Luis Moya-Albiol

University of Valencia | UV · Facultad de Psicología

Empathy deficits have been proposed to be an important factor for intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV perpetrators have shown a differential change in salivary oxytocin (sOXT), testosterone (sT), and cortisol (sC), following empathic and stress tasks, compared to non-violent men. However, the influence of empathic deficits in those hormones after...

Purpose Current interventions for intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators are de-signed to reduce IPV recidivism by treating risk factors and increasing protective fac-tors. However, these interventions pay less attention to cognitive functioning in IPV perpetrators and how these variables interfere with the future risk of recidivism. There-fo...

Previous research has pointed out the importance of neuropsychological impairments in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators for reoffending/recidivism once treatment ends. However, less is known about whether substance misuse is associated with impairments or deficits, which facilitate recidivism. In this study, we first aimed to assess whet...

Introduction Scholars have established subcategories of aggressive behavior in order to better understand this construct. Specifically, a classification based on motivational underpinnings makes it possible to differentiate between reactive and proactive aggression. Whereas reactive aggression is characterized by emotional lability, which means it...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to difficulties in socio-affective functions. Nevertheless, the underlying psychobiological mechanisms that might be responsible for them remain unclear. Oxytocin (OXT) stands out as an important hormone that may favor the salience of social information, due to its relevance in empathy and prosocial b...

A topic of interest is the way decoding and interpreting facial emotional expressions can lead to mutual understanding. Facial emotional expression is a basic source of information that guarantees the functioning of other higher cognitive processes (e.g., empathy, cooperativity, prosociali-ty, or decision-making, among others). In this regard, horm...

El libro trata sobre la violencia, desde una visión actual e integradora que incluye las investigaciones actuales sobre cerebro y marcadores neurobiológicos

In the field of psychotherapy, scientific research has highlighted the importance of empathy and therapeutic alliance in regard to the effectiveness and better results of psychological treatments. In recent years, mindfulness‐based interventions (MBIs) have shown to be effective at increasing empathy and therapeutic alliance and how this could affe...

Background: Only a few studies have paid attention to the ability of perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPVAW) against women to cope with acute stress, including hormonal parameters. In fact, previous studies assessed how salivary testosterone (Tsal) and cortisol (Csal) changed after coping with an acute emotional stressor (directly relate...

Objectives: In the field of psychotherapy, verbal creativity has been suggested as an important aspect in psychotherapists' training. In the present study, the effects of a mindfulness and compassion-based intervention (MCBI) on verbal creativity are analysed in students of clinical and health psychology (N = 90). Design: Students were randomly...

The long experience in surrogate pregnancies in Western countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and several states in the USA, has provided insight into how to ensure the PSYCHOLOGICAL WELFARE of the people involved. Generally, in Western countries (UK, Canada and USA), the experience of surrogacy is psychologically positive for the surrogate...

It has been suggested that intimate partner violence (IPV) against women perpetrators present emotional dysregulations when dealing with acute stress, which in turn could help to explain their proneness to violence. Emotional regulation can be objectively measured by means of psychophysiological parameters/variables/indicators of autonomic nervous...

Objective: To our knowledge, no studies have considered whether neuropsychological performance moderates the relationship between Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) perpetrator typologies and treatment compliance and recidivism. Therefore, we first aimed to assess whether the typologies show differences i...

Desde la perspectiva biopsicosocial, la violencia es entendida como el resultado de una compleja interacción entre factores biológicos, psicológicos y sociales. Por ello, la Neurocriminología desempeña un papel crucial tanto en la prevención de la violencia como en el diagnóstico de las causas de un comportamiento violento y en las intervenciones q...

Objectives: Mindfulness and compassion-based interventions (MCBI) have shown to be effective in increasing self-reported empathy in healthcare professionals. However, no studies described a beneficial effect of MCBI on biological variables related to empathy. In this study, we analyze the effects of an MCBI on the basal levels of salivary oxytocin...

