Strategic Regulation of Empathy

Abstract

Empathy is an integral part of socio-emotional well-being, yet recent research has highlighted some of its downsides. Here we examine literature that establishes when, how much, and what aspects of empathy promote specific outcomes. After reviewing a theoretical framework which characterizes empathy as a suite of separable components, we examine evidence showing how dissociations of these components affect important socio-emotional outcomes and describe emerging evidence suggesting that these components can be independently and deliberately regulated. Finally, we advocate for an approach to a multi-component view of empathy which accounts for the interrelations among components. This perspective advances scientific conceptualization of empathy and offers suggestions for tailoring empathy to help people realize their social, emotional, and occupational goals.

Rhythmic Neural Patterns During Empathy to Vicarious Pain: Beyond the Affective-Cognitive Empathy Dichotomy

“…This is in agreement with former studies on the relation of individual's experiences through lifespan development with their functional architecture for the cognitive control of emotion (Ochsner and Gross, 2005). Accordingly, up-regulation or downregulation of emotion by the top-down cognitive control directs one's empathic response toward others as has been suggested in early and recent accounts on empathy (Decety and Lamm, 2006;Weisz and Cikara, 2021). Future studies should further elucidate this interesting, plausibly topdown driven, pattern by conducting connectivity analyses that would explore information trafficking across networks, and in-depth phenomenological interviews that would add the phenomenological dimension of this cognitive control phenomenon.…”

“…This finding indicated that the dichotomous affective-cognitive view does not straightforwardly accommodate human lived experiences and empathic encounters, and rather supports the Graded Empathy framework ( Levy and Bader, 2020 ). The results suggest that individuals with greater late alpha-beta enhancement have lower sensitivity to vicarious pain, whereas people with high sensitivity to vicarious pain have less inhibitory control in their brain ( Weisz and Cikara, 2021 ), thereby plausibly enabling them to empathize with others’ pain. This is in agreement with former studies on the relation of individual’s experiences through lifespan development with their functional architecture for the cognitive control of emotion ( Ochsner and Gross, 2005 ).…”

“…Empathy is a complex social ability in the human species with multiple facets, ranging from low-level sensory and affective aspects to high-level cognitive aspects that involve top-down processes in the brain and even further aspects based on the social circumstances indicated by phenomenological analysis ( Levy and Bader, 2020 ). The present study aimed to move beyond the dualistic affective-cognitive representation of empathy by exploiting the richness of data collected in MEG in accordance to recent multilevel models on empathy ( Schurz et al, 2021 ; Weisz and Cikara, 2021 ), and in particular Graded Empathy framework that connects neural rhythms and subjective experience. Despite the simplicity and artificial nature of the task employed here, we investigated multiple dimensions of rhythmic neural patterns during empathy for vicarious pain.…”

Musical Training in the Development of Empathy and Prosocial Behaviors

“…Empathy has been considered as a strong predictor of prosocial behaviors ( Roberts and Strayer, 1996 ). Empathy includes at least three related but distinct components – affective (feeling others’ emotions), cognitive (taking others’ perspective), and motivational (desiring to promote others’ well-being or alleviating their suffering) components ( Decety, 2015 ; Weisz and Cikara, in press ), based on shared and distinct neural systems ( Kogler et al, 2020 ). Empathy is crucial for well-being and indispensable in social life.…”

“…Therefore, from a practical point of view, future studies need to compare and combine different interventions to achieve the optimal outcome of empathy development. Third, empathy is a multicomponent construct, and different situations might require different components ( Decety, 2015 ; Weisz and Cikara, in press ). It is possible that various music activities (e.g., singing, instrument playing, and group training) are applicable to different populations, and they may contribute unequally to a specific component of empathy.…”