Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Social Neuroscience Lab, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, D-23538 Lübeck, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Social Neuroscience Lab, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, D-23538 Lübeck, Germany; Social Brain Laboratory, The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy for the Arts and Sciences, 1105 BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Neuropsychologia. 2018 Jul 31;116(Pt A):52-60. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.05.030. Epub 2017 Jun 2.
Witnessing others' plights can be funny for observers, but may also trigger one to empathically cringe with the victim of the predicament. In the present study, we examined the common and distinct neural networks involved in schadenfreude (i.e. pleasure derived from another's misfortune) and fremdscham (i.e. empathically sharing the embarrassment about another's misfortune). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we examined a total of N = 34 participants while they observed social integrity threats of a misfortunate other and either reported on their schadenfreude or fremdscham. In this between-subject design, we found that despite a broad overlap in brain regions involved in social cognition, the left anterior insula (AI) was activated less if observers were asked to focus on their schadenfreude. Further, the nucleus accumben's activity exclusively covaried with the intensity of the schadenfreude experience and had a higher functional connectivity with the left AI in the context of schadenfreude than during fremdscham. With the present findings, we demonstrate that the valence and intensity of interpersonal emotions strongly depend on the experimental context and that empathy and reward circuits are involved in shaping the subjective experience.
观察者看到他人的困境可能会觉得有趣，但也可能会对困境中的受害者产生同情的畏缩感。在本研究中，我们考察了幸灾乐祸（即从他人的不幸中获得的快乐）和尴尬共鸣（即对他人不幸的尴尬感产生共鸣）所涉及的共同和独特的神经网络。使用功能磁共振成像，我们共检查了 34 名参与者，当他们观察到不幸他人的社会完整性受到威胁时，他们要么报告自己的幸灾乐祸，要么报告自己的尴尬共鸣。在这个被试间设计中，我们发现，尽管参与社会认知的大脑区域有广泛的重叠，但如果要求观察者专注于他们的幸灾乐祸，左前岛叶（AI）的活动就会减少。此外，伏隔核的活动仅与幸灾乐祸体验的强度相关，并且在幸灾乐祸的情况下，与左前 AI 的功能连接性高于尴尬共鸣的情况。通过本研究的发现，我们证明了人际情绪的效价和强度强烈取决于实验情境，并且共情和奖励回路参与了塑造主观体验。