Mindfulness‐based interventions (MBI) have been shown to be effective in increasing empathy in health professionals. Yet, more research is needed to analyze the specific influence of mindfulness exercises on biological variables involved in empathy, such as the biological system of oxytocin activity. In this study, we analyze the effects of a brief...

Empirical research has stated that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) might underlie intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) perpetration. Even though there is a clear relationship between these two variables, it is still unknown how ADHD facilitates violence proneness. In this regard, psychophysiological variables such as skin...

The field of neurocriminology has proposed several treatments (e.g. pharmacological, brain surgery, androgen-deprivation therapy, neurofeedback…) to reduce violence proneness, but unfortunately their effectiveness has been limited due to their side-effects. Therefore, it is necessary to explore alternative techniques to improve patients’ behavioura...

There is increasing scientific interest in elucidating the biological mechanisms underlying cooperative behaviors. Humans have developed a high degree of complexity in their cooperativity, which has been defined as hyper-cooperativity. An interesting biological marker to study how two individuals are emotionally linked when they cooperate is their...

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a major public health problem, with an important mortality rate in women across the world. In this regard, it has been well established that drug misuse explains (at least in part) an increased risk of IPVAW perpetration. Even though alcohol is the most widely studied drug underlying IPVAW, other d...

Empirical evidence supports that individuals with alexithymia might be prone to certain types of violence such as intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW). Moreover, considering that alexithymia is directly involved in behavior regulation, problems due to identifying and regulating emotional states might be postulated as responsible, at leas...

Niños más empáticos = niños más felices A pesar de que se ha demostrado que las personas empáticas son más felices y se sienten más plenas, la empatía no parece ser una preocupación central en la educación. Prueba de esto es el aumento del acoso escolar y el cyberbullying, por mencionar dos de las consecuencias asociadas a la falta de empatía. Ento...

La violencia humana ha estado presente en la sociedad desde los albores de la humanidad. Incluso la Biblia, texto clave en el devenir de la cultura occidental, la ubica en el mismo origen de nuestras interacciones biológicas y sociales al entender que una frustración muy intensa-la de Caín-puede motivarla y conducirla. De hecho, la violencia está p...

There is considerable interest in offering insight into the mechanisms that might explain why certain perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) drop out of interventions. Although several socio-demographic variables and attitudes towards IPVAW have been proposed as risk factors for IPVAW perpetrators’ dropout, less attention h...

Recent studies have highlighted the dysregulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity and its end products, cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), in women with a history of IPV victimization. These studies analyzed several coping styles, but they neglected to examine the use of violent strategies to confront IPV and the way...

Men who misuse alcohol tend to experience negative affect, which may entail difficulties in regulating emotions to cope effectively with stressful or anxiety-provoking situations, thus increasing the risk of alcohol relapse. This dysphoric state has been associated with alexithymia, which compromises an individual's abilities to acknowledge, recogn...

Introduction: Extensive research has made it possible to conclude that dysfunctions in serotoninergic transmission are associated with a tendency toward violence and behavioural dysregulations in humans. In this regard, it has been suggested that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as sertraline, which regulate the serotonin syste...

En este artículo, se analiza la importancia de la empatía en el ámbito de la psicoterapia, y la necesidad de fomentar esta habilidad en los psicólogos clínicos y sanitarios. Se exponen las aportaciones fundamentales sobre el estudio de la empatía, y se introduce el concepto de sesgos en la inferencia, una serie de errores que pueden influir de form...

Attitudes about the acceptability of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) contribute to an increased risk of IPVAW perpetration, and these attitudes are common among IPVAW offenders. Research suggests that IPVAW offenders present cognitive deficits related to information processing. Little is known, however, about how these deficits are...

Clinical psychologists are interested in studying factors that interfere with the behavioral regulation of perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW), as well as the way these factors affect the risk of future recidivism after interventions designed for them ends. Although several variables have been proposed as risk factors fo...

