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Affective and Physiological Responses to the Suffering of Others: Compassion and Vagal Activity
Abstract
Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4 studies, participants witnessed others suffer while we recorded physiological measures, including heart rate, respiration, skin conductance, and a measure of vagal activity called respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Participants exhibited greater RSA during the compassion induction compared with a neutral control (Study 1), another positive emotion (Study 2), and a prosocial emotion lacking appraisals of another person's suffering (Study 3). Greater RSA during the experience of compassion compared with the neutral or control emotion was often accompanied by lower heart rate and respiration but no difference in skin conductance. In Study 4, increases in RSA during compassion positively predicted an established composite of compassion-related words, continuous self-reports of compassion, and nonverbal displays of compassion. Compassion, a core affective component of empathy and prosociality, is associated with heightened parasympathetic activity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
... Many pieces of previous evidence suggest that compassion may predict alterations in stress levels. Specifically, compassionate states and dispositional compassion are related to various biomarkers for stress reactivity (Cosley et al., 2010;Stellar et al., 2015). High compassion may also promote psychological well-being and protect against the development of hypertension (Saarinen et al., 2020) that is closely related to physiological stress. ...
... The non-intervention studies investigating the association between compassion and stress have been cross-sectional (e.g. Cosley et al., 2010;Stellar et al., 2015). Even though cross-sectional studies provide possibilities to investigate the state-level correlations between compassion and stress, prospective follow-ups are vital for investigating the stability of the association between compassion and dimensions of stress across different ages and developmental transitions. ...
... This is also in accordance with the "Tend and Befriend" theory (Taylor, 2011). In line with this proposed mechanism, high compassion is related to lower cortisol reactivity, lower heart rate, higher heart rate variability, and a lower risk for hypertension in individuals at familial risk for hypertension (Cosley et al., 2010;Saarinen et al., 2020;Stellar et al., 2015). Hence, compassion may protect against physiological disturbations in the cardiac and neuroendocrinological stress-regulation systems. ...
We investigated (i) the predictive relationships of compassion with negative emotionality (a marker of susceptibility to stress) and vital exhaustion (a marker of chronic stress response) and (ii) the effect of compassion on the developmental courses of negative emotionality and vital exhaustion over a follow-up from early adulthood to middle age. We used the prospective Young Finns data (n = 1031–1495, aged 20–50). Compassion was evaluated in 1997, 2001, and 2012; and vital exhaustion and negative emotionality in 2001, 2007, and 2012. The predictive paths from compassion to vital exhaustion and negative emotionality were stronger than vice versa: high compassion predicted lower vital exhaustion and lower negative emotionality. The effect of high compassion on lower vital exhaustion and lower negative emotionality was evident from early adulthood to middle age. Overall, high compassion appears to protect against dimensions of stress from early adulthood to middle age, whereas this study found no evidence that dimensions of stress could reduce disposition to feel compassion for others’ distress over a long-term follow-up.
... These differences in integration abilities may render individuals with higher HRV more sensitive to the aversiveness of others' harm than individuals with lower HRV. Individuals with higher HRV are, in fact, more responsive to others' needs and more concerned with others' welfare than individuals with lower HRV (Kogan et al., 2014;Stellar et al., 2015;Lischke et al., 2018a), presumably because individuals with higher HRV are more empathetic and less alexithymic than individuals with lower HRV (Lischke et al., 2017, Lischke et al., 2018b. Due to these differences in aversiveness sensitivity, individuals with higher HRV may be more inclined to follow moral rules than individuals with lower HRV. ...
... HRV was assessed with a resting state measure of high-frequency HRV (HF-HRV). HF-HRV measures the integration of neurophysiological processes that are associated with an empathic reaction to others' harm (Kogan et al., 2014;Stellar et al., 2015;Lischke et al., 2018b), implying that this may also be the case during violations of moral rules that are concerned with others' welfare. Moral rule adherence was assessed with a self-report measure that differentiated between moral idealism and moral relativism (Forsyth, 1980). ...
... The spectral analysis was used to determine the HRV measure of interest: HF-HRV (0.15-0.4 Hz). HF-HRV was the HRV measure of interest because HF-HRV tracks the integration of neurophysiological processes that are associated with an empathic reaction to others' harm (Kogan et al., 2014;Stellar et al., 2015;Lischke et al., 2018b), indicating that HF-HRV reflects aversive reactions to violations of others' welfare (see Supplementary Material 1). The time domain analysis was used for the determination of a HRV measure that tracks similar processes as HF-HRV (Shaffer and Ginsberg, 2017): the root mean square of successive differences between consecutive heart beats (RMSSD). ...
Moral rules are a cornerstone of many societies. Most moral rules are concerned with the welfare of other individuals, reflecting individuals’ innate aversion against harming other individuals. Harming others is associated with aversive experiences, implying that individuals who are sensitive to the aversiveness of these experiences are more likely to follow moral rules than individuals who are insensitive to the aversiveness of these experiences. Individuals’ sensitivity for aversive experiences depends on individuals’ ability to integrate the underlying neural and physiological processes: Individuals who are more efficient in integrating these processes are more sensitive to the aversiveness that is associated with moral rule violations than individuals who are less efficient in integrating these processes. Individuals who differ in their ability to integrate these processes may, thus, also differ in their inclination to follow moral rules. We tested this assumption in a sample of healthy individuals (67 males) who completed measures of moral rule adherence and integration abilities. Moral rule adherence was assessed with self-report measure and integration abilities were assessed with a resting state measure of heart rate variability (HRV), which reflects prefrontal–(para-)limbic engagement during the integration of physical and neural processes. We found a positive association between individuals’ HRV and individuals’ moral rule adherence, implying that individuals with efficient integration abilities were more inclined to follow moral rules than individuals with inefficient integration abilities. Our findings support the assumption that individuals with different integration abilities also differ in moral rule adherence, presumably because of differences in aversiveness sensitivity.
... An increase in pupil diameter was associated with a higher score on the empathic concern subscale of the IRI during the presentation of painful compared to pleasant facial expressions [34]. In a series of four studies, links between parasympathetic activity and compassion has been shown [37], namely the feeling of sorrow or concern for the suffering of another person paired with the desire to remove suffering from others [8]. Indeed, participants presented greater HF during a task inducing compassion compared to a neutral condition and a positive emotion condition. ...
... HR and respiration rate were usually lower during compassion without any change in the EDR. The authors suggested that compassion is related with an increase of parasympathetic activity [37]. Lastly, Buffone and colleagues [38] examined how different perspectives, i.e., imaging oneself in the situation of a suffering person or merely thinking about the other's feelings, affected cardiovascular responses, including the HR. ...
... Participants were thus likely engaged their parasympathetic system in order to adequately down-regulate their emotions and engage themselves in an adapted empathic response. These results are also in line with Stellar and colleagues' [37] study suggesting that compassion is related with an increase of parasympathetic activity and with Lischke and colleagues' [32] study showing that higher dispositional empathy is related with higher HF (parasympathetically mediated). ...
Although emotion regulation has been proposed to be crucial for empathy, investigations on emotion regulation have been primarily limited to intrapersonal processes, leaving the interpersonal processes of self-regulation rather unexplored. Moreover, studies showed that emotion regulation and empathy are related with increased autonomic activation. How emotion regulation and empathy are related at the autonomic level, and more specifically during differently valenced social situations remains an open question. Healthy adults viewed a series of short videos illustrating a target who was expressing positive, negative, or no emotions during a social situation (Positive, Negative, or Neutral Social Scenes). Prior to each video, participants were instructed to reappraise their own emotions (Up-regulation, Down-regulation, or No-regulation). To assess autonomic activation, RR intervals (RRI), high frequency (HF) components of heart rate variability (HRV), and electrodermal activity phasic responses (EDRs) were calculated. Situational empathy was measured through a visual analogue scale. Participants rated how empathic they felt for a specific target. Up- and Down-regulation were related to an increase and a decrease in situational empathy and an increase in RRI and HF, respectively, compared to the control condition (No-regulation). This suggests increased activity of the parasympathetic branch during emotion regulation of situational empathic responses. Positive compared to Negative Social Scenes were associated with decreased situational empathy, in addition to a slightly but non-significantly increased HF. Altogether, this study demonstrates that emotion regulation may be associated with changes in situational empathy and autonomic responses, preferentially dominated by the parasympathetic branch and possibly reflecting an increase of regulatory processes. Furthermore, the current study provides evidence that empathy for different emotional valences is associated with distinct changes in situational empathy and autonomic responses.
... In contrast to affective empathy, compassion does not involve the sharing of others' negative experiences. Instead, it is characterized by feelings of concern (Klimecki et al., 2012;Kok & Fredrickson, 2010;Kok & Singer, 2017) and regulated autonomic responses, such as heart rate deceleration (Eisenberg et al., 1988(Eisenberg et al., , 1989 and activation of parasympathetic regulatory processes (Borelli et al., 2019;Stellar et al., 2015;Stellar & Keltner, 2017). Compassion is believed to be grounded in the motivation to help others in need (Singer & Klimecki, 2014;. ...
... We, therefore, expected to find significant synchrony at the subjective, experiential level, that is, between the target's distress fluctuations and participants' dynamic ratings of care. On the other hand, compassion, which is characterized by warm tender feelings (Gilbert, 2015;Goetz et al., 2010;Singer & Klimecki, 2014), as well as a regulated autonomic physiology (Eisenberg et al., 1989;Stellar et al., 2015), does not entail emotional and physiological similarity with targets. We, therefore, expected to find attenuated levels of autonomic synchrony with distress in the compassion as compared to affective empathy condition. ...
... Although not hypothesized here, this pattern is consistent with previous results in the empathy literature. Specifically, cardiac deceleration is considered to be a hallmark of empathic experience (Eisenberg et al., 1989;Stellar et al., 2015). Notably, lowering of the heart rate is thought to be driven by an activation of the parasympathetically driven vagal regulatory system (Carter et al., 2017;Stellar & Keltner, 2017) linked with emotion regulation and positive social engagement (Porges, 2007;Thayer & Lane, 2000). ...
