The association of temperament and maternal empathy with individual differences in infants’ neural responses to emotional body expressions

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (4pt1) ◽  
pp. 1205-1216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Purva Rajhans ◽  
Manuela Missana ◽  
Kathleen M. Krol ◽  
Tobias Grossmann
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Infant Temperament ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Developmental Neuroscience ◽  
Fearful Expression ◽  
Novel Objects

AbstractWe examined the role of infant temperament and maternal dispositional empathy in the neural processing of happy and fearful emotional body expressions in 8-month-old infants by measuring event-related brain potentials. Our results revealed that infants’ tendency to approach novel objects and people was positively correlated with the neural sensitivity (attention allocation) to fearful expressions, while infant fearfulness was negatively correlated to the neural sensitivity to fearful expressions. Maternal empathic concern was associated with infants’ neural discrimination between happy and fearful expression, with infants of more empathetically concerned mothers showing greater neural sensitivity (attention allocation) to fearful compared to happy expressions. It is critical that our results also revealed that individual differences in the sensitivity to emotional information are explained by an interaction between infant temperament and maternal empathic concern. Specifically, maternal empathy appears to impact infants’ neural responses to emotional body expressions, depending on infant fearfulness. These findings support the notion that the way in which infants respond to emotional signals in the environment is fundamentally linked to their temperament and maternal empathic traits. This adds an early developmental neuroscience dimension to existing accounts of social–emotional functioning, suggesting a complex and integrative picture of why and how infants’ emotional sensitivity varies.

scholarly journals High emotional contagion and empathy are associated with enhanced detection of emotional authenticity in laughter

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (11) ◽  
pp. 2355-2363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonor Neves ◽  
Carolina Cordeiro ◽  
Sophie K Scott ◽  
São Luís Castro ◽  
César F Lima
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Emotional Contagion ◽  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Reactivity Index ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Communicative Act

Nonverbal vocalisations such as laughter pervade social interactions, and the ability to accurately interpret them is an important skill. Previous research has probed the general mechanisms supporting vocal emotional processing, but the factors that determine individual differences in this ability remain poorly understood. Here, we ask whether the propensity to resonate with others’ emotions—as measured by trait levels of emotional contagion and empathy—relates to the ability to perceive different types of laughter. We focus on emotional authenticity detection in spontaneous and voluntary laughs: spontaneous laughs reflect a less controlled and genuinely felt emotion, and voluntary laughs reflect a more deliberate communicative act (e.g., polite agreement). In total, 119 participants evaluated the authenticity and contagiousness of spontaneous and voluntary laughs and completed two self-report measures of resonance with others’ emotions: the Emotional Contagion Scale and the Empathic Concern scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. We found that higher scores on these measures predict enhanced ability to detect laughter authenticity. We further observed that perceived contagion responses during listening to laughter significantly relate to authenticity detection. These findings suggest that resonating with others’ emotions provides a mechanism for processing complex aspects of vocal emotional information.

scholarly journals Self-rated social-emotional perception and its neurophysiologic and cardiac correlates while viewing a film showing the suffering of other people

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 42-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilona Papousek ◽  
Elisabeth M. Weiss ◽  
Eva M. Reiser ◽  
Günter Schulter ◽  
Heribert Harald Freudenthaler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Emotion Perception ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Functional Coupling ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
Cardiac Responses

Using electroencephalographic (EEG) and cardiac measures, the study examined relevant mechanisms that may explain individual differences in self-rated emotion perception (i.e., the propensity of perceiving the emotional states of other persons in everyday life). Healthy women (n = 122) were confronted with film scenes showing the suffering of other people. Functional coupling between prefrontal and posterior cortices, measured by EEG coherences, more strongly decreased in individuals higher on emotion perception. This finding suggests that the propensity to loosen prefrontal inhibitory control on posterior cortical areas involved in basic processes of emotion perception is associated with higher susceptibility to social-emotional information and, therefore, with higher scores on self-rated emotion perception. In addition, higher self-rated perception of other persons' emotions was related to more pronounced cardiac responses to the observation of horrifying events occurring to people in the film which indicate enhanced attention and heightened perceptual processing

Individual differences, social attention, and the history of the social motivation hypotheses of autism

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Mundy
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Social Attention ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Precise Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract The stereotype of people with autism as unresponsive or uninterested in other people was prominent in the 1980s. However, this view of autism has steadily given way to recognition of important individual differences in the social-emotional development of affected people and a more precise understanding of the possible role social motivation has in their early development.

