Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University.
Emotion. 2018 Feb;18(1):39-45. doi: 10.1037/emo0000346. Epub 2017 Jun 12.
Emotional empathy-feeling another person's affective states-entails simulating how one would feel in the same circumstance. Prior research has implicated the role of executive controls and shown a link between visuospatial perspective taking and personal disposition of empathy. No study has investigated how executive control processes involved in perspective shifting relate to emotional empathy. Incorporating a spatial perspective-taking task in a set switch paradigm, we investigated whether swiftly switching from the altercentric to the egocentric perspective is associated with heightened emotional empathy but not with accurate classification of low-level perceptual affective cues. Emotional empathy was measured by subjective ratings of arousal and the similarity of affective states with the target person when viewing photos of a person in an emotionally charged context. Cognitive empathy was measured by correct recognition of affective cues. Our results showed that executive controls in perspective shifting related to emotional empathy but not to cognitive empathy. Emotional empathy correlated negatively with the switch cost from the altercentric to the egocentric perspective and not vice versa. Faster switching from the altercentric to the egocentric perspective was associated with heightened emotional empathy. Moreover, the processing strategy did not moderate the association. Flexibility in perspective shifting, especially in regaining one's own perspective after taking another person's perspective, is critical for emotional empathy. To feel another person's affective states, one should regain self-perspective after walking in the other person's shoes. (PsycINFO Database Record
情感共情——感受他人的情感状态——需要模拟自己在相同情况下的感受。先前的研究表明，执行控制在共情中起着重要作用，并显示出空间视角-taking 和个人同理心倾向之间存在联系。没有研究调查过参与视角转换的执行控制过程如何与情感共情相关。我们在一套切换范式中纳入了空间视角-taking 任务，以研究从他心视角迅速切换到自我中心视角是否与更高的情感共情相关，而与准确分类低水平的感知情感线索无关。情感共情通过主观唤醒评分和观看处于情绪激动环境中的人的照片时与目标人物的情感状态相似性来衡量。认知共情通过对情感线索的正确识别来衡量。我们的结果表明，视角转换中的执行控制与情感共情有关，而与认知共情无关。情感共情与从他心视角到自我中心视角的转换成本呈负相关，而不是相反。从他心视角到自我中心视角的转换越快，情感共情程度越高。此外，处理策略并没有调节这种关联。视角转换的灵活性，特别是在从他人视角转换回自我视角后，对于情感共情至关重要。要感受他人的情感状态，就应该在换位思考后重新找回自我视角。