Sensitivity to suffering of others is a core factor in social cohesion and evolutionary success. The emergence of such sensitivity may occur via two neuro-functional mechanisms. One is sharing the pain and distress of others, which relies on affective empathy. The other involves a caring concern for others' wellbeing, termed compassion. Both affective empathy and compassion are triggered by cues of pain and distress, exhibited by suffering targets. Yet, the mechanisms underlying distress processing in empathy and compassion are not clear. In the current research, we investigated synchrony with a target's distress, as a putative mechanism for continuous processing of distress cues. Participants viewed a video of a target in distress when given two different instructions: they were asked to continuously rate their distress in the affective empathy condition, or their feelings of care in the compassion condition. We used these dynamic ratings as well as participants' autonomic and facial responses to assess multi-channel synchrony with the target's self-rated distress fluctuations. Dynamic ratings and facial corrugator responses were significantly positively synchronized with the target's distress. For the corrugator responses, synchrony with the target was more pronounced than synchrony with participants' own ratings. Autonomic responses exhibited negative synchrony with the target's distress. Synchrony was higher in the affective empathy than in the compassion condition, across channels. These results point to the key role of subjective and physiological synchrony with the target's distress in empathic sharing of negative experiences. They also highlight the attenuation of embodied resonance with distress in compassionate experiences.
... Considering that prosocial behaviour facilitates social connection and engagement with others (cf. Stellar et al., 2015), it is likely that empathy is associated with physiological activity in the empathising person that has been associated with the preparation of socially engaging behaviours, namely phasic vagal activity implied by parasympathetic mechanisms that are indexed by high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV; Grossman & Taylor, 2007;Hayano & Yuda, 2019). Accordingly, the present research examines cardiovascular reactivity indicated by individual's HF-HRV in response to either being instructed to empathise with a person in need or to remain neutral (cf. ...
... Batson et al., 2007;Nook et al., 2016). Hence, empathy represents an emotional foundation of behaviours aiming at enhancing other's welfare, thus facilitating social engagement (Stellar et al., 2015). ...
... Accordingly, inducing empathy in individuals confronted with other's neediness should be associated with increases in HF-HRV since both play a role in social engagement. Prior research supports this notion, as recent findings indicate that the experience of compassion is associated with increased HF-HRV (Stellar et al., 2015), and interindividual differences in HF-HRV at rest are associated with interindividual differences in empathy (Lischke et al., 2018). Likewise, individuals' ability to voluntarily upregulate their phasic HF-HRV predicts their inclination for prosocial behaviour (Bornemann et al., 2016). ...
Empathy represents an emotional trigger of prosocial emotions and social engagement behavior as previous research demonstrates. Departing from literature indicating that parasympathetic mechanisms are associated with the preparation of social engagement behavior, the present research investigates how feeling with another person affects empathizing individuals’ cardiovascular reactivity reflecting influences of parasympathetic mechanisms. Specifically, individuals’ high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) while being instructed to feel with a target person in need reacting with a specific emotional response to a need-causing event (with anger or sadness) was investigated. Results of one experiment (N = 124) revealed that inducing empathy with needy target persons results in increases of HF-HRV – irrespective of their emotional reaction. No relation between cardiovascular indices and self-reported prosocial behavior was found. Accordingly, these findings indicate that inducing empathy affects phasic vagal activity implied by parasympathetic mechanisms whereas the association of cardiovascular reactivity and social engagement behaviour needs further investigation.
... Further, many people report positive personal change following adverse life events including increased resilience, more positive perspective, deeper appreciation of life, closer relationships, increased empathy and personal strength, termed Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) (Stellar et al., 2015;Staub and Vollhardt, 2008). ...
... This finding should be interpreted with caution, in the context of a population who have lived with health adversity from 'cradle to grave' often being told they are 'lucky to be alive' (Morton, 2020). However, having faced lifelong adversity this population may experience positive adaptation through increased appreciation following adverse life experiences, consistent with previous PTG studies (Stellar et al., 2015). ...
Introduction: The growing population of adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) often have lifelong experience of dealing with potentially traumatic health crises and medical uncertainty whilst facing increased vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The COVID-19 pandemic presents additional challenges for this population including increased risk of health complications, shielding and strict social distancing, changes to medical care provision and social stigma. Despite such challenges, adults with CHD have the potential to also experience positive changes, yet little is known as to what helps cultivate positive adaptation and post-traumatic growth (PTG) within this context.
Methods: The current study comprised a cross-sectional, anonymous, online study exploring psychosocial measures of traumatic experiences as well as protective factors that mitigate the risks to mental health on the mental health for adults with CHD (n=236) during the pandemic. Closed and open-ended questions and a series of standardised psychosocial measures of traumatic experiences, coping mechanisms, emotional regulation and PTG were measured.
Results: Findings suggest the CHD population are at increased risk of PSTD which may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, positive adaptation may promote post traumatic growth. In particular, health adversity is associated with greater appreciation whilst emotional regulation is associated with post-traumatic growth.
Conclusions: We recommend a growth-focused, psychologically and trauma-informed approach to medicine and public health, recognising the importance of supporting mental health and promoting living well with CHD during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. These findings are likely generalisable to other lifelong health conditions and shielding populations.
... Increase in HF-HRV successfully anticipated a child's decision to donate his prize to another child (Miller, Kahle, & Hastings, 2015), and for adults to make a donation for cancer research (Barraza et al., 2015). Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner (2015) also conducted a series of studies on the correlation between compassion and RSA. These studies and showed that RSA is associated with prosocial behavior, regulation of negative emotions, and self-reported compassion. ...
... In order to optimally acquire and practice compassion, the client and the therapist must first understand how to identify its occurrence. The client's retrospective report does not always coincide with the physical experience at the time of its occurrence (Stellar et al. 2015). However, even measuring the ''compassionate response'' in the client's body does not suffice. ...
Practicing mindfulness, acceptance, and compassion have in recent years become widely accepted as part of biofeedback therapy. Compassion, in particular, has a measurable physiological basis through the conventional HRV biofeedback instrumentation. The present article reviews the research basis for the integration of compassion in the treatment of biofeedback beyond the essential eclectic use of compassionate practices in biofeedback therapy. Also, it offers two ways of integrating compassion within biofeedback-based interventions.
... Evaluation of questionable acts that trigger moral affect such as feelings of regret, sorrow, guilt and shame (Dasborough et al., 2019;Tangney, 1991) can result in negative judgment which motivates one to help those in need (Cohen et al., 2011). Since individuals have innate moral beliefs to promote harmonious interpersonal relationships (Goetz et al., 2010;Stellar et al., 2014) and attenuate the consequences of harmful acts (Bandura et al., 2001), they become motivated to help others when they witness the victims suffering harmful consequences (Stellar et al., 2015). ...
... Further, the victims' emotional distress might remind users that harmonious interpersonal relationships are violated because of an ill intention breach (Stellar et al., 2014). Subsequently, users may believe that a perpetrator should exhibit feelings of regret, sorrow, guilt and shame for causing emotional distress to the victims (Dasborough et al., 2019;Tangney, 1991), engage in helping behavior (Stellar et al., 2015) and hold a perpetrator responsible for the act (Green et al., 2008;Haidt and Kesebir, 2010). This leads to the first hypothesis: ...
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine whether users’ perceived moral affect explains the effect of perceived intensity of emotional distress on responsibility judgment of a perpetrator and company, respectively, in an ill and good intention breach.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants completed a questionnaire containing items measuring their perceived intensity of emotional distress, perceived moral affect and responsibility judgment of a perpetrator and company, respectively.
Findings
The results support the mediating hypothesis on responsibility judgment of a perpetrator regardless of intention. The mediating hypothesis is also supported in an ill intention breach in responsibility judgment of a company. However, the mediating effect is not observed in a good intention breach when users assess a company’s responsibility.
Originality/value
The findings support the notion that users use the consequentialism approach when assessing a perpetrator’s responsibility because they focus on the victims’ emotional distress and discount a perpetrator’s intent, resulting in similar mediating effect of perceived moral affect in an ill and good intention breach. The results also indicate that perceived moral affect increases the negative effect of perceived intensity of emotional distress on responsibility judgment of a company, suggesting that users may exhibit empathetic feelings toward a company and perceive it as a victim of an ill intention breach. The lack of mediating effect in responsibility judgment of a company in a good intention breach may be attributed to the diminished effect of a perpetrator’s feelings of regret, sorrow, guilt and shame for causing emotional distress to the victims.
... Outre les programmes destiné s à cultiver des compé tences ou aptitudes durables pour la compassion, de brè ves interventions ou inductions de compassion sont actuellement é tudié es. Ces interventions visent à induire un é tat de compassion pour une courte pé riode, par exemple via un court exercice d'é criture (5 minutes) sur l'autocompassion [4,98], une brè ve pré sentation d'images pour induire la compassion [18], le visionnement de courtes vidé os qui suscitent un é tat de compassion [125,126], l'exposition à des citations sur l'autocompassion sur les mé dias sociaux (p. ex. ...
... ex. par le visionnement d'un film suscitant la compassion) produit des effets physiologiques directs, notamment la dé cé lé ration de la fré quence cardiaque et de la conductance cutané e [29], ainsi qu'une hausse de l'activité vagale appelé e arythmie sinusale respiratoire [125]. Une autre é tude montre que les participants suivant un entraînement à la compassion affichent une hausse de la VFCvv [75]. ...
