McQuarrie Amanda M, Smith Stephen D, Jakobson Lorna S
University of Manitoba, Department of Psychology, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
University of Manitoba, Department of Psychology, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; University of Winnipeg, Department of Psychology, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2025 May;255:104903. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2025.104903. Epub 2025 Mar 17.
Exposure to childhood emotional abuse amplifies the personality traits of alexithymia and sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) and impacts empathy.
This study investigated if alexithymia, SPS positive traits, and/or SPS negative traits mediate the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and both emotional contagion measured behaviourally and self-reported empathy.
A sample of 190 university students (M = 19.92 years) completed self-report measures of empathy and a behavioural task measuring emotional contagion elicited by viewing affective films. Multiple parallel mediation analyses were run to determine if the personality variables mediated the links between abuse and empathy-related outcome measures.
The relationship between childhood emotional abuse and each of the self-report empathy subscales was mediated by personality, although the strength and direction of the effects varied across the three trait clusters. In the behavioural task, aspects of SPS mediated the relationships between emotional abuse and the strength of the primary emotion felt during viewing of positive and negative films; and alexithymia mediated the relationship between emotional abuse and the number of discrete emotions felt during viewing of negative films.
The findings provide important insights into how childhood exposure to emotional abuse can impact personality development and, indirectly, the development of empathy. They also highlight the importance of considering the relative strength of specific traits associated with both alexithymia and SPS when trying to predict individual differences in empathy. The results may inform the development of individualized intervention programs targeting empathic deficits.
童年期遭受情感虐待会强化述情障碍和感觉加工敏感性（SPS）的人格特质，并影响同理心。
本研究调查述情障碍、SPS积极特质和/或SPS消极特质是否介导童年期情感虐待与行为测量的情绪感染和自我报告的同理心之间的关系。
190名大学生（平均年龄19.92岁）的样本完成了同理心的自我报告测量以及一项通过观看情感电影引发情绪感染的行为任务。进行了多项平行中介分析，以确定人格变量是否介导了虐待与同理心相关结果测量之间的联系。
童年期情感虐待与各自我报告同理心分量表之间的关系由人格介导，尽管效应的强度和方向在三个特质簇中有所不同。在行为任务中，SPS的各个方面介导了情感虐待与观看积极和消极电影时感受到的主要情绪强度之间的关系；述情障碍介导了情感虐待与观看消极电影时感受到的离散情绪数量之间的关系。
这些发现为童年期遭受情感虐待如何影响人格发展以及间接影响同理心发展提供了重要见解。它们还强调了在试图预测同理心个体差异时，考虑与述情障碍和SPS相关的特定特质相对强度的重要性。研究结果可能为针对同理心缺陷的个性化干预方案的制定提供参考。