En el ámbito de la atención a la salud mental, la empatía es un aspecto especialmente importante, ya que supone la base sobre la que se sostiene el vínculo terapéutico y se articulan las diferentes actuaciones psicológicas, al facilitar un entendimiento de la vida y de las situaciones de los pacientes. En este sentido, las intervenciones basadas en...

Men who misuse alcohol tend to experience negative affect, which may entail difficulties in regulating emotions to effectively cope with stressful or anxiety-provoking situations, increasing the risk of alcohol relapse. This dysphoric state has been associated with alexithymia, which compromises an individual’s abilities to acknowledge, recognize,...

Introduction. There is growing scientific interest in understanding the biological mechanisms affecting and/or underlying violent behaviours in order to develop effective treatment and prevention programs. In recent years, neuroscientific research has tried to demonstrate whether the intrinsic activity within the brain at rest in the absence of any...

Eating disorders (ED) such as anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) have great social, economic, and healthcare relevance. It was recently observed that the typical behavioral alterations of these patients could be explained, at least partly, by certain cognitive deficits. For this reason, neuropsychological evaluations might contribute to...

Proactively aggressive individuals have been shown to present a different pattern of autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysregulation from that of individuals characterized by reactive violence. Although attempts have been made to classify intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators based on ANS reactivity to acute stress, subsequent studies have fail...

It has been stated that Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the likelihood of risky behavior such as intimate partner violence (IPV), but the cognitive mechanisms that facilitate or underlie these types of behavior remain unexplained. In this regard, several authors have established that impulsivity and inattentive symptoms mi...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators commonly exhibit deficits in a wide range of cognitive domains, such as attention, memory, and executive functions. Executive dysfunctions tend to be related to a preference for disadvantageous decisions, which could be explained by a pattern of focusing on positive outcomes (gains) while disregarding ne...

Introduction: Caring for a family member with a long-term illness is a significant source of chronic stress that might significantly accelerate the cognitive ageing of informal caregivers. Nevertheless, the absence of a defined theoretical body of literature on the neuropsychology of this population makes it difficult to understand what the charac...

Introduction: The empathic capacity is a field of research that has been studied from various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, or ethology and recently the field of neuroscience has been added. Thus, there has been an increase in studies using structural and functional neuroimaging, which has allowed to establish the brain structures th...

Objectives Empathy (i.e., the ability to decode emotions, as well as cognitive and emotional empathy) is involved in moral reasoning, prosocial behaviour, social and emotional adequacy, mood and behaviour regulation. Hence, alterations in these functions could reduce behaviour control and the adoption of specific types of violence such as intimate...

It has been stated that Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the likelihood of risky behaviors such as intimate partner violence (IPV), but the cognitive mechanisms that facilitate or underlie these types of behaviors remain unexplained. In this regard, several authors have established that impulsivity and inattentive symptoms...

Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is the most common pediatric cancer. It currently has a high survival rate, but these patients have cognitive sequelae secondary to the disease, mainly due to the medical treatment received to prevent cancer recurrence. Therefore, it is necessary to implement specific cognitive rehabilitation programs fo...

Scarce studies have focused on the cognitive profile of chronic alcoholic men after long-term abstinence. Thus, we examined neuropsychological differences between long-term abstinent alcoholics for an average of 3.2 years (n = 40, LTAA; age = 45.55 ± 8.99) and matched for socio-demographic variables with non-alcoholic controls (n = 39; age = 42.05...

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been consolidated in healthcare settings as a highly useful therapeutic approach. Numerous studies have demonstrated their positive influence on physical and psychological well-being. In contrast, the scientific evidence concerning the potential beneficial effects of mindfulness on biological variables su...

The authors would like to acknowledge an error in the results section of this paper. Figures 1 and 2 are inverted. Figure 1 shows the increase of salivary IgA levels and Figure 2 shows the decrease of salivary cortisol levels.

