The Role of Emotion Regulation Strategies and Delusion Proneness on Empathetic Tendencies in a Community Sample

Empathic tendencies (i.e., perspective taking and empathic concern) and emotion regulation (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) are key factors in successful social relationships. Relationships can also be negatively impacted by mental health symptoms, including psychosis. While psychotic-like experiences are often detrimental to social functioning, it is unclear whether certain psychotic-like experiences, such as delusions, are negatively associated with empathetic tendencies after accounting for emotion regulation skills and comorbid dimensions of psychopathology. Linear models were employed to test these associations in an adult community sample (N = 128). Measures of interest included the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Peter’s Delusion Inventory. Results indicated that perspective taking was positively associated with reappraisal and negatively associated with delusional proneness, after controlling for age, sex, race, intelligence, as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression. Furthermore, a significant change in R2 supported the addition of delusion proneness in this model. Specificity analyses demonstrated perspective taking was also negatively associated with suppression, but this relationship did not remain after accounting for the effects of reappraisal and delusion proneness in the same model. Additional specificity analyses found no association between empathic concern and reappraisal or delusion proneness but replicated previous findings that empathic concern was negatively associated with suppression. Taken together, findings highlight that delusion proneness accounts for unique variance in interpersonal perspective taking, beyond that explained by demographics, intelligence, reappraisal skills, and internalizing psychopathology.

Are Robots Sociopaths? A Neuroscientific Approach to the Alignment Problem

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expanding into every niche of human life, organizing our activity, expanding our agency and interacting with us to an exponentially increasing extent. At the same time, AI’s efficiency, complexity and refinement are growing at an accelerating speed. An expanding, ubiquitous intelligence that does not have a means to care about us poses a species-level risk. Justifiably, there is a growing concern with the immediate problem of how to engineer an AI that is aligned with human interests. Computational approaches to the alignment problem currently focus on engineering AI systems to (i) parameterize human values such as harm and flourishing, and (ii) avoid overly drastic solutions, even if these are seemingly optimal. In parallel, ongoing work in applied AI (caregiving, consumer care) is concerned with developing artificial empathy, teaching AI’s to decode human feelings and behavior, and evince appropriate emotional responses.We propose that in the absence of affective empathy (which allows us to share in the states of others), existing approaches to artificial empathy may fail to reliably produce the pro-social, caring component of empathy, potentially resulting in increasingly cognitively complex sociopaths. We adopt the colloquial usage of the term “sociopath” to signify an intelligence possessing cognitive empathy (i.e., the ability to decode, infer, and model the mental and affective states of others), but crucially lacking pro-social, empathic concern arising from shared affect and embodiment. It is widely acknowledged that aversion to causing harm is foundational to the formation of empathy and moral behavior. However, harm aversion is itself predicated on the experience of harm, within the context of the preservation of physical integrity. Following from this, we argue that a “top-down” rule-based approach to achieving caring AI may be inherently unable to anticipate and adapt to the inevitable novel moral/logistical dilemmas faced by an expanding AI. Crucially, it may be more effective to coax caring to emerge from the bottom up, baked into an embodied, vulnerable artificial intelligence with an incentive to preserve its physical integrity. This may be achieved via iterative optimization within a series of tailored environments with incentives and contingencies inspired by the development of empathic concern in humans. Here we attempt an outline of what these training steps might look like. We speculate that work of this kind may allow for AI that surpasses empathic fatigue and the idiosyncrasies, biases, and computational limits that restrict human empathy. While for us, “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic”, the scaleable complexity of AI may allow it to deal proportionately with complex, large-scale ethical dilemmas. Hopefully, by addressing this problem seriously in the early stages of AI’s integration with society, we may one day be accompanied by AI that plans and behaves with a deeply ingrained weight placed on the welfare of others, coupled with the cognitive complexity necessary to understand and solve extraordinary problems.

Does Empathy Promote Helping by Activating Altruistic Motivation or Concern About Social Evaluation? A Direct Replication of Fultz et al. (1986)

Empathy motivates people to help needy others. Does it do so by activating genuine concern, or by activating more self-interested goals that helping needy others might enable them to fulfill? The empathy-altruism hypothesis claims that empathic concern reflects a non-instrumental desire to improve the welfare of a person in need. To rule out the alternative hypothesis that empathy motivates prosocial behavior by first generating fear of appearing selfish, Fultz et al. (1986) manipulated empathy for a needy target using perspective-taking instructions; they also manipulated whether the subject’s opportunity to help was subject to social evaluation. However, Fultz et al.’s (1986) experiments were underpowered. Here, we conducted a large-N pre-registered replication of Experiment 2 in Fultz et al. (1986). We also administered self-report measures of moral identity and endorsement of the principle of care to test whether these traits reflect altruistic desires or desires to avoid disapprobation. We found that volunteering did not differ between the high and low social evaluation conditions, and that volunteering was not significantly higher in the high-empathy condition. These results sit uneasily with Fultz et al. (1986)’s evidence in support of the empathy-altruism hypothesis. We also failed to find evidence that the principle of care or moral identity internalization reflect altruistic motivation. Consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis, however, we did find that self-reported empathic concern predicted helping.

Apakah Empati Mempengaruhi Kepatuhan Pajak?