Résumé
Cet article se penche sur les différentes conceptualisations et opérationnalisations de la compassion (pour soi et pour les autres), incluant les instruments de mesure et il souligne la nécessité d’élaborer une définition consensuelle de la compassion. À la lumière des appuis théoriques et empiriques actuelles, cet article soutient que la compassion implique des processus d’ordre affectif, cognitif, comportemental et interpersonnel. Dans des articles précédents publiés aux Annales Médico-Psychologiques (Khoury, Dionne, et Grégoire, 2019 ; Khoury, Grégoire, et Dionne, 2020), nous avons conceptualisé la pleine conscience comme étant à la fois « incarnée » et « interpersonnelle ». Prenant appui sur des études neurologiques et neurophysiologiques, cet article étend à la compassion ces deux dimensions essentielles qui sont également propres à la pleine conscience. Cette nouvelle façon de concevoir la compassion ouvre sur des perspectives nouvelles en recherche, notamment dans l’évaluation et la mesure de la compassion et a des implications dans le domaine des approches axées sur la compassion pour soi.
... The current meta-analysis is based on data extracted from 16 studies that met the inclusion criteria, after examination of 47 full text (see Table 1 and references marked with an asterisk in the reference list). Among the 16 studies, additional data (not published in the reviewed article but needed to calculate effect sizes or to run moderator analyses) were received for two studies (Stellar et al., 2015;Matos et al., 2017). ...
... Due to an insufficient number of studies, it was not possible to test M. Di Bello, et al. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 116 (2020) 21-30 for the effects of statistical adjustment for confounders (only three studies controlled for potential confounders: Petrocchi et al., 2017a; study 1 and 3 in Stellar et al., 2015), and type of sample (only three studies included psychopathological individuals: Kemper et al., 2016;Rycroft et al., 2016;Schäflein et al., 2018; please see S3 for the results of the meta-analysis without these three studies, that is in healthy individuals only). As illustrated in Table 2, to have a comparable number of studies in each subgroup to reliably detect moderators' effects, the country where the study had been performed had to be re-coded into US versus non-US (i.e., China, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Norway, UK). ...
In recent years, increasing interest has been devoted to the physiological basis of self and other-oriented compassion. Heart rate variability (HRV) represents a promising candidate for such a role, given its association with soothing emotions and context appropriate prefrontal inhibitory control over threat-defensive responses. The aim of this study was to meta-analyze available studies on the association between compassion and HRV. Random-effect models were used. The analysis performed on sixteen studies that met inclusion criteria, yielded a significant association with a medium effect size (g = .54 95% CI [.24, .84], p < .0001). Results were not influenced by publication bias. After an extreme outlier’s exclusion, the size of the association was still larger in studies that used time or frequency-domain indices of vagally-mediated HRV compared to those that used peak to trough estimates of respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Results are limited by the small number of studies included in the meta-analysis (n = 16) and are discussed in terms of indications for future research, given that existing data are highly heterogeneous and of poor methodological rigor.
... Generally, it has been suggested that psychological factors may protect against raised blood pressure by altering central nervous system control of such physiological reactivity patterns that are related to cardiovascular functioning [18,50]. By now, there is evidence that compassionate states are related to lower heart rate, higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and higher heart rate variability [51,52] that, in turn, are linked with a lower risk for hypertension [53,54]. Moreover, brain imaging studies have suggested that high compassion is related to higher activity in such brain structures that contribute to the regulation of blood pressure [55]. ...
... However, heart rate variability does not reflect experience of compassion on a quite stable level over situations, and therefore was not suitable for the present study. Moreover, the reliability and validity of the compassion scale are shown to be high [31,33,34] and selfrating methods have been used also previously [52]. ...
Background
This study investigated (i) whether compassion is associated with blood pressure or hypertension in adulthood and (ii) whether familial risk for hypertension modifies these associations.Method
The participants (N = 1112–1293) came from the prospective Young Finns Study. Parental hypertension was assessed in 1983–2007; participants’ blood pressure in 2001, 2007, and 2011; hypertension in 2007 and 2011 (participants were aged 30–49 years in 2007–2011); and compassion in 2001.ResultsHigh compassion predicted lower levels of diastolic and systolic blood pressure in adulthood. Additionally, high compassion was related to lower risk for hypertension in adulthood among individuals with no familial risk for hypertension (independently of age, sex, participants’ and their parents’ socioeconomic factors, and participants’ health behaviors). Compassion was not related to hypertension in adulthood among individuals with familial risk for hypertension.Conclusion
High compassion predicts lower diastolic and systolic blood pressure in adulthood. Moreover, high compassion may protect against hypertension among individuals without familial risk for hypertension. As our sample consisted of comparatively young participants, our findings provide novel implications for especially early-onset hypertension.
... Following the polyvagal perspective, higher resting HRV should be related to higher self-regulatory control and prosocial tendencies. Consistently, studies found that higher resting HRV predicted greater regulatory control, decreased negative emotional arousal in response to stressors, engagement coping, sympathy, compassion, and helping behavior (e.g., Fabes & Eisenberg, 1997;Geisler, Kubiak, Siewert, & Weber, 2013;Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015). By contrast, lower resting HRV has been related to This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
... Pratto et al. (1994) proposed that decreased inclusiveness and empathic concern among high-SDO individuals play important roles. As mentioned previously, studies found that autonomic flexibility is associated with calming and self-soothing (e.g., Porges, 2007), and sympathy and compassion for the others in need (e.g., Stellar et al., 2015). Keltner, Kogan, Piff, and Saturn (2014) state that "the relationship between vagus nerve activation and prosocial behavior is driven, in part, by a reduction in arousal, which enables a shift in attention to the person in need." ...
Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) both predict generalized prejudice, dehumanization, intergroup discrimination, oppression, and violence, right-wing political party preference and generally punitive attitudes. Authoritarian attitudes have been theorized to involve maladaptive emotional, cognitive and social self-regulation. However, there is no study of authoritarianism using the functioning of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) as a physiological index of self-regulation, thus leaving it unclear whether regulation is “impaired” with authoritarian attitudes per se. PNS functioning is commonly assessed by examining tonic and phasic heart rate variability (HRV). These two components are recognized to be important in terms of adaptation to stress. Decreased HRV has been associated with hypoactive prefrontal regulation, hyperactive subcortical structures, maladaptive self-regulation, hyper-vigilance, decreased prosocial tendencies, defensiveness, impulsive behaviors and aggression. Previous research suggests that self-regulatory failure may favor hostile attitudes prejudicial intergroup behaviors. In a first study we found that high RWA was associated with lower tonic HRV at rest. In a second study, stress-induced autonomic reactivity and post-stress autonomic recovery were examined as potential pathways linking authoritarian attitudes to self-regulation. We found that high RWA and high SDO were associated (i) with lower tonic HRV during stress, (ii) with greater autonomic reactivity during stress, (iii) lower autonomic recovery. Overall, our results suggest that autonomic dysregulation during and following stress is a plausible physiological pathway connecting RWA and SDO to self- regulation. Implications of such results for research on political attitudes are discussed.
... Transient changes in HF-HRV from baseline have been related to psychosocial factors such as psychopathology (e.g., Zisner & Beauchaine, 2016), self-regulatory effort (Thayer, Hansen, Saus-Rose, & Johnsen, 2009), and health (Thayer & Lane, 2007). During couple therapy, clients' experience of socialevaluative threat (Allen & Friedman, 2016), quarrelsome interpersonal interactions (D'Antono, Moskowitz, Miners, & Archambault, 2005), and efforts to influence interaction partners (Smith, Ruiz, & Uchino, 2000) would be expected to decrease HF-HRV, whereas compassion (Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015) and, for women, marital discussions preceded by a negative marital interaction would be expected to increase HF-HRV (Smith et al., 2011). ...
Increasing evidence indicates that psychological factors important to therapy effectiveness are associated with physiological activity. Knowledge of the physiological correlates of therapy process variables has the potential to provide unique insights into how and why therapy works, but little is currently known about the physiological underpinnings of specific therapy processes that facilitate client growth and change. The goal of this article is to introduce therapy process researchers to the use of physiological methods for studying therapy process variables. We do this by (a) presenting a conceptual framework for the study of therapy process variables, (b) providing an introductory overview of physiological systems with particular promise for the study of therapy process variables, (c) introducing the primary methods and methodological decisions involved in physiological research, and (d) demonstrating these principles and methods in a case of therapeutic presence during couple therapy. We close with a discussion of the promise and challenges in the study of physiological correlates of therapy process variables and consideration of future challenges and open questions in this line of research. Online supplemental materials include additional resources for therapy process researchers interested in getting started with physiological research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... Interestingly, it has been shown that transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation is able to modulate DMN in major depressive disorder (Fang et al., 2016) and that increased vagal activity was associated with higher compassion levels (Stellar et al., 2015). It has been shown that adopting a true compassionate disposition when viewing pictures of people suffering activated the mesolimbic dopamine pathway (ventral tegmental area and the ventral striatum) implicated in reward and bond formation (Kim et al., 2009). ...
Health care professionals (HCPs) are a population at risk for high levels of burnout and compassion fatigue. The aim of the present systematic review was to give an overview on recent literature about mindfulness and compassion characteristics of HCPs, while exploring the effectiveness of techniques, involving the two aspects, such as MBSR or mindfulness intervention and compassion fatigue-related programs. A search of databases, including PubMed and PsycINFO, was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and the methodological quality for this systematic review was appraised using AMSTAR-2 (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews-2). The number of articles that met the inclusion criteria was 58 (4 RCTs, 24 studies with pre-post measurements, 12 cross-sectional studies, 11 cohort studies and 7 qualitative studies). MBSR intervention was effective at improving, and maintaining, mindfulness and self-compassion levels and to improve burnout, depression, anxiety, stress. The most frequently employed interventional strategies were mindfulness-related trainings that were effective at improving mindfulness and self-compassion, but not compassion fatigue, levels. Compassion-related interventions have been shown to improve self-compassion, mindfulness and interpersonal conflict levels. Mindfulness was effective at improving negative affect and compassion fatigue, while compassion satisfaction may be related to cultivation of positive affect. This systematic review summarized the evidence regarding mindfulness-and compassion-related qualities of HCPs as well as potential effects of MBSR, mindfulness-related and compassion-related interventions on professionals' psychological variables like mindfulness, self-compassion and quality of life. Combining structured mindfulness and compassion cultivation trainings may enhance the effects of interventions, limit the variability of intervention protocols and improve data comparability of future research.
