The understanding of empathy from a neuroscientific perspective has recently developed quickly, with numerous functional MRI studies associating different brain regions with different components of ...empathy. A recent meta-analysis across 40 fMRI studies revealed that affective empathy is most often associated with increased activity in the insula, whereas cognitive empathy is most often associated with activity in the midcingulate cortex and adjacent dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (MCC/dmPFC). To date, however, it remains unclear whether individual differences in brain morphometry in these regions underlie different dispositions in affective and cognitive empathy. In order to test this hypothesis, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to examine the extent to which gray matter density predicts scores from an established empathy measure (Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy; QCAE). One hundred and seventy-six participants completed the QCAE and underwent MRI in order to acquire a high-resolution, three-dimensional T1-weighted structural scans. A factor analysis of the questionnaire scores revealed two distinct factors of empathy, affective and cognitive, which confirmed the validity of the QCAE. VBM results revealed gray matter density differences associated with the distinct components of empathy. Higher scores on affective empathy were associated with greater gray matter density in the insula cortex and higher scores of cognitive empathy were associated with greater gray matter density in the MCC/dmPFC. Taken together, these results provide validation for empathy being a multi-component construct, suggesting that affective and cognitive empathy are differentially represented in brain morphometry as well as providing convergent evidence for empathy being represented by different neural and structural correlates.
•Voxel-based morphometry was performed with empathy scores of 176 participants.•Greater gray matter density in insula was associated with affective empathy scores.•Greater gray matter density in dmPFC was associated with cognitive empathy scores.•Empathy is a multi-component construct.•Individual differences in empathy are subserved by anatomical differences.
•We meta-analyzed the twin literature of emotional and cognitive empathy.•Emotional empathy is more heritable than cognitive empathy.•Cognitive empathy as examined by tests is affected by environment ...shared by siblings.•We did not find evidence for age differences in empathy heritability.•We propose future research directions to examine the processes behind genes-empathy relations.
Empathy is considered a cornerstone of human social experience, and as such has been widely investigated from psychological and neuroscientific approaches. To better understand the factors influencing individual differences in empathy, we reviewed and meta-analyzed the behavioral genetic literature of emotional empathy- sharing others’ emotions (k=13), and cognitive empathy- understanding others’ emotions (k = 15), as manifested in twin studies. Results showed that emotional empathy is more heritable, 48.3 % 41.3 %–50.6 %, than cognitive empathy, 26.9 % 18.1 %–35.8 %. Moreover, cognitive empathy as examined by performance tests was affected by the environment shared by family members, 11.9 % 2.6 %–21.0 %, suggesting that emotional understanding is influenced, to some degree, by environmental factors that have similar effects on family members beyond their genetic relatedness. The effects of participants’ age and the method used to asses empathy on the etiology of empathy were also examined. These findings have implications for understanding how individual differences in empathy are formed. After discussing these implications, we suggest theoretical and methodological future research directions that could potentially elucidate the relations between genes, brain, and empathy.
Empathy is an important prerequisite for prosocial behaviour (PB). However, different concepts and methodological tools have been used in research on the relationship between empathy and PB, leading ...to ambiguous results. This study used a meta‐analysis to explore this relationship and to identify the moderating variables. After a literature search, 62 studies and 146 samples with 71,310 participants were included. Our random effects model revealed a positive correlation of PB with both cognitive empathy (r = .32) and affective empathy (r = .30). In addition, the relationship between empathy and PB is moderated by culture, publication type, education level, and empathy measures. Our conclusion is that there is a significant correlation between empathy and PB that is influenced by sample characteristics and methodological factors.
•Spirituality and/or religion frequently play an important role in music therapy.•Music therapists navigate relations between their religious/spiritual beliefs and empathy.•Music therapists can feel ...pulled between religious and therapeutic prerogatives.•Spiritually resonant empathy and transpersonal empathy can occur in music therapy.
This paper reports on the findings of a study with 14 music therapists, exploring how they experienced (a) the interface/overlap between their own religious and/or spiritual beliefs and those of their clients; (b) the navigation of this interface/overlap within music therapy practice; and (c) whether/how they used empathy when engaging in this navigation. Four main findings were identified through thematic analysis of in-depth interviews. Firstly, according to these music therapists, spirituality and/or religion frequently play an important role within music therapy sessions. Secondly, these music therapists described cognitive and affective empathic experiences with clients as well as experiences of spiritually resonant empathy and transpersonal empathy. Thirdly, they identified relationships between their own religious and spiritual journeys, their experiences of identifying and/or not identifying with their clients, and their experiences of empathy. Fourthly, the intersections between what they felt they “should” do as music therapists and what they felt they “should” do in light of their religious/spiritual orientations informed their styles of practice and elicited challenges in the therapeutic process which they used particular strategies to navigate.