Investigating the Psychometric Properties of the Social-Emotional Learning Scale

2021 ◽  
pp. 153450842098452
Author(s):  
Christopher L. Thomas ◽  
Staci M. Zolkoski ◽  
Sarah M. Sass
Keyword(s):  
Social Emotional Learning ◽  
Emotional Learning ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽  
Educational Support ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
The Social ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Learning Programs

Educators and educational support staff are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of systematic efforts to support students’ social and emotional growth. Logically, the success of social-emotional learning programs depends upon the ability of educators to assess student’s ability to process and utilize social-emotional information and use data to guide programmatic revisions. Therefore, the purpose of the current examination was to provide evidence of the structural validity of the Social-Emotional Learning Scale (SELS), a freely available measure of social-emotional learning, within Grades 6 to 12. Students ( N = 289, 48% female, 43.35% male, 61% Caucasian) completed the SELS and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analyses of the SELS failed to support a multidimensional factor structure identified in prior investigations. The results of an exploratory factor analysis suggest a reduced 16-item version of the SELS captures a unidimensional social-emotional construct. Furthermore, our results provide evidence of the internal consistency and concurrent validity of the reduced-length version of the instrument. Our discussion highlights the implications of the findings to social and emotional learning educational efforts and promoting evidence-based practice.

The Science of Emotional Intelligence

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 281-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Salovey ◽  
Daisy Grewal
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Work Relationships ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Branch Model

This article provides an overview of current research on emotional intelligence. Although it has been defined in many ways, we focus on the four-branch model by Mayer and Salovey (1997) , which characterizes emotional intelligence as a set of four related abilities: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions. The theory provides a useful framework for studying individual differences in abilities related to processing emotional information. Despite measurement obstacles, the evidence in favor of emotional intelligence is accumulating. Emotional intelligence predicts success in important domains, among them personal and work relationships.

scholarly journals Individual differences in working memory capacity predict visual attention allocation

2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 884-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kathryn Bleckley ◽  
Francis T. Durso ◽  
Jerry M. Crutchfield ◽  
Randall W. Engle ◽  
Maya M. Khanna
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Attention Allocation

scholarly journals Who Moves to Music? Empathic Concern Predicts Spontaneous Movement Responses to Rhythm and Music

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 205920432097421
Author(s):  
Agata Zelechowska ◽  
Victor E. Gonzalez Sanchez ◽  
Bruno Laeng ◽  
Jonna K. Vuoskoski ◽  
Alexander Refsum Jensenius
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Big Five ◽  
Body Movement ◽  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Reactivity Index ◽  
Neutral Position ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Spontaneous Movement ◽  
Electronic Dance Music

Moving to music is a universal human phenomenon, and previous studies have shown that people move to music even when they try to stand still. However, are there individual differences when it comes to how much people spontaneously respond to music with body movement? This article reports on a motion capture study in which 34 participants were asked to stand in a neutral position while listening to short excerpts of rhythmic stimuli and electronic dance music. We explore whether personality and empathy measures, as well as different aspects of music-related behaviour and preferences, can predict the amount of spontaneous movement of the participants. Individual differences were measured using a set of questionnaires: Big Five Inventory, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire. Liking ratings for the stimuli were also collected. The regression analyses show that Empathic Concern is a significant predictor of the observed spontaneous movement. We also found a relationship between empathy and the participants’ self-reported tendency to move to music.

