title: Does cortisol modulate emotion recognition and empathy?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Emotion recognition and empathy are important aspects in the interaction and understanding of other people's behaviors and feelings. The Human environment comprises of stressful situations that impact social interactions on a daily basis. Aim of the study was to examine the effects of the stress hormone cortisol on emotion recognition and empathy.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this placebo-controlled study, 40 healthy men and 40 healthy women (mean age 24.5 years) received either 10mg of hydrocortisone or placebo. We used the Multifaceted Empathy Test to measure emotional and cognitive empathy. Furthermore, we examined emotion recognition from facial expressions, which contained two emotions (anger and sadness) and two emotion intensities (40% and 80%).
  
  
  RESULTS
  We did not find a main effect for treatment or sex on either empathy or emotion recognition but a sex × emotion interaction on emotion recognition. The main result was a four-way-interaction on emotion recognition including treatment, sex, emotion and task difficulty. At 40% task difficulty, women recognized angry faces better than men in the placebo condition. Furthermore, in the placebo condition, men recognized sadness better than anger. At 80% task difficulty, men and women performed equally well in recognizing sad faces but men performed worse compared to women with regard to angry faces.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Apparently, our results did not support the hypothesis that increases in cortisol concentration alone influence empathy and emotion recognition in healthy young individuals. However, sex and task difficulty appear to be important variables in emotion recognition from facial expressions.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: moritz.duesenberg@charite.de.
authors: Moritz
authors: M
authors: Duesenberg
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors: Juliane
authors: J
authors: Weber
authors: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
authors: Lars
authors: L
authors: Schulze
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors: Carmen
authors: C
authors: Schaeuffele
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors: Stefan
authors: S
authors: Roepke
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors: Julian
authors: J
authors: Hellmann-Regen
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors: Christian
authors: C
authors: Otte
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors: Katja
authors: K
authors: Wingenfeld
mesh_terms: D000284:Administration, Oral; D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy / Q000187:drug effects*; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000187:drug effects*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000097:blood / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone
keywords: Cortisol; Empathy; Facial emotion recognition; Stress hormones