Empathy is widely regarded as relevant to a diverse range of psychopathological constructs, such as autism spectrum disorder, psychopathy, and borderline personality disorder. Cognitive empathy (CE) ...is the ability to accurately recognize or infer the thoughts and feelings of others. Although behavioral task paradigms are frequently used to assess such abilities, a large proportion of published studies reporting on CE use self-report questionnaires. For decades, however, a number of theorists have cautioned that individuals may not possess the metacognitive insight needed to validly gauge their own mindreading abilities. To investigate this possibility, we examined the aggregate relations between behavioral CE task performance and self-report CE scale scores, as well as with self-report affective empathy scale scores for comparison. Meta-analytic results, based on random effects models, from 85 studies (total N = 14,327) indicate that self-report CE scores account for only approximately 1% of the variance in behavioral cognitive empathy assessments and that, perhaps equally importantly, this relation is not significantly different from that demonstrated by affective empathy scores. Effect sizes were not moderated by self-report empathy domain, gender composition, unisensory versus multisensory behavioral stimuli presentation, child versus adult samples, or by normative versus clinical/forensic samples. Effect size estimates were not markedly affected by publication bias. These results raise serious concerns regarding the widespread use of self-report CE scores as proxies for CE ability, as well as the extensive theoretical conclusions that have been based on their use in past studies.
Public Significance Statement
The accumulated evidence indicates that self-report questionnaires are not a trustworthy method for assessing an individual's cognitive empathy abilities. Researchers and clinicians should avoid relying upon them, until and unless adequate evidence is produced demonstrating their validity when used for this purpose.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
It has been proposed that atypical empathy in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is due to co-occurring alexithymia. However, difficulties measuring empathy and statistical issues in previous research ...raise questions about the role of alexithymia in empathic processing in ASD. Addressing these issues, we compared the associations of trait alexithymia and autism with empathy in large samples from the general population. Multiple regression analyses showed that both trait autism and alexithymia were uniquely associated with atypical empathy, but dominance analysis found that trait autism, compared to alexithymia, was a more important predictor of atypical cognitive, affective, and overall empathy. Together, these findings indicate that atypical empathy in ASD is not simply due to co-occurring alexithymia.
Empathy has deteriorated throughout clinical training and medical practice, and little is known about the effect of empathy training on the empathy level of healthcare providers. To address this gap, ...we assessed the effect of empathy training on the empathy level of healthcare providers in Ethiopia.
A cluster randomized controlled trial study design was conducted from 20 December 2021 to 20 March 2022. The empathy training intervention was conducted for three consecutive days.
The study was conducted in five fistula treatment centers in Ethiopia.
The participants were all randomly selected healthcare providers.
Total mean score, percentage changes, and Cohen's effect size were computed. A linear mixed effects model and independent
-test were used for data analysis.
A majority of the study participants were nurses in the profession, married, and first-degree holders. There was no statistically significant difference in the baseline empathy score of the intervention arm across their socio-demographic features. At the baseline, the mean empathy scores of the control and intervention arms were 102.10 ± 15.38 and 101.13 ± 17.67, respectively. The effect of empathy training on the total mean score changes of empathy of the intervention arm compared to the control arm at each follow-up time had a statistically significant difference. After a week, a month, and three months of post-intervention, the total mean empathy scores between the intervention and control arms were as follows: (intervention 112.65 ± 18.99, control 102.85 ± 15.65,
= 0.55,
= 0.03); (intervention 109.01 ± 17.79, control 100.52 ± 12.57, d = 0.53,
= 0.034); and (intervention 106.28 ± 16.24, control 96.58 ± 14.69,
= 0.60,
= 0.016) with the overall percentage changes of 11, 8, and 5% from the baseline scores, respectively.
In this trial, the empathy training intervention was found to have more than a medium effect size. However, over the follow-up intervals, there was a decreasing trend in the total mean empathy scores of healthcare providers; suggesting that there should be continued empathy training and integration of it into educational and training curriculums to enhance and sustain the empathy of healthcare providers.
: Pan African Clinical Trial Registry: http://www.edctp.org/panafrican-clinical-trials-registry or https://pactr.samrc.ac.za, PACTR202112564898934.
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