is a genotype and gender interaction on rs4686302 and rs13316193.LimitationThe sample sizes from the current study were not so optimal that these results should have to be interpreted with caution when amplified into a larger population.ConclusionThe findings demonstrate that natural variants of OXTR associated with trait empathy; specifically, individuals with certain OXTR genotype did perform better on trait empathy, while others did not. Our findings also provide genetic evidence for gender-related difference on empathy, indicating the popular fact that females who displayed more empathy than males could be likely to trace back to the genetic variants.     

Impact of a common mutation of the LDL receptor gene, in French-Canadian patients with familial hypercholesterolemia, on means, variances and correlations among traits of lipid metabolism

Structural and functional studies of the gene coding for the low density lipoprotein receptor in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia have uncovered over 180 mutant alleles of the gene. Although the classical familial hypercholesterolemia phenotype is well known, the range of phenotypic variability in lipid traits associated with particular mutations in familial hypercholesterolemia has not been extensively documented. We investigated the phenotypic distributions of plasma markers of lipid metabolism from a large sample of unrelated individuals who are heterozygous for a single mutation, a > 10 kb deletion in the low density lipoprotein receptor gene, and compared these distributions with those from a sample of healthy controls. Patients were pair-matched for sex and age with healthy individuals selected from a previously studied French-Canadian population from the same region. We examined the level and variation of seven lipid traits, the correlations between the traits, and the amount of overlap of the sample distributions for each trait. The low density lipoprotein receptor defect was found to affect the levels and variability of traits, and correlations between traits. There was some overlap of the distributions of lipid traits including that for low density lipoprotein cholesterol, which is a cardinal feature of familial hypercholesterolemia. The low density lipoprotein receptor gene has a sex-specific pleiotropic effect and should be considered as a variability gene as well as a level gene. The extensive dynamic changes observed in the relationships between lipid traits testify to the biological complexity of genome type-environment interactions.     

Pre-consultation information about one’s physician can affect trust and treatment outcome expectations

ObjectiveInformation about physicians’ skills is increasingly available on the internet and consulted by patients. The impact of such information on patient expectations is largely unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether information about the competence and empathic skills of a physician may impact pre-consultation trust and treatment outcome expectations in mild and severe medical conditions.MethodsIn this experimental web-based study, participants (n = 237) read vignettes describing competence and empathic skills (low versus high) of a fictive physician who would surgically remove a mole or melanoma (low versus high severity) following a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design. Participants rated trust in the physician and treatment outcome expectations.ResultsHigh competence and empathy raised trust in the physician, regardless of condition severity. High competence and high empathy both also increased expected surgery success, while only high competence reduced expected side effects.ConclusionPre-consultation information highlighting a physician’s competence and/or empathy may lead to higher trust in that physician, higher expected surgery success, and lower expected side effects.Practice ImplicationsPhysicians and hospital staff should be aware of the effects of written information available and might, for example, provide profiles on hospital websites emphasizing healthcare providers’ competence and empathy.     

Child abuse potential and authoritarianism

This study examined the relationship between child abuse, as measured by the Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory, and authoritarianism, as measured by the Public Opinion Scale (POS). The study also attempted to provide convergent and discriminant validity for the CAP abuse factors rigidity and loneliness by correlating these factors with the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) variables order and affiliation, respectively. Group One consisted of 150 undergraduate students. Group Two consisted of 34 adult students from a second site. For the subjects in both groups, a nonsignificant relationship (p greater than .05) between abuse scores and authoritarianism was found. In contrast, in both groups significant relationships (p less than .05) were found between the CAP abuse factor rigidity and authoritarianism. Additional analysis indicated a significant inverse relationship (p less than .05) between the EPPS variable affiliation for Group One, but not for Group Two (p greater than .05).     

情绪特异性共情问卷在中国大学生中的信效度检验

目的:初步检验情绪特异性共情问卷(Emotion Specific Empathy Questionnaire,ESEQ)在中国大学生中的信效度。方法:采用方便取样法在369名大学生中,测量中文版ESEQ、人际反应指针量表(IRI)和人际综合诊断量表(IRAS),间隔4周后重测ESEQ。结果:多质多法的验证性因子分析显示,中文版ESEQ与原英文版ESEQ的拟合结果一致,即ESEQ可评估认知共情和情绪共情两种特质,每种特质包含生气、厌恶、恐惧、高兴、悲伤和惊奇六种情绪,总量表拟合指数为:CFA=0.99,TLI=0.98,χ²/df=2.28,RMSEA=0.059,SRMR=0.066;总量表Cronbach’sα系数0.95,分量表Cronbach’sα系数0.65~0.84;总量表重测信度0.79,分量表重测信度0.47~0.73。ESEQ的效标效度检验显示,认知共情得分与观点采择显著正相关(r=0.50),情绪共情得分与共情关注显著正相关(r=0.45);六种情绪的认知共情得分与各人际困扰显著负相关(r=-0.32~-0.11),情绪共情中仅有高兴情绪得分与各人际困扰显著负相关(r=-0.33~-0.16)。结论:中文版情绪特异性共情问卷(ESEQ)的信效度良好,可用于大学生的共情测量。