Introducción. La capacidad empática es un campo de investigación que se ha visto estudiado desde varias disciplinas como la psicología, la filosofía o la etología y, recientemente, la neurociencia. Recientemente, ha habido un incremento de interés en el estudio de la empatía y este ha convergido con el incremento de investigaciones que hacen uso de...

Introducción. De todas las personas expuestas a un evento traumático, solo un pequeño porcentaje de ellas desarrollará un trastorno por estrés postraumático (TEPT). Las neurociencias han sugerido la existencia de cierta predisposición genética que elevaría la vulnerabilidad para desarrollar el trastorno, así como la desregulación de múltiples siste...

Scarce studies have focused on the cognitive profile of chronic alcoholic men after long-term abstinence. Thus, the current study was designed to examine neuropsychological differences between long-term abstinent alcoholics for an average of 3.2 years (n=40, LTAA; age = 45.55+8.99) and matched for socio-demographic variables non-alcoholic controls...

Despite evidence on the cognitive deficits in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators, current psychotherapeutic programs for IPV perpetrators have neglected the role of cognitive impairments in adherence to treatment and the risk of recidivism after intervention. The results presented in this article emphasize the importance of establishing s...

Despite extensive evidence of heterogeneity in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrator profiles, there has been little research into neuropsychological deficits which might help us understand differences within this violent population. Moreover, studies on this topic have not paid much attention to the role of alcohol abuse in neuropsychologica...

Herramientas prácticas que ayudarán al lector a desarrollar su propia empatía y a fomentar la construcción de una sociedad más empática Las personas más empáticas son, con mayor probabilidad, más felices. La empatía nos permite entender mejor a los otros y nos ayuda a alcanzar tanto el éxito personal en las relaciones con la familia y los amigos, c...

Caregivers have to cope repeatedly with acute stressors in their daily lives, and this is associated with disturbances in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and the immune system. Such disturbances could contribute to the development of health problems in informal caregivers of people with chronic illnesses, such as eating disorders (EDs...

Queremos comenzar esta réplica agradeciendo a la dirección de INFOCOP online su interés y solicitud para que escribiésemos un artículo divulgativo sobre la " gestación subrogada " , relacionado con el artículo " Gestación subrogada: aspectos psicosociales " publicado en la revista científica " Psychological Intervention " (Ruiz-Robledillo y Moya-Al...

Caring for offspring diagnosed with eating disorders (EDs) puts caregivers under high levels of chronic stress, which have negative consequences for their health. Unfortunately, caregivers have received little attention from mental health professionals. Chronic stress experienced by informal caregivers has been associated with the alteration of bod...

Humans need social interaction with others for survival. Competition and cooperation are two somewhat opposed interpersonal strategies that help us to achieve both individual and shared aims and objectives. The aim of this research was to study whether autonomic activity is a good indicator of emotional activation in response to social interaction...

As postulated by the stress process model, chronically stressed individuals, such as caregivers of people with chronic psychological disorders, have poorer cognitive performance and higher age-related cognitive decline than individuals not exposed to chronic stress. When analysing this topic in caregivers, the majority of research has been conducte...

Cooperation and competition are two somewhat different strategies for interpersonal social interaction that help us achieve both individual and shared aims and objectives. There is a gap in the literature analyzing the effect of these types of social interactions, especially in cooperation, on autonomous nervous system responses using non-invasive...

A previous study analyzed how being forced to cooperate or compete without contemplates participants’ preferences or skills between strangers in a face-to-face same-gender dyad affects their salivary cortisol (Csal) or stress response to a laboratory task. Moreover, during the tasks participants were not allowed to talk, they should communicate wit...

SUMARIO • La neurocriminología: de la investigación científica a las aplicaciones prácticas • Neuroética y legislación • Neurocriminología positiva: procesos positivos, prevención e intervención RESUMEN La neurocriminología persigue aplicar la metodología y las técnicas de estudio de las neurociencias para comprender, predecir, tratar e incluso pre...