... In fact, the association was in the opposite direction of what we previously observed (negative instead of positive), albeit not at a statistically significant level. When first learning about an opportunity to donate to other children, greater parasympathetic activation at age 4 may support calm social engagement, allowing for the experience of prosocial emotions such as compassion (Stellar et al., 2015). By age 6, children may have been more readily able to understand the task, such that parasympathetic support for calm attentiveness was less necessary, and withdrawal of parasympathetic influence was initiated sooner in preparation for prosocial action. ...
Individual differences in children's prosocial behaviors, including their willingness to give up something of value for the benefit of others, are rooted in physiological and environmental processes. In a sample of 4-year-old children, we previously found evidence that flexible changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were linked to donation behavior, and that these physiological patterns may support greater sensitivity to the positive effects of compassionate parenting on donation behavior. The current study focused on a follow-up assessment of these children at age 6. First, we examined the stability of individual differences in donation behavior and related parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity from age 4 to 6. Second, we examined associations between donation behavior and RSA at 6 years. Third, we examined whether the association between children's RSA and donation behavior at age 6 varied depending on mothers' compassionate love. We found low to modest stability in donation behavior and RSA reactivity from age 4 to 6. These findings provide preliminary evidence that stable individual differences in altruism, as reflected by generosity, and in some aspects of parasympathetic functioning during opportunities to be prosocial, emerge in childhood. In addition, we found that some of the same associations between donation behavior, RSA, and compassionate love that we previously observed in children at 4 years of age continued to be evident 2 years later at age 6. Greater decreases in RSA when given the opportunity to donate were associated with children donating more of their own resources which, in turn, were associated with greater RSA recovery after the task. Lastly, mothers' compassionate love was positively associated with donation behavior in children who demonstrated stronger decreases in RSA during the task; compassionate parenting and RSA reactivity may serve as external and internal supports for prosociality that build on each other. Taken together, these findings contribute to the perspectives that individual differences in altruistic behaviors are intrinsically linked to healthy vagal flexibility, and that biopsychosocial approaches provide a useful framework for examining and understanding the environmental and physiological processes underlying these individual differences.
... • Compassion has been shown to positively correlate with increased vagal tone, which slows the heart and produces a calm state that encourages social connection, engagement mediates bonding with others (Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015) • Piferi & Lawler (2006) showed that college students' expressed concern for fellow students positively correlated with having lower blood pressure, higher self-esteem and self-efficacy. ...
Helping and supportive behavior that reduced the suffering of others laid the foundation for the interconnected society we live in today, so why does it currently feel disconnected and chaotic? One need not look further than the news in 2020 to see that we have unprecedented awareness of human incivility and violence. Small but significant acts of compassion toward strangers are necessary to move our world past the unprecedented pain in which it is currently suffering. Compassion makes us aware of suffering in others, but also brings forth the best in us: our kindness, our willingness to help, our connection to humanity. This wellspring of goodness is studied within and amplified by positive psychology, or the study of what is good in an individual, family or organizational system. Amplification of individual resources is necessary so that individuals have the resources to achieve greater resilience and enact more pro-social behaviors in the face of the challenges we see in our modern society.
... Due to the fact that suffering is a defining experience in human social life, compassion has been considered as a prototypical response to suffering associated with a wide range of conditions including abuse and neglect, poverty, illness and disability (Lee & James, 2013;MacBeth & Gumley, 2012;Stellar, Oveis, Cohen, & Keltner, 2015). According to Dalai Lama, compassion is sensitivity to the suffering of oneself and others, with a deep wish and moral commitment to relieve the suffering (Stuntzner, 2017). ...
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of compassion-focused therapy on Depression and Rumination after a romantic breakup. The present study was carried out using the single-case quasi-experimental method and a simple baseline method. For this purpose, three female participants were selected through targeted sampling and they were treated through an individual Compassion-focused Therapy (CFT) during eight 90-min sessions. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and Rumination (RRS) questionnaires in the baseline stage (pre-treatment) during the second, fourth, sixth and eighth sessions, and in the one-month follow-up stage. Moreover, in the pre-treatment stage, the participants completed the Love Trauma Inventory (LTI) and the MMPI-2RF questionnaires to identify the severity of disturbance after breakup and to detect the serious disorder in axis, respectively. Then they were interviewed in order to identify their personality disorder. For data analysis, clinical significance method and the recovery percentage index were used. The results showed that compassion-focused therapy has a significant effect on the reduction of Depression and mental Rumination. The percentage of non-overlap data (PND) on the Depression Scale was 100 for the first and second participants and 75 for the third participant; it was 100 on the rumination scale for all three participants. The rate of recovery of depression in the first, second, third participant was 65%, 72%, 25%, the rumination rate in the first, second, third participant was 47%, 42%, 33%, respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that people who experienced a breakup after a compassion-focused therapy look at themselves with a new and compassionate look at their own.
... Additionally, Japanese and French neurotypical children reported similar emotional feelings before and after the interaction with the robot. Interpersonal attunement based on emotional empathy was shown to be correlated with autonomic heart rate modifications not only in typically developing children and infants 24 but also in adults 25 . Taken together, the aforementioned findings clearly indicate that autonomic functions associated with heart rate do not exclusively depend on genetic factors but are also associated with intercommunication with humans or robots 8 . ...
Children with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorders) experience persistent disrupted coordination in interpersonal synchronisation that is thought to be associated with deficits in neural connectivity. Robotic interventions have been explored for use with ASD children worldwide revealing that robots encourage one-to-one social and emotional interactions. However, associations between interpersonal synchronisation and emotional empathy have not yet been directly explored in French and Japanese ASD children when they interact with a human or a robot under analogous experimental conditions. Using the paradigm of actor-perceiver, where the child was the actor and the robot or the human the perceiver, we recorded the autonomic heart rate activation and reported emotional feelings of ASD children in both countries. Japanese and French ASD children showed different interpersonal synchronisation when they interacted with the human perceiver, even though the human was the same in both countries. However, they exhibited similar interpersonal synchronisation when the perceiver was the robot. The findings suggest that the mechanism combining interpersonal synchronisation and emotional empathy might be weakened but not absent in ASD children and that both French and Japanese ASD children do spontaneously and unconsciously discern non verbal actions of non human partners through a direct matching process that occurs via automatic mapping.
... 2,4,18 State compassion can be triggered by witnessing or learning about the physical or emotional pain of other individuals. 4,[19][20][21] Previous studies report that emotions can be induced by emotional materials, such as words, stories, pictures, music, and films. 2,4,[22][23][24][25][26] Although stories and pictures successfully induce emotions, 27,28 films are considered as one of the most effective ways for emotion induction. ...
Background:
Previous studies have shown that compassion increases prosocial lying. However, in the present study, we proposed that compassion toward individuals who are frustrated in striving for minimal living conditions (named here as compassion for other's survival in suffering, abbreviated as COSS) increases prosocial lying, while compassion toward individuals frustrated in seeking development conditions (named here as compassion for other's development in suffering, abbreviated as CODS) has little effect on prosocial lying.
Methods:
In Studies 1 and 2, we asked participants to evaluate the same text twice before and after experimentally experiencing emotion to test the above hypotheses. In Study 3, we created a situation with a strong moral conflict between prosociality and truth-telling to investigate the potential psychological mechanisms.
Results:
In Study 1, we show that COSS and CODS both increased prosocial lying. Notably, COSS effect on prosocial lying was significantly higher than CODS effect on prosocial lying. These findings were augmented by results from Study 2, which showed that individuals with low-trait compassion in COSS condition engaged in more prosocial lying than those with high trait compassion in CODS condition. In Study 3, we report that COSS increased prosocial lying significantly, while CODS did not.
Conclusion:
COSS and CODS are two different types of compassion as shown in Studies 1 and 2; they have different potential psychological mechanisms on increasing prosocial lying (Study 3a and 3b). This study provides additional information on the theory of compassion, which is important in exploring compassion effects.
... • Allow your hand to drop away as you close this practice, while staying connected to the feeling and words of self-compassion. activity (Gilbert, 2009;Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015). ...
Working effectively in psychotherapy is only possible when clients feel safe and secure. To promote safety and optimal therapy, therapists need to focus more on how they are with clients than what techniques they do in the therapy session. Decades of research demonstrate that the therapeutic relationship is the most consistent predictor of change. Yet what contributes to a positive therapy relationship has been less clear. Emerging research suggests that therapeutic presence (TP) is a necessary and preliminary step to facilitating positive therapeutic relationships and more effective therapy. The therapeutic relationship is core to both Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy (AEDP). Intentional cultivation of TP is essential in both models and is trans-theoretical across various therapy approaches. TP facilitates an experience of safety for clients and therapists, which promotes effective therapeutic relationships and treatment.
... Recent research has shown that participants exhibited greater Rsa during compassion induction compared with a neutral control, another positive emotion or a prosocial emotion lacking appraisals of another person's suffering (Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015). Considering this finding, promoting selfcompassion programs (Neff and Germer, 2013;Arch et al., 2014) may be useful to reduce the psychological impact of quarantine, promoting emotional selfregulation and health. ...
According to the polyvagal theory, quarantine and social distancing following COVID-19 pandemic may dampen nucleus ambiguus (NA) activity in the brainstem and hinder homeostatic cardiorespiratory functioning, emotional self-regulation and health. in addition, enduring quarantine may foster heightened implicit vigilance for social threat, emotional dysregulation, poor sleep and immune response, potentially increasing the chance of infections. promoting activities aimed at increasing na functioning, like self-compassion, may support emotional self-regulation, adequate immune response and health.