scholarly journals Prospect Theory Reflects Selective Allocation of Attention

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten Pachur ◽  
Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Weighting Function ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Psychological Constructs ◽  
Probability Information ◽  
As If

There is a disconnect in the literature between analyses of risky choice based on cumulativeprospect theory (CPT) and work on predecisional information processing. One likely reason is that for expectation models (e.g., CPT) it is often assumed that people only behaved as if they conducted the computations leading to the predicted choice, and that the models are thus mute with regard to information processing. We suggest that key psychological constructs in CPT, such as loss aversion and outcome and probability sensitivity, can be interpreted in terms of attention allocation. In two experiments, we tested hypotheses about specific links between CPT parameters and attentional regularities. Experiment 1 used process tracing to monitor participants’ predecisional attention allocation to outcome and probability information. As hypothesized, individual differences in CPT’s loss-aversion, outcome-sensitivity, and probability-sensitivity parameters (estimated from participants’ choices) were systematically associated with individual differences in attention allocation to outcome and probability information. For instance, loss aversion was associated with the relative attention allocated to loss and gain outcomes, and a more strongly curved weighting function was associated with less attention allocated to probabilities. Experiment 2 manipulated participants’ attention to losses or gains, causing systematic differences in CPT’s loss aversion parameter. This result indicates that attention allocation can to some extent cause choice regularities that are captured by CPT. Our findings demonstrate an “as-if” model’s capacity to reflect characteristics of information processing. We suggest that the observed CPT–attention links can be harnessed to inform the development of process models of risky choice.

scholarly journals In the Eye of the Beholder: Individual Differences in Perceived Social Isolation Predict Regional Brain Activation to Social Stimuli

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Cacioppo ◽  
Catherine J. Norris ◽  
Jean Decety ◽  
George Monteleone ◽  
Howard Nusbaum
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Social Perception ◽  
Ventral Striatum ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
The Right ◽  
Perceived Social Isolation ◽  
Shed Light

Prior research has shown that perceived social isolation (loneliness) motivates people to attend to and connect with others but to do so in a self-protective and paradoxically self-defeating fashion. Although recent research has shed light on the neural correlates of social perception, cooperation, empathy, rejection, and love, little is known about how individual differences in loneliness relate to neural responses to social and emotional stimuli. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that there are at least two neural mechanisms differentiating social perception in lonely and nonlonely young adults. For pleasant depictions, lonely individuals appear to be less rewarded by social stimuli, as evidenced by weaker activation of the ventral striatum to pictures of people than of objects, whereas nonlonely individuals showed stronger activation of the ventral striatum to pictures of people than of objects. For unpleasant depictions, lonely individuals were characterized by greater activation of the visual cortex to pictures of people than of objects, suggesting that their attention is drawn more to the distress of others, whereas nonlonely individuals showed greater activation of the right and left temporo-parietal junction to pictures of people than of objects, consistent with the notion that they are more likely to reflect spontaneously on the perspective of distressed others.

How the Emotional Environment Shapes the Emotional Life of the Child

2021 ◽  
pp. 237273222110672
Author(s):  
Vanessa LoBue ◽  
Marissa Ogren
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Emotion Understanding ◽  
Emotional Behavior ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Emotional Life ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Emotional Environment ◽  
Vocal Expressions ◽  
Infants And Young Children

Emotion understanding facilitates the development of healthy social interactions. To develop emotion knowledge, infants and young children must learn to make inferences about people's dynamically changing facial and vocal expressions in the context of their everyday lives. Given that emotional information varies so widely, the emotional input that children receive might particularly shape their emotion understanding over time. This review explores how variation in children's received emotional input shapes their emotion understanding and their emotional behavior over the course of development. Variation in emotional input from caregivers shapes individual differences in infants’ emotion perception and understanding, as well as older children's emotional behavior. Finally, this work can inform policy and focus interventions designed to help infants and young children with social-emotional development.

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