Este artículo revisa las principales aportaciones teóricas e investigaciones sobre la empatía y su relación con el mindfulness, con la finalidad de contribuir al estudio del desarrollo humano saludable. La empatía es un elemento esencial en las relaciones interpersonales. Se trata de un constructo que ha ido evolucionando a nivel teórico y del que...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has often been linked to alcohol consumption. Alcohol abuse affects cognitive processing through its effects on the prefrontal cortex, generating influence in mental rigidity (MR). This study analyzes the influence of MR as a predisposing factor to violence. The sample consisted of 136 men with a history of IPV. Part...

Competition and cooperation are two somewhat opposed strategies for interpersonal social interaction that help us to achieve both individual and shared goals. The main aim of this study was to explore which type of social interaction (cooperative or competitive) is more stressful in a face-to-face same-sex dyad in healthy young participants (n=178)...

Background: Negative affect (NA) and chronic stress are separately associated with health imbalances, and the interaction between the two aspects remains unclear. Care of relatives with long-term pathologies could be a likely model in the study of this issue, as caregivers frequently report chronic stress and health complaints. The aim of this stu...

Differences in aggressive behavior could be partially explained by differential prenatal exposure to testosterone (T). A peripheral marker of prenatal T exposure is the 2D:4D ratio, which has shown a negative correlation with self-reported aggression in violent men. This study tested the direct association of the 2D:4D ratio with anger expression a...

Caring for an offspring with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been related to high stress levels and health disturbances. However, a protective effect against these negative health outcomes has been described in high-resilient caregivers. In this context, the main aim of the present study was to assess the association between resilient coping...

Caring for an offspring diagnosed with a psychological chronic disorder is used in research as a model of chronic stress. Indeed, it is usually associated with disturbances in the salivary cortisol (Csal) levels of the caregiver. An imbalance between salivary testosterone (Tsal) and Csal levels is a marker of proneness to social aggression. Given t...

Several studies have reported impairments in decoding emotional facial expressions in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators. However, the mechanisms that underlie these impaired skills are not well known. Given this gap in the literature, we aimed to establish whether IPV perpetrators (n = 18) differ in their emotion decoding process, attent...

Seeking to prevent antisocial behavior, the study of the biological basis of empathy has gained certain relevance in recent years. Some studies have pointed out the involvement of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and cortisol in empathy, but few have studied the relationship between the first and Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR), as a...

Caring for offspring diagnosed with eating disorders (EDs) entails being under high chronic stress, with negative consequences for health. However, most previous research has only evaluated self-report measures of health, biological markers being poorly studied. In this regard, the evaluation of the cortisol awakening response (CAR) could add signi...

Caring for an offspring with an eating disorder (ED) is associated with high levels of distress, and health problems. Indeed, ED caregivers have to cope with a range of challenges related to their caring role, which represents a chronic stress situation. This tends to alter body homeostasis and caregivers’ health status. This study aimed to analyse...

Innovation in assisted reproductive technologies together with increased infertility and new family structures are increasing the use of gestational surrogacy as a means to have children. Before, during and after the process, it is necessary to study the psychosocial characteristics of triad members: the gestational surrogate, intended parents, and...

The extant evidence suggests a robust positive association between expression (anger expression-out) and suppression (anger expression-in) of anger and compromised health. Nevertheless, the underlying psychobiological mechanisms which explain these relationships are not well understood. This study examined whether anger expression would predict gen...

La empatía sigue siendo una capacidad humana por explorar, de la que aprender y, por supuesto, la que potenciar, ya que sus beneficios son innumerables y se extienden a todos los ámbitos de la vida. Es fundamental en la esfera privada, pero no es menos relevante en el mundo laboral, en las empresas y organizaciones. Podríamos incluso decir que una...