Adaptive Empathy: Empathic Response Selection as a Dynamic, Feedback-Based Learning Process

Abstract

Empathy allows us to respond to the emotional state of another person. Considering that an empathic interaction may last beyond the initial response, learning mechanisms may be involved in dynamic adaptation of the reaction to the changing emotional state of the other person. However, traditionally, empathy is assessed through sets of isolated reactions to another's distress. Here we address this gap by focusing on adaptive empathy, defined as the ability to learn and adjust one's empathic responses based on feedback. For this purpose, we designed a novel paradigm of associative learning in which participants chose one of two empathic strategies (reappraisal or distraction) to attenuate the distress of a target person, where one strategy had a higher probability of relieving distress. After each choice, participants received feedback about the success of their chosen strategy in relieving the target person's distress, which they could use to inform their future decisions. The results show that the participants made more accurate choices in the adaptive empathy condition than in a non-social control condition, pointing to an advantage for learning from social feedback. We found a correlation between adaptive empathy and a trait measure of cognitive empathy. These findings indicate that the ability to learn about the effectiveness of empathic responses may benefit from incorporating mentalizing abilities. Our findings provide a lab-based model for studying adaptive empathy and point to the potential contribution of learning theory to enhancing our understanding of the dynamic nature of empathy.

Instrumental learning of social affiliation through outcome and intention.

“…Altogether, the present research highlights the promise of instrumental learning approaches for characterizing socioemotional processes. Formal models of learning have offered insights into feedback-based social behavior, informing the dynamics of learning in active interactions and suggesting links between social behavior and neural computation (Amodio, 2019; Bellucci & Park, 2020; Crockett, 2016; FeldmanHall & Dunsmoor, 2019; Hackel & Amodio, 2018; Hackel et al, 2019; Hertz, 2021; Lockwood & Klein-Flügge, 2020; Kozakevich Arbel et al, 2021; Olsson et al, 2020; Suzuki & O’Doherty, 2020). The current evidence addresses how people learn to approach or avoid others through socioemotional feedback that requires social cognition, thus illuminating computations that underlie rich forms of learning and choice people experience in their social lives.…”

Therapeutic Alliance as Active Inference: The Role of Therapeutic Touch and Biobehavioural Synchrony in Musculoskeletal Care

“…Empathy is often associated with physiological responses in both the HCP and the patient, such as increased sympathetic nervous system activation, including skin conductance in chronic pain patients ( Block, 1981 ). Moreover, more empathic individuals show more extradural synchrony and coupling, thus leveraging empathy – and learning the preferred coping strategies ( Goldstein et al, 2017 ; Ellingsen et al, 2020 ; Reddan et al, 2020 ; Kozakevich Arbel et al, 2021 ; Shamay-Tsoory and Eisenberger, 2021 ). Indeed, it has been suggested that the degree of empathy demonstrated during touch correlates with the level of analgesia experienced by the partner through the toucher’s tactile stimulus ( Goldstein et al, 2016 ; Korisky et al, 2020 ).…”

Do positive emotions prompt people to be more authentic? The mediation effect of gratitude and empathy dimensions on the relationship between humility state and perceived false self

“…Since empathy is a pro-social emotion, it usually results in reactions to meet the needs of the object of empathy according to one's own opinion (Depow et al, 2021). In other words, adaptive empathy allows us to learn according to others' needs and adjust our own empathic response based on feedback (Kozakevich et al, 2021). Because humility encourages people to notice others' meaning by diminishing egoistic perspective (Kruse et al, 2014), it was expected that it may reinforce the cognitive ability to think about, understand, and sympathize with other people's mental states.…”