Empathy for others versus for one's child: Associations with mothers' brain activation during a social cognitive task and with their toddlers' functioning

Caregivers who are higher in dispositional empathy tend to have children with better developmental outcomes; however, few studies have considered the role of child-directed (i.e., “parental”) empathy, which may be relevant for the caregiver–child relationship. We hypothesized that mothers’ parental empathy during their child’s infancy will be a stronger predictor of their child’s social-emotional functioning as a toddler than will mothers’ dispositional empathy. We further explored whether parental and dispositional empathy have shared or distinct patterns of neural activation during a social-cognitive movie-watching task. In 118 mother–infant dyads, greater parental empathy assessed when infants were 6 months old was associated with more social-emotional competencies and fewer problems in the children one year later, even after adjusting for dispositional empathy. In contrast, dispositional empathy was not associated with child functioning when controlling for parental empathy. In a subset of 20 mothers, insula activation was positively associated with specific facets of both dispositional and parental empathy, whereas right temporoparietal junction activation was associated only with parental empathy. Thus, dispositional and parental empathy appear to be dissociable by both brain and behavioral metrics. Parental empathy may be a viable target for interventions, especially for toddlers at risk for developing social-emotional difficulties.

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Parental Empathy, Aggressive Parenting, and Child Adjustment in a Noncustodial High-Risk Sample

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/0886260519870165 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 088626051987016

Author(s):

Shuang Bi ◽

Peggy S. Keller

Keyword(s):

Physical Aggression ◽

Psychological Control ◽

Child Adjustment ◽

Externalizing Symptoms ◽

Parent Child Relationship ◽

Parental Psychological Control ◽

Child Relationship ◽

Parental Empathy ◽

Dispositional Empathy ◽

Parent Child

This study examined the relations between parental empathy, parenting physical aggression, parental psychological control, and child adjustment in a sample of parents who had their children removed from their custody because of child abuse or neglect. Twenty parents between 24 and 40 years of age ( M = 31.15, SD = 4.85; 85% female) with a child aged between 1.5 and 16 years ( M = 6.5, SD = 3.88; 70% boys) participated in the study. Our sample was comprised of relatively racially diverse and low-income parents, with 40% from racial minority groups and 70% below the poverty line. Parents were recruited from a local nonprofit organization providing court-mandated parenting classes. Parents reported on their dispositional empathy, physical aggression toward children, psychological control and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms in an interview format. Parents also reported on empathy for their children through a semistructured interview; their empathy was later coded by trained research assistants. Bivariate correlation analyses revealed that parental empathy in the parent–child relationship negatively correlated with parental psychological control. Greater parental psychological control significantly correlated with greater approval of corporal punishment. Moreover, in the subsample of older children (6 years old and above), greater parental dispositional empathy was associated with greater child externalizing symptoms. Further exploratory analyses showed that associations between parental empathy, psychological control, and spanking attitudes differed across parents of boys and of girls. This study highlights the importance of examining empathy specific to the parent–child relationship in addition to dispositional empathy to predict parenting aggression. More importantly, studies should focus on a more covert form of parenting aggression, parental psychological control, in addition to physical aggression.

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A multilevel analysis of the influence of bullying participant roles upon the trajectories of adolescents’ social and emotional competencies

School Psychology International ◽

10.1177/0143034321988972 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 014303432198897

Author(s):

Vítor Alexandre Coelho ◽

Marta Marchante

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Self Control ◽

Social Emotional ◽

Emotional Competencies ◽

Social And Emotional ◽

Self Reports ◽

One Year ◽

Competencies Development ◽

Bullying Participant Roles ◽

Social And Emotional Competencies

This study analyzed how social and emotional competencies evolved according to adolescents’ involvement in bullying, and whether gender influenced social and emotional competencies’ development. Five-hundred-fourteen students ( Mage = 12.71; SD = 1.09) were assessed through self-reports at three different time points for one year. Results showed that students involved in the three analyzed bullying roles displayed a more negative trajectory in all but one social emotional competence analyzed compared to students not involved in bullying. The exception was students who bullied others for responsible decision making. Additionally, gender differences were only found in self-esteem trajectories; boys displayed a more pronounced decrease. In larger classes, students displayed higher levels of self-control, social awareness and responsible decision-making. These results showed that reduced social and emotional competencies were a consequence of bullying involvement for every bullying role analyzed.

