Dispositional Perspective-Taking and Empathic Concern Modulate the Impact of Cognitive Load on Empathy for Facial Emotions

Bajouk, Omar; Hansenne, Michel

doi:10.1177/0033294118799337

Article (Scientific journals)

Dispositional Perspective-Taking and Empathic Concern Modulate the Impact of Cognitive Load on Empathy for Facial Emotions

Bajouk, Omar; Hansenne, Michel

2019 • In Psychological Reports

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

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https://hdl.handle.net/2268/227820

DOI
10.1177/0033294118799337

PubMed
30211661

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Keywords :

Empathy; Cognitive load; Empathic concern; Perspective-taking

Abstract :

[en] Meeting other people involves the importance to share their experiences and to understand their perspectives or, more simply, to empathize with them. Empathy research distinguishes two main dimensions of empathy, the affective sharing and the cognitive understanding. In the present study, we focus on the impact of cognitive load on empathy to pain, fear, happiness, and neutral facial emotions. Participants had to judge the intensity of the emotion when looking at facial expressions (empathize group), or with an additional eight-digit memory task (cognitive load group). While we assumed that cognitive load would reduce empathy, inconsistently with previous findings, our results did not show any significant effect of group. Interestingly, regression analyses showed that perspective-taking and empathic concern were positively related to pain, fear, and happiness ratings within the cognitive load group. These results reveal that when judging empathy under high cognitive load, dispositional empathic concern and perspective-taking could allow individuals to override the supposed deleterious cognitive load effect on empathy.

Research center :

PsyNCog - Psychologie et Neuroscience Cognitives - ULiège

Disciplines :

Neurosciences & behavior

Author, co-author :

Bajouk, Omar ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Psychologie > PsyNCog Research Unit,

Hansenne, Michel ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie > Psycho. de la personnalité et des différences individuelles

Language :

English

Title :

Dispositional Perspective-Taking and Empathic Concern Modulate the Impact of Cognitive Load on Empathy for Facial Emotions

Publication date :

2019

Journal title :

Psychological Reports

ISSN :

0033-2941

eISSN :

1558-691X

Publisher :

SAGE Publishing

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0033294118799337

Available on ORBi :

since 16 September 2018

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