Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macao, China.
Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Institute of Collaborative Innovation, University of Macau, Macao, China.
J Gambl Stud. 2023 Jun;39(2):689-711. doi: 10.1007/s10899-022-10130-w. Epub 2022 May 27.
Considering the low levels of empathy associated with substance-related addictions and the similarities between gambling disorder (GD) and substance-related addiction, understanding the relationship between empathy and GD may clarify the mechanism of addiction development. This scoping review aimed to evaluate the empirical evidence for the potential protective role of emotional and cognitive empathy against GD development via internalizing and/or externalizing pathways. We followed the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analyses extension for scoping reviews and 11 articles met the inclusion criteria. Although most of the reviewed studies used correlational designs and non-gambling-specific samples, this review highlights (1) significant relationships between both types of empathy and the neural activity of gambling behaviors, and (2) reduced cognitive empathy (i.e., fantasy and perspective taking) and increased emotional empathy (i.e., personal distress) among problem gamblers than their gambling counterparts. Despite the lack of studies directly testing the protective role of empathy against GD, the existing studies (n = 8) nevertheless shed light on the potential protective effects of both types of empathy on GD development. This review identified research gaps, which can be addressed in future studies by discovering the underlying mechanisms (e.g., internalizing and externalizing pathways) of these relationships. Experimental or longitudinal studies in gamblers investigating how different types of empathy are associated with GD via these pathways are called for as their findings have implications for prevention and intervention designs for GD and other addictive disorders.
考虑到与物质相关的成瘾相关的同理心水平较低，以及赌博障碍 (GD) 和物质相关成瘾之间的相似性，理解同理心和 GD 之间的关系可能有助于阐明成瘾发展的机制。本范围综述旨在评估情绪和认知同理心通过内化和/或外化途径对 GD 发展的潜在保护作用的实证证据。我们遵循系统评价和元分析扩展的首选报告项目进行范围综述，符合纳入标准的有 11 篇文章。尽管大多数综述研究使用了相关设计和非赌博特定的样本，但本综述强调了：（1）两种同理心类型与赌博行为的神经活动之间存在显著关系；（2）与赌博者相比，问题赌徒的认知同理心（即幻想和观点采择）降低，而情绪同理心（即个人困扰）增加。尽管缺乏直接测试同理心对 GD 保护作用的研究，但现有的研究（n=8）仍然揭示了两种同理心对 GD 发展的潜在保护作用。本综述确定了研究空白，未来的研究可以通过发现这些关系的潜在机制（例如，内化和外化途径）来解决这些空白。需要在赌徒中进行实验或纵向研究，以调查不同类型的同理心如何通过这些途径与 GD 相关，因为这些研究结果对 GD 和其他成瘾障碍的预防和干预设计具有重要意义。
