School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading.
Emotion. 2024 Feb;24(1):164-176. doi: 10.1037/emo0001254. Epub 2023 Jun 19.
Understanding and sharing ' emotions (i.e., empathy) requires the ability to manage one's emotions (i.e., emotion regulation). Indeed, empirical evidence suggests that empathy and emotion regulation are related. This evidence is largely based on self-report measures of both constructs. The current study examined how task measures that assess processes related to empathy are associated with self-reported emotion dysregulation in a young adult sample. An eye-tracking-based perspective-taking task was used as a proxy measure of cognitive empathy. A spontaneous facial mimicry (SFM) task, wherein the activation of the Zygomaticus Major and the Corrugator Supercilii was measured during the passive viewing of happy and angry faces, was used as a proxy measure of affective empathy. The perspective-taking task metric showed a negative relationship with emotion dysregulation. The overall SFM metric was not significantly associated with emotion dysregulation. Follow-up analyses revealed that SFM for angry faces was inversely proportional to emotion dysregulation; no such relationship was observed for SFM for happy faces. These findings build upon prior work by demonstrating a positive relationship between adaptive emotion regulation and a behavioral measure of cognitive empathy. The findings for affective empathy are suggestive of a valence-specific relationship between SFM and emotion regulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
理解和分享情感（即同理心）需要管理自己情绪的能力（即情绪调节）。事实上，实证证据表明同理心和情绪调节是相关的。这些证据主要基于这两个结构的自我报告措施。本研究在年轻成年人样本中，考察了评估同理心相关过程的任务措施与自我报告的情绪失调之间的关联。使用基于眼动追踪的观点采择任务作为认知同理心的代理测量，使用自发面部模仿（SFM）任务作为情感同理心的代理测量，该任务在被动观看快乐和愤怒面孔期间测量颧大肌和皱眉肌的激活。观点采择任务指标与情绪失调呈负相关。整体 SFM 指标与情绪失调没有显著关联。后续分析表明，愤怒面孔的 SFM 与情绪失调呈反比关系；对于快乐面孔的 SFM 则没有观察到这种关系。这些发现通过证明适应性情绪调节与认知同理心的行为测量之间存在积极关系，建立在先前的工作基础上。对于情感同理心的发现表明，SFM 和情绪调节之间存在特定于效价的关系。