... Among many proposed pathways, consistent efforts to capture the embodied expression of spirit have taken the form of measurement of the heart (Bastos et al. 2018;Kirby et al. 2017;Kurita et al. 2011;Seeman et al. 2003;Tyagi and Cohen 2016). Related characteristics linked to well-developed personal spirituality including compassion, intuition, love, transcendent experience and gratitude have all been associated with, if not directly measured as, healthy tonic and phasic cardiac activity (Childre and McCraty 2001;Kirby et al. 2017;McCraty and Childre 2004;Stellar et al. 2015). Assessment of these spiritual forms of feeling and knowing as they occur suggest a bidirectional, potentially therapeutic relationship between healthy heart patterns and spiritual experience. ...
The heart has been a symbol within ancient philosophy and spiritual practice for personal consciousness, wisdom, intuition and love. In recent decades, scientists with growing interest in spirituality have built a strong case for the beneficial relationship between religiosity/spirituality and physical health. Explanations for this connection have included associated health behaviors that negatively impact cardiovascular health but have failed to adequately explain away this consistent association. Here, we suggest a central and bidirectional relationship between the heart, the "Master Organ," and the phenomenology of spiritual experience. Further, we provide existing evidence for a synergistic, salutogenic relationship between robust cardiac function and spiritual wellbeing that may offer a roadmap to spiritual, psychological and physical recovery and health at the individual, interpersonal and global level.
... As recent critiques have improved the rigor of research using HRV as an index of vagal tone (Heathers et al., 2015), accumulating evidence supports the measurement of HRV for understanding and evaluating compassion. Researchers have found that HRV relates to the experience of compassion and predicted compassionate behavior (Stellar et al., 2015). Others have found that compassionate responses appear to rely on the parasympathetic nervous system to modulate the emotional response to suffering, as indexed by HRV (Rockliff et al., 2008). ...
Over the last decade, empirical research on compassion has burgeoned in the biomedical, clinical, translational, and foundational sciences. Increasingly sophisticated understandings and measures of compassion continue to emerge from the abundance of multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary studies. Naturally, the diversity of research methods and theoretical frameworks employed presents a significant challenge to consensus and synthesis of this knowledge. To bring the empirical findings of separate and sometimes siloed disciplines into conversation with one another requires an examination of their disparate assumptions about what compassion is and how it can be known. Here, we present an integrated theoretical review of methodologies used in the empirical study of compassion. Our goal is to highlight the distinguishing features of each of these ways of knowing compassion, as well as the strengths and limitations of applying them to specific research questions. We hope this will provide useful tools for selecting methods that are tailored to explicit objectives (methods matching), taking advantage of methodological complementarity across disciplines (methods mixing), and incorporating the empirical study of compassion into fields in which it may be missing.
... Lower baseline RSA is associated with a lack of emotional clarity and impulse control, both evident in emotion dysregulation (Williams et al., 2015). Researchers have tested the relation between vagal functioning and compassion for one's own pain and that of others (Kirby, Doty, Petrocchi, & Gilbert, 2017;Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015). Lorber, Mitnick, and Slep (2016) found that vagal reactivity buffered the relation between mothers' emotional flooding (i.e., the feelings of being overwhelmed by a family member's behavior) and overreactive discipline. ...
SYNOPSIS
Objective : Vagal suppression is a parasympathetic physiological indicator of emotion regulation and social engagement behaviors, often measured via heart rate variability. Experiential avoidance reflects psychological inflexibility or poor emotion regulation. We tested the interaction effects of parental vagal suppression and experiential avoidance on observed parenting behaviors among combat deployed fathers. Design . We analyzed data from 92 male National Guard/Reserve members who had returned from a deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan since 2001. They were mostly European American, in their 30s, middle-class, and married. All fathers participated in home-based assessments with their spouses (if married) and a target child aged 4–13 years. Fathers’ vagal suppression was measured as the decrease in cardiac vagal tone (i.e., high frequency heart rate variability) from a neutral reading task to a father-child conflict resolution task. Experiential avoidance was self-reported. Parenting behaviors were observed during family interaction tasks and coded into positive engagement and withdrawal avoidance using a macro-level coding system. Results . Multiple regression analysis showed no main effects of vagal suppression on observed parenting, but interaction effects of experiential avoidance by vagal suppression on observed parenting. Specifically, among fathers with higher vagal suppression, we found no relations between experiential avoidance and observed parenting; among fathers with lower vagal suppression, we found an inverse association between experiential avoidance and positive engagement as well as a positive association between experiential avoidance and withdrawal avoidance. Conclusions . The effect of psychological inflexibility on military fathers’ parenting behaviors was moderated by vagal suppression. The findings have implications for the linkage between emotion regulation and parenting in military fathers.
... A co-activation of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity is not unlikely (Shaffer & Ginsberg, 2017), and recent empirical research has linked positive emotionality to vagal activity (Depue & Morrone-Strupinsky, 2005;Duarte & Pinto-Gouveia, 2017;Shiota et al., 2011). Likewise, responses of compassion and sympathy correlated with increased vagal activity (Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015). Such responses have been linked to kama muta (Zickfeld, Schubert, Seibt, Blomster, et al., 2019). ...
Situations involving increased closeness or exceptional kindness are often labeled as moving or touching and individuals often report bodily symptoms, including tears, goosebumps, and warmth in the body. Recently, the kama muta framework has been proposed as a cross‐cultural conceptualization of these experiences. Prior research on kama muta has mostly relied on subjective reports. Thus, our main goal of the present project was to examine the pattern of physiological responses to kama muta inducing videos and compare it to the patterns for the similar, though distinct emotions of sadness and awe . One hundred forty‐four Portuguese and Norwegian participants were individually exposed to all three emotion conditions. Several psychophysiological indexes of the autonomic nervous system were collected continuously during exposure, including cardiovascular, respiratory, and electrodermal activity, facial EMG, skin temperature, as well as piloerection and lachrymation using cameras. Overall, the results partly replicated previous findings on being moved experiences and self‐report studies. Strong self‐reported experiences of kama muta were associated with increased phasic skin conductance, skin temperature, piloerection, and zygomaticus activity, while they were associated with reduced heart rate, respiration rate, and tonic skin conductance. The physiological profile of kama muta was successfully distinguished from sadness and awe, partly corroborating self‐report evidence. We obtained no clear evidence of a kama muta association with the occurrence of lachrymation or heart rate variability. Our findings provide a systematic overview of psychophysiological response to experiences of kama muta, and help to inform future research on this emotion and positive emotions in general.
... In contrast, in affiliative contexts, higher RSA reactivity (reflected in an increase in RSA from baseline to task) was found to be associated with better social-emotional functioning. For example, RSA increase was found to be associated with stronger feelings of compassion to the suffering of others as well as greater behavioral expression of compassion (Stellar et al., 2015). RSA reactivity was also found to be positively associated with better emotional regulation during interpersonal interaction (Butler et al., 2006). ...
Considerable heterogeneity has been observed in couples’ adjustment to the transition to parenthood (TTP). One potential yet understudied predictor of emotional adjustment to the TTP is the new parents’ capacity for regulation. A widely accepted biological marker of this capacity is respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which is closely tied to parasympathetic activation. In the present work, we sought to examine the role of tonic RSA and RSA reactivity as possible protective dyadic factors in the TTP. As part of a larger study, we recruited a sample (N = 100) of TTP couples. At 15 weeks postpartum, the couples took part in a lab session during which their RSA was assessed both at rest (tonic RSA) and during four affiliative dyadic interactions (RSA reactivity). Following this session, couples completed daily diaries over a period of 3 weeks, reporting their daily levels of negative affect and stress. A Multivariate Actor Partner Interdependence Model was used to examine the extent to which each partner's RSA predicted their own and their partner's negative affect (NA) level, as well as NA stress‐reactivity (i.e., the strength of the within‐person stress‐affect association). New mothers’ tonic RSA predicted their own lower NA level and NA stress‐reactivity; both their tonic RSA and RSA reactivity predicted their (male) partners’ lower NA level; and finally, new fathers’ tonic RSA and RSA reactivity predicted their (female) partners’ lower NA stress‐reactivity. These results suggest that RSA may serve as a personal and dyadic protective factor.
... Learning to appreciate the triggers of emotions, potentially distorted or ruminative thoughts that extend emotional reactions, and repetitive patterned reactions allows trainees to be more aware and purposeful in experiencing, communicating about, and responding to these emotional events. 108 Per the fields of trauma-informed and compassion-focused psychotherapy, [109][110][111][112] trainees learn the physiologic, cognitive, and somatic markers of stress particular to them. Awareness of their own uniquely personal experience of stress supports the acquisition of skills in regulating excessive activation (eg, anger, anxiety) or mobilizing and engaging in the face of shutdown or overwhelm. ...
Physician burnout is common across specialties and largely driven by demands of the current health care industry. However, the obvious need for systems change does not address the unavoidable impact of providing care to those who suffer. An intentional, developmental, longitudinal approach to resiliency training would not distract from fixing a broken system or blame physicians for their distress. Existing models and approaches to resilience training are promising but limited in duration, scope, and depth. We call for and describe a career-long model, introduced early in undergraduate medical training, extending into graduate medical education, and integrated throughout professional training and continuing medical education, in intrapersonal and interpersonal skills that help physicians cope with the emotional, social, and physical impact of care provision.
... Prior studies of compassion tend to examine this emotion using trait self-report measures (e.g., the Empathic Concern scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index; Davis, 1983), experimental inductions of compassion (e.g., Klimecki et al., 2013Klimecki et al., , 2014Oveis et al., 2010), or with state compassion ratings (Västfjäll et al., 2014) as well as with physiological responses thought to reflect compassion (Stellar et al., 2012(Stellar et al., , 2015 in response to stimuli or during interpersonal interactions. Although each of these methods have advantages, the current approach affords multiple distinct benefits by comparison. ...
