Ritchie Mary B, Neufeld Richard W J, Yoon Minha, Li Ashley, Mitchell Derek G V
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Canada; The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Clin Psychol Rev. 2022 Dec;98:102186. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2022.102186. Epub 2022 Jun 25.
Historically, empathy has been thought to motivate prosocial behaviour and inhibit aggressive behaviour. Contrary to current assumptions and theoretical support, a meta-analysis revealed a small effect of empathy on aggression among adults (Vachon, Lynam, & Johnson, 2014). The current study sought to determine whether broadening the focus from empathy to include other socially relevant affective characteristics (i.e., callous-unemotional traits) was advantageous in predicting aggressive behaviour. As little is known about the strength of this association among youth, the current study meta-analytically examined 192 unique effect sizes drawn from published and unpublished studies reporting on samples of children and adolescents. Analyses were conducted across general, cognitive, and emotional empathy, as well as callous-unemotional traits, and general, direct, indirect, proactive, and reactive aggression. Significant variability was noted across effect sizes. Consistent with a prior meta-analysis involving adults (Vachon et al., 2014), small to moderate associations were identified between aggression and traditional measures of empathy (i.e., general, emotional, cognitive); these effects ranged from r = -0.06 to -0.26. Among broader measures of emotional style (i.e., callous-unemotional traits), moderate to large effects were found; ranging from r = 0.30 to 0.37. Results suggested that broader affective measures may be more strongly associated with aggression than empathy alone. The results raise questions about the nature of empathy assessment and indicate the utility of targeting multiple emotion-related factors during treatment to effectively reduce aggressive behaviour. In particular, the results underscore of the importance of considering the limited prosocial emotions specifier (perhaps trans-diagnostically given the varied nature of the sample) when considering implications for prognosis and treatment targets.
从历史上看，共情被认为能够激发亲社会行为并抑制攻击性行为。与当前的假设和理论支持相反，一项元分析显示共情对成年人的攻击性影响较小（瓦雄、莱纳姆和约翰逊，2014年）。本研究旨在确定将关注点从共情扩大到包括其他与社会相关的情感特征（即冷酷无情特质）是否有利于预测攻击性行为。由于对青少年中这种关联的强度知之甚少，本研究对192个从已发表和未发表的关于儿童和青少年样本的研究中提取的独特效应量进行了元分析。分析涉及一般共情、认知共情和情感共情，以及冷酷无情特质，还有一般攻击、直接攻击、间接攻击、主动攻击和反应性攻击。效应量之间存在显著差异。与之前一项涉及成年人的元分析（瓦雄等人，2014年）一致，攻击与传统的共情测量指标（即一般共情、情感共情、认知共情）之间存在小到中等程度的关联；这些效应范围从r = -0.06到 -0.26。在更广泛的情感风格测量指标（即冷酷无情特质）中，发现了中等至较大的效应；范围从r = 0.30到0.37。结果表明，更广泛的情感测量指标可能比单独的共情与攻击性的关联更强。这些结果引发了关于共情评估本质的问题，并表明在治疗过程中针对多个与情绪相关的因素以有效减少攻击性行为的效用。特别是，这些结果强调了在考虑预后和治疗目标的影响时，考虑有限的亲社会情绪说明符（鉴于样本性质多样，可能跨诊断）的重要性。
