title: Subjective experience of emotions and emotional empathy in paranoid schizophrenia.
abstract: Unlike the cognitive dimensions, alterations of the affective components of empathy in schizophrenia are less well understood. This study explored cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy in the context of the subjective experience of aspects of emotion processing, including emotion regulation, emotional contagion, and interpersonal distress, in individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls. In addition, the predictive value of these parameters on psychosocial function was investigated. Fifty-five patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 55 healthy controls were investigated using the Multifaceted Empathy Test and Interpersonal Reactivity Index, as well as the Subjective Experience of Emotions and Emotional Contagion Scales. Individuals with schizophrenia showed impairments of cognitive empathy, but maintained emotional empathy. They reported significantly more negative emotional contagion, overwhelming emotions, lack of emotions, and symbolization of emotions by imagination, but less self-control of emotional expression than healthy persons. Besides cognitive empathy, the experience of a higher extent of overwhelming emotions and of less interpersonal distress predicted psychosocial function in patients. People with schizophrenia and healthy controls showed diverging patterns of how cognitive and emotional empathy related to the subjective aspects of emotion processing. It can be assumed that variables of emotion processing are important moderators of empathic abilities in schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Campus Mitte, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Anja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lehmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Campus Mitte, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bahçesular
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Campus Mitte, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Eva-Maria
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Brockmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Campus Mitte, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Sarah-Elisabeth
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Biederbick
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Affective Neuroscience and Psychology of Emotions, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dziobek
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Campus Mitte, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gallinat
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Campus Mitte, 10117 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: christiane.montag@charite.de.
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Montag
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012563:Schizophrenia, Paranoid / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D012649:Self Concept
keywords: Emotion processing; Emotion regulation; Emotional contagion; Multifaceted Empathy Test; Psychosocial function; Social cognition; Subjective Experience of Emotions Scale