Compassion—the warm, caregiving emotion that emerges from witnessing the suffering of others—has long been considered an important moral emotion for motivating and sustaining prosocial behavior. Some suggest that compassion draws from empathic feelings to motivate prosocial behavior, while others try to disentangle these processes to examine their different functions for human pro-sociality. Many suggest that empathy, which involves sharing in others’ experiences, can be biased and exhausting, whereas warm compassionate concern is more rewarding and sustainable. If compassion is indeed a warm and positive experience, then people should be motivated to seek it out when given the opportunity. Here, we ask whether people spontaneously choose to feel compassion, and whether such choices are associated with perceiving compassion as cognitively costly. Across all studies, we found that people opted to avoid compassion when given the opportunity; reported compassion to be more cognitively taxing than empathy and objective detachment; and opted to feel compassion less often to the degree they viewed compassion as cognitively costly. We also revealed two important boundary conditions: first, people were less likely to avoid compassion for close (vs. distant) others, and this choice difference was associated with viewing compassion for close others as less cognitively costly. Second, in the final study we found that with more contextually enriched and immersive pleas for help, participants preferred to escape feeling compassion, though their preference did not differ from also escaping remaining objectively detached. These results temper strong arguments that compassion is an easier route to prosocial motivation.
... Research on complementary emotional reactions is comparatively sparse, but their occurrence has been documented in a variety of studies involving verbal and nonverbal emotional expressions as well as physiological and self-report data. Expressions of sadness and distress can elicit sympathy (Eisenberg 2000) and compassion (Stellar et al. 2015, expressions of anger can elicit fear (Dimberg & Öhman 1996), expressions of disappointment can elicit guilt (Lelieveld et al. 2013), and expressions of pride can elicit envy (Lange & Crusius 2015). ...
We review the burgeoning literature on the social effects of emotions, documenting the impact of emotional expressions on observers’ affect, cognition, and behavior. We find convergent evidence that emotional expressions influence observers’ affective reactions, inferential processes, and behaviors across various domains, including close relationships, group decision making, customer service, negotiation, and leadership. Affective reactions and inferential processes mediate the effects of emotional expressions on observers’ behaviors, and the relative potency of these mediators depends on the observers’ information processing and the perceived appropriateness of the emotional expressions. The social effects of emotions are similar across expressive modalities (face, voice, body, text, symbols). We discuss the findings in relation to emotional contagion, emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, emotions as social information (EASI) theory, and the functionality of emotions in engendering social influence. Finally, we identify gaps in our current understanding of the topic and call for interdisciplinary collaboration and methodological diversification.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... Further, sufficient empirical data exists on the effects of compassion training on various measures of physical, psychological, cognitive, emotional, and social functions (Jazaieri et al., 2014;Pace et al., 2009Pace et al., , 2013Stellar et al., 2015). Despite the known benefits found in the biological and medical fields, there are still limitations in the applicability of various existing compassion training programs for educators and children. ...
The critical and persistent impact of violence, abuse, and social injustice on the overall development of young children has necessitated a global discourse on the importance of cultivating compassion during children’s formative years. This article links the defining elements of compassion to the discipline of early childhood education and calls upon stakeholders to integrate more concerted and systematic knowledge from compassion science research into contemporary early childhood classroom practices.
... Of interest here are the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system and its role in conserving energy and calming the body (e.g., decreasing heart rate) and mind. Heightened activation of the vagus nerve has been found to positively correlate with trait-like compassion (Eisenberg et al., 1996) and compassionate states (Stellar et al., 2015). It is therefore not surprising that practicing compassion has been found to decrease an individual's negative affect when dealing with another person's distress (Klimecki et al., 2014) and might improve coping with a stressful situation (Pace et al., 2009;Abelson et al., 2014). ...
Background: We define compassion as an enduring disposition that centers upon empathetic concern for another person's suffering and the motivation to act to alleviate it. The contribution of specific candidate genes to the development of dispositional compassion for others is currently unknown. We examine candidate genes in the oxytocin and dopamine signaling pathways.
Methods: In a 32-year follow-up of the Young Finns Study ( N = 2,130, 44.0% men), we examined with multiple indicators latent growth curve modeling the molecular genetic underpinnings of dispositional compassion for others across the life span. We selected five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) whose functions are known in humans: rs2268498 (OXTR), rs3796863 (CD38) (related to lower oxytocin levels), rs1800497 (ANKK1/DRD2), rs4680 (COMT), and rs1611115 (DBH) (related to higher dopamine levels). Compassion was measured with Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory on three repeated observations spanning 15 years (1997–2012). Differences between gender were tested.
Results: We did not find an effect of the five SNPs in oxytocin and dopamine pathway genes on the initial levels of dispositional compassion for others. Individuals who carry one or two copies of the T-allele of DBH rs1611115, however, tend to increase faster in compassion over time than those homozygotes for the C-allele, b = 0.063 (SE = 0.027; p = 0.018). This effect was largely driven by male participants, 0.206 (SE = 0.046; p < 0.001), and was not significant in female participants when analyzed separately.
Conclusions: Men who are known to have, on average, lower compassion than women seem to reduce this difference over time if they carry the T-allele of DBH rs1611115. The direction of the association indicates that dopamine signaling activity rather than overall dopamine levels might drive the development of compassion.
... wskaźniki psychofizjologicznej reakcji współczucia (por. Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, Keltner, 2015). ...
Jedna z najczęściej pojawiających się w literaturze definicji inteligencji opisuje ją jako zdolność, która ułatwia człowiekowi przystosowanie do środowiska. Badania psychologiczne prowadzone już od drugiej połowy XIX w. (m.in. przez Francisa Galtona) zdają się potwierdzać adaptacyjny charakter inteligencji. Od samego początku badacze łączyli sprawność intelektualną z funkcjonowaniem szkolnym. W kontekście badania uczniów szkoły średniej zrodziła się koncepcja czynnika inteligencji ogólnej zaproponowana przez Charlesa Spearmana. Nowo powstałe testy inteligencji u progu XX w., początkowo stworzone dla celów edukacyjnych przez Alfreda Bineta, szybko wzbudziły zainteresowanie pracodawców, ponieważ stanowiły efektywne narzędzie wyboru najlepszych kandydatów do pracy. Proces rozpowszechniania się testów inteligencji przyspieszyła I wojna światowa i potrzeba szybkiej selekcji kandydatów do służby wojskowej na różnych stanowiskach. Szkoła i praca, niewątpliwie ważne obszary aktywności człowieka, nie wyczerpują jednak dziedzin, w których inteligencja okazała się ważna. Późniejsze badania, prowadzone m.in. przez zespół szkockiego badacza Iana Deary’ego, pokazały znaczenie inteligencji dla zdrowia i długości życia. Inteligencja jest ogólną zdolnością, która przesądza o sprawności funkcjonowania poznawczego człowieka. Praktycznie każda aktywność ludzka angażuje w jakimś stopniu procesy poznawcze. Nie dziwi zatem fakt, że inteligencja ma znaczenie w niemal każdej sferze życia, od samoregulacji, osobowości, przekonań o świecie, kontroli niepożądanych zachowań i emocji, po aktywność fizyczną, preferencje dobowe i funkcjonowanie w związkach. W niniejszym zbiorze przyglądamy się niektórym z tych obszarów, wskazując na różnorodność wątków związanych z inteligencją. (...)
W pierwszej części książki znalazły się rozdziały odwołujące się bezpośrednio do adaptacyjnego charakteru inteligencji oraz związanymi z nią funkcjami poznawczymi. Pierwszy rozdział autorstwa Marcina Zajenkowskiego stanowi wprowadzenie do całego zbioru i przedstawia rys historyczny dociekań nad inteligencją, jej definicję oraz przegląd badań nad znaczeniem inteligencji dla osiągnięć szkolnych, funkcjonowania w pracy oraz zdrowia i długości życia. Następne trzy rozdziały opisują rolę zdolności poznawczych dla adaptacyjnego zachowania w zakresie samoregulacji (Jan Jędrzejczyk), agresywnego zachowania (Marta Bodecka) oraz uzależnień (Iwona Nowakowska, Karolina Lewandowska, Karol Lewczuk).
Druga część zbioru obejmuje teksty, w których przedyskutowano związki inteligencji i zdolności poznawczych z przekonaniami i emocjami. Marcin Zajenkowski i Oliwia Maciantowicz wskazują na wagę przekonań o własnej inteligencji dla różnych obszarów życia. Kinga Szymaniak przedstawia badania nad związkami gniew–poznanie, wskazując na najnowsze teorie z zakresu psychologii emocji. Paweł Łowicki omawia powiązania inteligencji i zdolności emocjonalno-społecznych z przekonaniami religijnymi. Maria Ledzińska prezentuje obszerny przegląd badań nad metapoznaniem, a więc wiedzą na temat własnych procesów poznawczych, jej związkami z inteligencją i codziennym funkcjonowaniem.
W trzeciej części zbioru przedstawiono rozdziały opisujące rolę inteligencji w specyficznych obszarach życia. Wojciech Waleriańczyk i Maciej Stolarski zebrali informacje na temat roli inteligencji w sporcie. Konrad Jankowski przedstawia badania nad związkami zdolności poznawczych z chronotypem, cechą opisującą preferencje pory dnia dla aktywności człowieka. W ostatnim rozdziale Maria Leniarska i Marcin Zajenkowski dokonują przeglądu badań nad inteligencją ogólną oraz inteligencją emocjonalną i funkcjonowaniem osób w bliskich związkach.
... Gilbert (2009Gilbert ( , 2014 104 postulates that kindness and compassion towards oneself can have exactly the same soothing 105 and calming function and can bring these emotional systems back into balance. This claim is 106 empirically supported by research showing that compassion towards oneself is associated with 107 heightened parasympathetic activity (Stellar et al., 2015) and less unproductive repetitive 108 thinking such as worrying (Raes, 2010). We therefore assume that climbers who treat 109 themselves with kindness and support can activate their contentment and soothing system and 110 thus reduce their somatic and cognitive performance anxiety. ...
