Empathy for positive and negative emotions in social anxiety disorder.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with elevated negative and diminished positive affective experience. However, little is known about the way in which individuals with SAD perceive and respond emotionally to the naturally-unfolding negative and positive emotions of others, that is, cognitive empathy and affective empathy, respectively. In the present study, participants with generalized SAD (n = 32) and demographically-matched healthy controls (HCs; n = 32) completed a behavioral empathy task. Cognitive empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous ratings of targets' emotions, whereas affective empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous self-ratings of emotion. Individuals with SAD differed from HCs only in positive affective empathy: they were less able to vicariously share others' positive emotions. Mediation analyses revealed that poor emotional clarity and negative interpersonal perceptions among those with SAD might account for this finding. Future research using experimental methodology is needed to examine whether this finding represents an inability or unwillingness to share positive affect.
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Jordan Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Electronic address: asmorrison@stanford.edu.
Amanda S
AS
Morrison
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Jordan Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Maria A
MA
Mateen
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Jordan Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Faith A
FA
Brozovich
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Jordan Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Jamil
J
Zaki
Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, University of California, Davis Health System, Education Building, 4610 X Street, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA.
Philippe R
PR
Goldin
Department of Psychology, Temple University, Weiss Hall 420, 1701 North 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA.
Richard G
RG
Heimberg
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Jordan Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
James J
JJ
Gross
D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D000072861:Phobia, Social / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
Affect sharing; Empathy; Mentalizing; Social anxiety disorder