Research on the impact of empathy as a non-economic factor on taxpayer compliance has not been studied in Indonesia. Most research still focuses on economic factors that affect tax compliance. To find out whether empathy affects tax compliance, this study uses binary logistic regression analysis because the dependent variable is nominal and categorical. The significance of the regression equation parameters was tested by the Ratio Likelihood Test and the Wald Test. Then, the goodness of fit model was tested using the Hosmer-Lemeshow Test. The likelihood ratio test shows that there is at least one coefficient from the regression model that has an effect on the 5% significance level. Based on the Wald test, there is no independent variable that has a significant effect on tax compliance with a 5% significance level. The Hosmer-Lemeshow test states that the binary logistic regression model in this study is feasible to use. Binary logistic regression analysis shows that only one predictor has a significant effect on the tax compliance variable, namely empathic concern items. The odds ratio value of 1.054 on the empathic concern items variable shows that taxpayers who have empathy will be 1.054 times more tax compliant than respondents who do not have empathy. In other words, respondents who have empathy will tend to be more obedient in paying taxes than those who do not have this trait. Therefore, the government can formulate regulations that support the emergence of empathic concern items in the community so that tax compliance increases.

The link between the brain volume derived index and the determinants of social performance

Motivation, defined as the energizing of behavior in pursuit of a goal, is a fundamental element of our interaction with the world and with each other. Furthermore, as it is known that cooperation leads to higher levels of performance than do individual conditions, empathic concern is also crucial to all forms of helping relationships. A growing number of studies indicate that motivation and empathy are associated not only with organizational performance and study achievements, but also with the human brain. However, to date, no definite neuroimaging-derived measures are available to measure motivation and empathy objectively. The current research evaluated the association of motivation and empathy with the whole brain using the gray-matter brain healthcare quotient (GM-BHQ), an MRI-based quotient. Participants were 47 healthy adults. All subjects underwent structural T1-weighted imaging. Motivation levels were evaluated using four motivation scales: Behavioral Activation System (BAS), Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS), Self-Control Scale (SCS), and Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). Interaction levels, including empathic concern, were evaluated using four subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). It was found that the GM-BHQ was most significantly sensitive to the BAS scale (p = 0.002). Furthermore, the GM-BHQ was moderately sensitive to the SMS (p = 0.028) and subscales of the IRI (p = 0.044 for Fantasy and p = 0.036 for Empathic Concern). However, no significant association was found between the GM-BHQ and other variables (BIS and SCS). These results suggest that the GM-BHQ might reflect motivation and empathic concern.

Cultural differences in social support seeking: The mediating role of empathic concern

Prior research has found that East Asians are less willing than Westerners to seek social support in times of need. What factors account for this cultural difference? Whereas previous research has examined the mediating effect of relational concern, we predicted that empathic concern, which refers to feeling sympathy and concern for people in need and varies by individuals from different cultures, would promote support seeking. We tested the prediction in two studies. In Study 1, European Canadians reported higher empathic concern and a higher frequency of support seeking, compared to the Japanese participants. As predicted, cultural differences in social support seeking were influenced by empathic concern. In Study 2, both empathic concern and relational concern mediated cultural differences in support seeking. Japanese with lower empathic concern but higher relational concern were more reluctant than European Americans to seek social support during stressful times. Finally, loneliness, which was more prevalent among the Japanese than among the European Americans, was partially explained by social support seeking.

Indirect aggression, anxiety, and empathy: Disaggregating between and within person longitudinal associations during childhood and adolescence

Although indirectly aggressive behavior and anxiety symptoms can co-occur, it is unclear whether anxiety is an antecedent or outcome of indirect aggression at the individual level and whether other personality traits can contribute to these longitudinal associations. Therefore, the between- and within-person associations among indirect aggression, anxiety symptoms, and empathic concern were examined across adolescence from ages 11 to 16 in a cohort of individuals followed annually (N = 700; 52.9% girls; 76.0% White) controlling for direct aggression and demographic variables. Results of autoregressive latent trajectory models with structured residuals supported an acting out model at the within-person level. Specifically, anxiety symptoms positively predicted indirect aggression and indirect aggression negatively predicted empathic concern at each adjacent time point. These findings suggest that methods of reducing worries about the self and increasing healthy self-confidence could prevent indirect aggression and help build concern and compassion toward others.

Brief Mindfulness Instruction Increases Prosocial Helping of an Ostracized Racial Outgroup Member

Two experiments tested whether brief instruction in mindfulness increased helping behavior toward an ostracized racial outgroup member by enhancing empathic concern. In Study 1, brief mindfulness instruction, relative to active and inactive control conditions, increased helping behavior toward an ostracized racial outgroup member in a private (but not in a public) context. In Study 2, which involved greater anonymity, mindfulness instruction increased both private and public helping behavior toward an ostracized racial outgroup member relative to the two control conditions. Importantly, measured empathic concern accounted for a portion of the variance in the causal relation between mindfulness and interracial helping behavior in Study 2. Together these studies suggest that brief mindfulness training increases interracial prosocial responsiveness in a digitally mediated context, particularly when personal anonymity was greater.

AGGRESSION, EMPATHY, AND LIFE SATISFACTION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AMONG STUDENTS IN PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION

<p>The primary purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between aggression, empathy, and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The main aim was to analyse the contribution of empathy components (empathic concern, personal distress, perspective-taking, and fantasy) above reactive and proactive aggression in predicting life satisfaction.. The Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ), Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Single Item on Overall Life Satisfaction (OLS), and Single Item on Overall Happiness (OH) measures were applied to 418 students in private higher education (232 male, 186 female). The participants’ age ranged from 18 to 34, with a mean age of 21 years (SD = 3.18). Results showed that reactive aggression negatively predicted satisfaction with life and overall happiness, while proactive aggression did not significantly predict indicators of life satisfaction. Empathic concern showed a significant positive effect on satisfaction with life, while personal distress showed a significant adverse effect on all indicators of life satisfaction. Aggression and empathy together accounted for 14% of the variance in the satisfaction with life and 5% of the variance in overall life satisfaction and overall happiness. Empathy added incremental variance in explaining life satisfaction after controlling for aggression. The results highlight the importance of reactive aggression and emotional empathy in the explanation of life satisfaction.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0983/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>