Troncoso Alejandro, Zepeda Antonia, Soto Vicente, Riquelme Ellen, Fuentealba Sissi, Andreu Catherine, Cebolla Ausiàs, Martínez-Pernía David
Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile.
Laboratorio de Cognición y Comportamiento Sensoriomotor, Departamento de Kinesiología, Universidad Metropolitana de las Ciencias de la Educación, Santiago, Chile.
Front Psychol. 2025 May 9;16:1522701. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1522701. eCollection 2025.
Research has advanced in revealing psychological and brain mechanisms in empathy-compassion experience. However, much of this research has been constrained by using non-ecologically valid, non-interactive experimental paradigms, as well as a lack of in-depth investigation into participants' subjective experiences.
This study aims to bridge these gaps by examining subjective experiences within an interactive setting.
Forty-two participants engaged in a 90-s, face-to-face interaction with an actor simulating a person with (Alzheimer's) dementia. The actor's performance in the interaction followed a validated emotion-inducing narrative about his fear of forgetting their family memories. Subsequently, micro-phenomenological interviews explored participants' embodied experiences. Data underwent iterative inter-coder processing, and both qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted. Qualitative analysis focused on temporal dynamics and multilayered dimensions (bodily, affective, attentional, motivational, and relational), while quantitative analysis assessed Bayes's correlation between phenomenological dimensions and structures of experience, alongside exploratory correlations with empathy-compassion trait questionnaires.
The participants initially connect with the actor's suffering in their own bodies, leading to an intensified sensation of anguish as the actor vividly describes the fear of forgetting his wife. After, four main experiential ways of navigating the anguish were identified: (1) Relational Disengagement, characterized by detachment from others' suffering, reduced anguish intensity, and a cold interaffective space; (2) Persistent Angst, characterized by ongoing distress; (3) Anguish Anchoring, characterized by a reactive willingness to alleviate suffering, intense bodily sensations, fluctuating presence, and a less warm, more distant interaffective space; and (4) Compassionate Balanced Support, characterized by a felt presence within a warm interaffective space, motivating balanced support for others. These graded experiences were positively correlated with the 'empathic concern' trait assessed by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index scale.
This study suggests a shift in empathy research by proposing moving from a traditional binary view (distress and compassion) to a nuanced framework identifying four distinct and holistic embodied experiences.
在揭示共情 - 同情体验中的心理和大脑机制方面，研究已经取得了进展。然而，这项研究大多受到使用非生态有效、非交互式实验范式的限制，以及对参与者主观体验缺乏深入研究。
本研究旨在通过在交互式环境中考察主观体验来弥合这些差距。
42名参与者与一名模拟患有（阿尔茨海默病）痴呆症患者的演员进行了90秒的面对面互动。演员在互动中的表现遵循了一个经过验证的关于其害怕忘记家庭记忆的情感诱导叙事。随后，进行微观现象学访谈以探索参与者的身体体验。数据经过迭代的编码员间处理，并进行了定性和定量分析。定性分析侧重于时间动态和多层次维度（身体、情感、注意力、动机和关系），而定量分析评估了现象学维度与体验结构之间的贝叶斯相关性，以及与共情 - 同情特质问卷的探索性相关性。
参与者最初在自己的身体中与演员的痛苦产生联系，随着演员生动地描述害怕忘记他的妻子，痛苦的感觉加剧。之后，确定了应对痛苦的四种主要体验方式：（1）关系脱离，其特征是与他人的痛苦脱离、痛苦强度降低以及情感互动空间冷淡；（2）持续焦虑，其特征是持续的痛苦；（3）痛苦锚定，其特征是有减轻痛苦的反应意愿、强烈的身体感觉、存在感波动以及情感互动空间不太温暖、更遥远；（4）同情性平衡支持，其特征是在温暖的情感互动空间中有存在感，促使对他人给予平衡支持。这些分级体验与人际反应指数量表评估的“共情关注”特质呈正相关。
本研究通过提议从传统的二元观点（痛苦和同情）转向一个识别四种不同且整体的身体体验的细致框架，表明了共情研究的转变。