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Do Empathic Individuals Behave More Prosocially? Neural Correlates for Altruistic Behavior in the Dictator Game and the Dark Side of Empathy

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11070863 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 863

Author(s):

Michael Schaefer ◽

Anja Kühnel ◽

Franziska Rumpel ◽

Matti Gärtner

Keyword(s):

Dictator Game ◽

Empathic Concern ◽

Dark Side ◽

Altruistic Behavior ◽

Temporoparietal Junction ◽

Specific Effects ◽

Significant Relationships ◽

Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽

Neural Underpinnings ◽

The Right

Do empathic individuals behave more prosocially? When we think of highly empathic individuals, we tend to assume that it is likely that those people will also help others. Most theories on empathy reflect this common understanding and claim that the personality trait empathy includes the willingness to help others, but it remains a matter of debate whether empathic individuals really help more. In economics, a prominent demonstration that our behavior is not always based on pure self-interest is the Dictator Game, which measures prosocial decisions in an allocation task. This economic game shows that we are willing to give money to strangers we do not know anything about. The present study aimed to test the relationship between dispositional empathy and prosocial acting by examining the neural underpinnings of prosocial behavior in the Dictator Game. Forty-one participants played different rounds of the Dictator Game while being scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Brain activation in the right temporoparietal junction area was associated with prosocial acting (number of prosocial decisions) and associated with empathic concern. Behavioral results demonstrated that empathic concern and personal distress predicted the number of prosocial decisions, but in a negative way. Correlations with the amount of money spent did not show any significant relationships. We discuss the results in terms of group-specific effects of affective empathy. Our results shed further light on the complex behavioral and neural mechanisms driving altruistic choices.

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Frequency of Recent Binge Drinking Is Associated With Sex-Specific Cognitive Deficits: Evidence for Condition-Dependent Trait Expression in Humans

Evolutionary Psychology ◽

10.1177/1474704920954445 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. 147470492095444

Author(s):

Liana S. E. Hone ◽

John E. Scofield ◽

Bruce D. Bartholow ◽

David C. Geary

Keyword(s):

Binge Drinking ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Multilevel Models ◽

Cognitive Task ◽

A Priori ◽

Visuospatial Abilities ◽

The Social ◽

Binge Drinkers ◽

Visuospatial Tasks

Evolutionary theory suggests that commonly found sex differences are largest in healthy populations and smaller in populations that have been exposed to stressors. We tested this idea in the context of men’s typical advantage (vs. women) in visuospatial abilities (e.g., mental rotation) and women’s typical advantage (vs. men) in social-cognitive (e.g., facial-expression decoding) abilities, as related to frequent binge drinking. Four hundred nineteen undergraduates classified as frequent or infrequent binge drinkers were assessed in these domains. Trial-level multilevel models were used to test a priori Sex × Group (binge drinking) interactions for visuospatial and social-cognitive tasks. Among infrequent binge drinkers, men’s typical advantage in visuospatial abilities and women’s typical advantage in social-cognitive abilities was confirmed. Among frequent binge drinkers, men’s advantage was reduced for one visuospatial task (Δ d = 0.29) and eliminated for another (Δ d = 0.75), and women’s advantage on the social-cognitive task was eliminated (Δ d = 0.12). Males who frequently engaged in extreme binges had exaggerated deficits on one of the visuospatial tasks, as did their female counterparts on the social-cognitive task. The results suggest sex-specific vulnerabilities associated with recent, frequent binge drinking, and support an evolutionary approach to the study of these vulnerabilities.

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Resting-state Functional Connectivity of the Right Temporoparietal Junction Relates to Belief Updating and Reorienting during Spatial Attention

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01543 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 32 (6) ◽

pp. 1130-1141

Author(s):

Anne-Sophie Käsbauer ◽

Paola Mengotti ◽

Gereon R. Fink ◽

Simone Vossel

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Resting State ◽

Prior Information ◽

Dependent Manner ◽

Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽

Belief Updating ◽

Temporoparietal Junction ◽

Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽

The Right

Although multiple studies characterized the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ), little is known about the link between rTPJ rsFC and cognitive functions. Given a putative involvement of rTPJ in both reorienting of attention and the updating of probabilistic beliefs, this study characterized the relationship between rsFC of rTPJ with dorsal and ventral attention systems and these two cognitive processes. Twenty-three healthy young participants performed a modified location-cueing paradigm with true and false prior information about the percentage of cue validity to assess belief updating and attentional reorienting. Resting-state fMRI was recorded before and after the task. Seed-based correlation analysis was employed, and correlations of each behavioral parameter with rsFC before the task, as well as with changes in rsFC after the task, were assessed in an ROI-based approach. Weaker rsFC between rTPJ and right intraparietal sulcus before the task was associated with relatively faster updating of the belief that the cue will be valid after false prior information. Moreover, relatively faster belief updating, as well as faster reorienting, were related to an increase in the interhemispheric rsFC between rTPJ and left TPJ after the task. These findings are in line with task-based connectivity studies on related attentional functions and extend results from stroke patients demonstrating the importance of interhemispheric parietal interactions for behavioral performance. The present results not only highlight the essential role of parietal rsFC for attentional functions but also suggest that cognitive processing during a task changes connectivity patterns in a performance-dependent manner.