In climbing, anxiety may impair performance. Using an evolutionary approach, we hypothesized that athletes who treat themselves with self-compassion activate their contentment and soothing system and thus reduce their performance anxiety. A two-week randomized control trial was used to investigate the effect of self-compassion on somatic and cognitive anxiety. We compared two groups (intervention and waiting list) on two dates. Sixty climbers (Mage = 27.95, SDage = 8.57) completed the pre- and post-assessment. The intervention consisted of a psychoeducational leaflet and five self-compassionate writing tasks. In the posttest, the self-compassion intervention group showed increased self-compassion (F = 4.33, p = .04, η_p^2 = 0.07) and decreased somatic performance anxiety (F = 6.24, p = .02, η_p^2 = 0.10) compared to the waiting list control group. We found no changes in cognitive performance anxiety. The results suggest that self-compassion could be considered as a possible intervention to reduce physical symptoms of performance anxiety.
... Threatening facial expressions, for example, trigger defensive states incompatible with social engagement, while vagally regulated autonomic states support calmer expressions and prosociability (Porges, 2018(Porges, , 2003. Vagal regulation appears to contribute to adaptive social behaviors (Porges and Furman, 2011), a finding supported in multiple studies linking higher cardiac vagal tone with greater social competence (Beauchaine, 2001), empathy (Fabes et al., 1994;Stellar et al., 2015), and connectedness (Kok and Fredrickson, 2010). Therefore, a possible pathway between meaning and physical health likely involves social relationships, as close relationships are a central source of MIL and support all three MIL characteristics (Debats, 1999;King and Hicks, 2021). ...
Higher meaning in life (MIL) consistently predicts better health, but the physiological processes underlying this relationship are not well understood. This study examined the relationship between MIL and vagally-mediated heart rate variability (VmHRV) under resting (N = 77), stressor (n = 73), and mindfulness intervention (n = 72) conditions. Regression was used for MIL-VmHRV analyses at baseline, and longitudinal mixed models were used to examine phasic changes in VmHRV as a function of MIL. Regression revealed a quadratic MIL-VmHRV relationship, and mixed models linked higher MIL to greater stress-reactivity but not enhanced stress-attenuation. MIL and mindfulness did not interact to influence VmHRV recovery after experimental stress. Findings suggest that cardiac vagal tone and cardiac vagal reactivity are linked to MIL, shedding light on the physiology underlying MIL and its health associations.
... While more rigorous research is needed, an overview of the literature suggests that Yoga practice may positively impact autonomic regulation and heart rate variability (Tyagi & Cohen, 2016). Researchers have also demonstrated that self-criticism is associated with lower vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) whereas self-compassion is associated with higher vmHRV (Svendsen et al., 2016) and has been shown to activate greater vagal activity (Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015). Interoception of internal and external safety is believed to result in the ventral vagal system orienting the individual toward social engagement and prosocial interactions (Sullivan et al., 2018), possibly with the self as well. ...
Yoga has begun to be incorporated into the treatment of eating disorders despite limited empirical support for this practice. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of incorporating Yoga into the treatment of eating disorders. This preliminary randomized controlled trial investigated the benefits of participating in an eight-week Kripalu Yoga program for 53 women with symptoms of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Compared to waitlist controls, Yoga participants experienced decreases in binge eating frequency, emotional regulation difficulties and self-criticism, and increases in self-compassion. Yoga participants also experienced increases in state mindfulness skills across the eight weeks of the Yoga program. While these results are encouraging and suggest Yoga may have a valuable role to play in the treatment of eating disorders, it is important to stress their tentative nature. Further research, adopting a more rigorous design, is needed to address the limitations of the present study and expand on these findings.
... Prior studies of compassion tend to examine this emotion using trait self-report measures (e.g., the Empathic Concern scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index; Davis, 1983), experimental inductions of compassion (e.g., Klimecki et al., 2013Klimecki et al., , 2014Oveis et al., 2010), or with state compassion ratings (Västfjäll et al., 2014) as well as with physiological responses thought to reflect compassion (Stellar et al., 2012(Stellar et al., , 2015 in response to stimuli or during interpersonal interactions. Although each of these methods have advantages, the current approach affords multiple distinct benefits by comparison. ...
Compassion—the warm, caregiving emotion that emerges from witnessing the suffering of others—has long been considered an important moral emotion for motivating and sustaining prosocial behavior. Some suggest that compassion draws from empathic feelings to motivate prosocial behavior, while others try to disentangle these processes to examine their different functions for human pro-sociality. Many suggest that empathy, which involves sharing in others’ experiences, can be biased and exhausting, whereas warm compassionate concern is more rewarding and sustainable. If compassion is indeed a warm and positive experience, then people should be motivated to seek it out when given the opportunity. Here, we ask whether people spontaneously choose to feel compassion, and whether such choices are associated with perceiving compassion as cognitively costly. Across all studies, we found that people opted to avoid compassion when given the opportunity; reported compassion to be more cognitively taxing than empathy and objective detachment; and opted to feel compassion less often to the degree they viewed compassion as cognitively costly. We also revealed two important boundary conditions: first, people were less likely to avoid compassion for close (vs. distant) others, and this choice difference was associated with viewing compassion for close others as less cognitively costly. Second, in the final study we found that with more contextually enriched and immersive pleas for help, participants preferred to escape feeling compassion, though their preference did not differ from also escaping remaining objectively detached. These results temper strong arguments that compassion is an easier route to prosocial motivation.
... However, RMSSD-HRV was negatively associated with selfrelated unpleasantness ratings and craving in individuals with NMPOU. These results are in contrast to previous reported positive associations between HRV and empathy (Kogan et al., 2014;Lischke et al., 2018;Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015). However, in these studies, trait empathy and empathy-related personality traits were measured whereas in the present study state empathy and even more specifically empathy for pain was investigated. ...
Non-medical prescription opioid use (NMPOU) is at the heart of the opioid epidemic in the United States. Although chronic opioid use is commonly accompanied by deficits in social functioning, little is known about the impact of chronic NMPOU on social cognitive functions. Social neuroscience models suggest that empathy activates similar or even equivalent neural structures as those underpinning the first-hand experience in that emotional state (e.g., pain). Therefore, we measured subjective and psychophysiological responses during an empathy-for-pain task in 23 individuals with NMPOU, objectively confirmed by hair and urine testing, and compared them with 29 opioid-naïve healthy controls. NMPOU individuals showed lower other-related and self-related unpleasantness ratings when seeing others in pain than controls. No differences between the control and NMPOU group were found in skin conductance responses and heart rate variability (HRV) assessed by root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) in response to the task. However, RMSSD-HRV was strongly negatively correlated with self-related unpleasantness and craving in the NMPOU group. A subsequent mediation analysis showed a total effect of RMSSD-HRV on self-related unpleasantness with no mediation of craving. This indicates that stronger emotion regulation indexed by high RMSSD-HRV might have downregulating effects on sharing others' pain in NMPOU individuals but not in healthy controls, which was further accompanied by decreased ratings of personal distress and empathetic concern. These results contribute to a better understanding of social functioning in chronic opioid users, suggesting adequate emotion regulation and empathy trainings as therapeutic targets for future interventions of opioid use disorders and long-term pain treatment with opioids.
Recent studies have linked compassion with higher vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), a measure of parasympathetic activity, and metanalytic evidence confirmed significant and positive associations. Compassion, however, is not to be confused with soothing positive emotions: in order to engage in actions aimed to alleviate (self or others) suffering, the pain should resonate, and empathic sensitivity should be experienced first. The present study examined the association between vmHRV and the empathic sensitivity and action components of trait and state compassion. To do so, several dispositional questionnaires were administered and two videos inducing empathic sensitivity (video 1) and compassionate actions (video 2) were shown, while the ECG was continuously recorded, and momentary affect was assessed. Results showed i) scores on subscales assessing the empathic component of trait compassion were inversely related to resting vmHRV; ii) vmHRV decreased after video 1 but significantly increased after video 2. As to momentary affect, video 1 was accompanied with an increase in sadness and a decrease of positive affect, whereas video 2 was characterized by an increase in anger, a parallel decrease of sadness, and an increase (although non-significant) in positive affect. Overall, present findings support the notion that it is simplistic to link compassion with higher vmHRV. Compassion encompasses increased sensitivity to emotional pain, which is naturally associated with lower vmHRV, and action to alleviate others’ suffering, which is ultimately associated with increased vmHRV. The importance of adopting a nuanced perspective on the complex physiological regulation that underlies compassionate responding to suffering is discussed.
Heart rate variability (HRV) is considered an index of self-regulatory capacity, and trait compassion predicts healthy HRV and self-regulation. Compassion focused psychotherapy interventions have been shown to increase levels of compassion in the general population but no studies to date have examined if these interventions also increase HRV in a distressed clinical sample. The present study examined whether a 12-week compassion focused therapy intervention administered in group format would improve resting HRV and impact HRV reactivity during self-critical writing and self-compassion writing tasks administered before and after the intervention. A total of 31 participants in a university counseling center completed the intervention and HRV assessments. Resting HRV did not significantly change over the course of the intervention in the overall sample. Only those who showed a reliable increase in self-compassion also had a significant increase in resting HRV post-intervention. Additionally, the self-critical writing task was associated with a significant decrease in HRV, with HRV staying low during self-compassionate writing and then significantly increasing during recovery. Reliable change in self-compassion predicted increased HRV reactivity to self-critical and self-compassion writing tasks following the intervention, indicating greater engagement with the task. Findings support the idea that increased self-compassion increases HRV reactivity and potentially strengthens ability to engage with difficult emotions in psychotherapy.
Little is known about the significance of mothers’ attachment for neurobiological responding during interactions with infants. To address this gap, this study examined links between mothers’ (N = 139) attachment representations and dynamic change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) while interacting with infants in the Still-Face Procedure (SFP). Mothers higher on secure base script knowledge (SBSK) exhibited greater RSA reactivity during the SFP characterized by lower RSA during normal play, higher RSA during the still-face, and lower RSA during reunion. Findings indicate that mothers higher on SBSK exhibit RSA responding expected to support active behavioral coping during normal play and reunion – consistent with the need to engage infants in social interaction – and RSA responding during the still-face expected to support efforts to calm the body and empathize with their infant during this distressing social disruption. Findings advance knowledge of the significance of adult attachment for the neurobiology of caregiving.