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An exploratory study of the ways in which mothers keep their infants occupied

Curationis ◽

10.4102/curationis.v15i1.351 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

Author(s):

A. Botha ◽

G. Cleaver

Keyword(s):

Intellectual Development ◽

First Year ◽

Development Research ◽

Social Emotional ◽

Cultural Backgrounds ◽

Infant Research ◽

Child Relationship ◽

The Social ◽

Mother And Child ◽

Mother Child Relationship

The mother child relationship can help or hinder the social, emotional and intellectual development of the infant. Research has shown that the interaction between mother and child can affect the child’s cognitive development. Research has shown that mothers from the lower socio-economic groups do not stimulate their babies optimally and that this may affect the children negatively. In this study 86 underprivileged mothers from two different cultural backgrounds were asked to describe the ways in which they kept their infants occupied during the first year of their infants’ lives. The differences between the two groups are discussed and recommendations are made.

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A Fundamental Distinction in Early Neural Processing of Implicit Social Interpretation in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

10.1101/2021.03.08.21253057 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nuno Gonçalo Gomes Fernandes Madeira ◽

Ricardo Filipe Alves Martins ◽

João Valente Duarte ◽

Gabriel Nascimento Ferreira Costa ◽

António João Ferreira Macedo Santos ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bipolar Disorder ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Opposite Pattern ◽

Activation Patterns ◽

Temporoparietal Junction ◽

Distinctive Features ◽

The Right

ABSTRACTBackgroundSocial cognition impairment is a key phenomenon in serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BPD). Although genetic and neurobiological studies have suggested common neural correlates, here we hypothesized that a fundamental dissociation of social processing occurs at an early level in these conditions.MethodsBased on the hypothesis that key structures in the social brain, namely the temporoparietal junction, should present distinctive features in SCZ and BPD during low-level social judgment, we conducted a case-control study in SCZ (n=20) and BPD (n=20) patients and controls (n=20), using task-based fMRI during a Theory-of-Mind (ToM) visual paradigm leading to interpretation of social meaning based on simple geometric figures.ResultsWe found opposite neural responses in two core ToM regions : SCZ patients showed social content-related deactivation (relative to controls and BPD) of the right supramarginal gyrus, a region which activity is required to overcome egocentric “overmentalizing”, while the opposite pattern was found in BPD; reverse patterns, relative to controls and SCZ, were found in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus, a region involved in inferring other’s intentions. Receiver-operating-characteristic curve analysis showed 88% accuracy in discriminating the two clinical groups based on these neural responses.ConclusionsThese contrasting activation patterns of the temporoparietal junction in SCZ and BPD represent mechanistic differences of social cognitive dysfunction that may be explored as biomarkers or therapeutic targets.

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The Magic of Music for Improving Psychological Health for Those With Dementia and Their Caregivers

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3035 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 830-830

Author(s):

Stuart MacDonald ◽

Debra Sheets ◽

Andre Smith

Keyword(s):

Psychological Health ◽

Repeated Measures ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Cognitive Intervention ◽

Pharmacological Intervention ◽

Neural Activation ◽

Psychological Function ◽

Post Intervention ◽

Repeated Measures Design ◽

The Impact

Abstract Arts-based interventions for person’s with dementia and their caregivers represent an inexpensive, non-invasive, and non-pharmacological intervention with the potential to improve psychological function as well as reduce healthcare costs. The paper presents an overview of Voices in Motion (ViM), and the impact of this social-cognitive intervention on changes in psychological function for those with dementia and their caregivers (current n=26 dyads). Choir rehearsals were held on a weekly basis, and included a social discussion component. A range of outcomes (neuropsychological and physiological function, neural activation) were assessed using an intensive repeated measures design that facilitates both between- and within-person analyses, including nuanced evaluation of whether psychological function improves post intervention relative to an individual’s personal average, yielding a conservative within-person test of the benefits of intervention. Discussion focuses on the promise of such interventions for mitigating dementia symptoms and facilitating the psychological health of caregivers.

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