Background:
Overuse of unnecessary services, screening tests, and treatments is an ongoing problem for national health care systems. Overuse is at least partly driven by patient demand.
Purpose:
This study examined whether altering patients' emotional state and appealing to patient altruism would reduce demand for three commonly overused UK health services.
Methods:
In an online experiment, 1,267 UK volunteers were randomized to anxiety, compassion, or neutral conditions before viewing three overuse vignettes. In each vignette, use of the health service was recommended against by the doctor and participants were further randomized to one of three altruism frames, emphasizing the impact of overuse on the self, the self and others locally, or the self and others nationally. Participants rated the likelihood that they would pursue the health service and, assuming that they did not, how long they would be willing-to-wait for it.
Results:
Altruism frame had a small effect on intentions to use the health service. Those in the local or national (vs. self) frame were 4.7 and 6.1 percentage points, respectively, less likely to ask for the service. Emotion induction had no direct effect on outcomes. However, self-reporting higher levels of anxiety or compassion post-induction was associated with a small, greater likelihood in intentions to ask for the health service or willingness-to-wait, respectively. No interactions between frame and emotion were observed.
Conclusions:
As a low-cost initiative, emphasizing the benefits to the self and local or national communities could be embedded in appeals designed to appropriately reduce health care overuse in the UK.
Aspects of the social environment have been linked to the physiological mechanisms underlying behavioral self-regulation. Play, a behavior connected to regulatory behaviors such as delay of gratification and regulation of emotions, might be an aspect of social environments that is supportive of healthy physiological adaptation. We examined whether opportunities for social free play with peers, as reported by mothers, would predict children's autonomic regulation (via respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) in a sample of 78 five-year-old children. As a proxy for play experience generally, frequency of social free play in the past week predicted higher levels of RSA functioning across both baseline and stress conditions, but did not account for physiological rate of change between conditions. Thus, frequent social free play opportunities might be a general positive influence on children's autonomic regulation by supporting increased parasympathetic activation but not a significant influence on children's response to stress in the moment. Attention to the role of play in autonomic regulation is critical, as children's free play opportunities might be declining.
Attributing mental states to other people fundamentally shapes how we bond, coordinate, and predict the actions of others. Perceiving a person's facial expressions and body language in the present contribute to our ability to understand what they are thinking and feeling. Yet, people do not exist in a vacuum and individuals often think about people who are not directly in front of them. People inhabit remembered and imagined episodes, where the surrounding location and objects can guide attributions of their mental states. In this article, I propose the episodic mindreading hypothesis, arguing that the episodic representation of past and future events in which a target person is embedded will affect whether and how the target's mind is read. The content and phenomenological quality of imagined and remembered episodes can alter what mental states are attributed to a target and the accessibility of those mental states. This hypothesis encourages researchers to think about mentalizing as neither dependent on nor completely exclusive from the episodic memory system. Instead, the episodic memory system can modulate and inform mindreading, and likely vice versa. The article reviews extant knowledge and highlights open questions for future research to explore with implications for healthy and impaired social cognition.
Compassion is closely associated with prosocial behavior. Although there is growing interest in developing strategies that cultivate compassion, most available strategies rely on effortful reflective processes. Furthermore, few studies have investigated neurocognitive mechanisms underlying compassion-dependent improvement of prosocial responses. We devised a novel implicit compassion promotion task that operates based on association learning and examined its prosocial effects in two independent experiments. In Experiment 1, healthy adults were assigned to either the compassion or control group. For the intervention task, the compassion group completed word fragments that were consistently related to compassionate responses toward others; in contrast, the control group completed word fragments related to emotionally neutral responses toward others. Following the intervention task, we measured attentional biases to fearful, sad, and happy faces. Prosocial responses were assessed using two measures of helping: the pen-drop test and the helping intentions rating test. In Experiment 2, independent groups of healthy adults completed the same intervention tasks used in Experiment 1. Inside a functional MRI scanner, participants rated empathic care and distress based on either distressful or neutral video clips. Outside the scanner, we assessed the degree of helping intentions toward the victims depicted in the distressful clips. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the compassion promotion task reduced attentional vigilance to fearful faces, which in turn mediated a compassion promotion task-dependent increase in helping intentions. In Experiment 2, relative to the control group, the compassion group showed reduced empathic distress and increased activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex in response to others' suffering. Furthermore, increased functional connectivity of the medial orbitofrontal and inferior parietal cortex, predicted by reduced empathic distress, explained the increase in helping intentions. These results suggest the potential of implicit compassion promotion intervention to modulate compassion-related and prosocial responses as well as highlight the brain activation and connectivity related to these responses, contributing to our understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying compassion-dependent prosocial improvement.
The therapeutic relationship is one of the important variables that may attribute to optimal therapeutic outcomes in the context of early intensive behavior analytic interventions. Despite the fact that contribution of empathy and compassion to the establishment of a therapeutic relationship has been studied extensively within the field of psychotherapy, there are very few studies that address its impact in the context of applied behavior analytic interventions. Those studies emphasize elements of the therapist-child relationship that may be developed prior to a therapeutic session rather than during a session.
The purpose of the study was to investigate the therapeutic relationship between ABA therapists and children with ASD in the context of a therapeutic session and in relation to the level of clinical expertise of the therapists. Specifically, several variables were identified and analyzed systematically in terms of their contribution to the enhancement of a therapeutic relationship, such as compassion and physical proximity of the therapist to the child, contingent delivery of social reinforcement, and imitative responding. Other than the analysis of direct primary data of the dependent measures, descriptive and inferential statistics were used to assess the differences among therapists with several years of experience and minimal clinical experience. To assess the reliability of the data, interobserver agreement measures were obtained throughout the study.
The results of the study suggest that experienced therapists demonstrated higher rates of all the above skills, with the exception of the therapists' response to the positive emotions of children with ASD, a condition under which the inexperienced therapists responded with higher rates of compassion. Nonetheless, a statistically significant difference between the two groups of therapists was obtained only in terms of demonstrating compassion on the part of the therapist, therapists’ reaction to negative emotions, the demonstration of physical proximity with engagement, the description and positive and negative emotions of children with ASD.
The findings of this study demonstrate that the clinical experience of therapists may play an important role in developing and in promoting the establishment of a therapeutic relationship between children with ASD and their therapists. The difference between the two groups of therapists may be attributed to several characteristics of experienced therapists, such as their ability to demonstrate compassion and their use of appropriate interpersonal skills.
The functioning of social collectives hinges on the willingness of their members to cooperate with one another and to help those who are in need. Here we consider how such prosocial behavior is shaped by emotions. We offer an integrative review of theoretical arguments and empirical findings concerning how the experience of emotions influences people’s own prosocial behavior (intrapersonal effects) and how the expression of emotions influences others’ prosocial behavior (interpersonal effects). We identified research on five broad clusters of emotions associated with opportunity and affiliation (happiness, contentment, hope), appreciation and self-transcendence (gratitude, awe, elevation, compassion), distress and supplication (sadness, disappointment, fear, anxiety), dominance and status assertion (anger, disgust, contempt, envy, pride), and appeasement and social repair (guilt, regret, shame, embarrassment). Our review reveals notable differences between emotion clusters and between intrapersonal and interpersonal effects. Although some emotions promote prosocial behavior in the self and others, most emotions promote prosocial behavior either in the self (via their intrapersonal effects) or in others (via their interpersonal effects), suggesting trade-offs between the functionality of emotional experience and emotional expression. Moreover, interpersonal effects are modulated by the cooperative versus competitive nature of the situation. We discuss the emerging patterns from a social-functional perspective and conclude that understanding the role of emotion in prosociality requires joint attention to intrapersonal and interpersonal effects.
The primary mechanism of change in emotion-focused couples therapy (EFT-C) is described as one partner accessing and expressing vulnerability, with the other partner responding affiliatively, with compassion, acceptance, validation, and support. These interactions are assumed to restructure the negative, rigid interactional cycle that usually brings couples to therapy and helps build a positive emotional bond. The primary aim of this study was to test whether for this process to occur, partners need to accurately perceive their spouse's experiences of vulnerability during therapy. Specifically, it examined the factors (i.e., tracking accuracy, assumed-similarity bias, and directional bias) shaping partners' perceptions of their spouse's vulnerability and whether accurate perceptions predict positive session outcomes during EFT-C. Data from 36 couples who took part in the York Emotional Injury Project were analyzed. Following each session, clients reported their own experience of vulnerability as well as their perceptions of their partners' vulnerability. Session outcome was defined as the extent to which clients reported resolution. Using a multilevel Truth and Bias model, the results indicated that partners accurately perceived changes in their spouses' expressions of vulnerability (i.e., significant tracking accuracy). Interestingly, partners' perceptions were also tied to their own expressions of vulnerability (i.e., significant assumed-similarity bias) and tended to underestimate the level of their partners' vulnerability expressions (i.e., significant negative mean-level bias). Using a multilevel Response Surface Analysis, we found that accuracy regarding partners' vulnerability was associated with higher levels of resolution.
This research explores vagal flexibility—dynamic modulation of cardiac vagal control—as an individual-level physiological index of social sensitivity. In four studies, we test the hypothesis that individuals with greater cardiac vagal flexibility, operationalized as higher cardiac vagal tone at rest and greater cardiac vagal withdrawal (indexed by a decrease in RSA) during cognitive or attentional demand, perceive social-emotional information more accurately and show greater sensitivity to their social context. Study 1 sets the foundation for this investigation by establishing that vagal flexibility can be elicited consistently in the laboratory and reliably over time. Study 2 demonstrates that vagal flexibility has different associations with psychological characteristics than vagal tone, and that these characteristics are primarily social in nature. Study 3 links individual differences in vagal flexibility with accurate detection of social and emotional cues depicted in still facial images. Study 4 demonstrates that individuals with greater vagal flexibility respond to dynamic social feedback in a more context-sensitive manner than do individuals with less vagal flexibility. Specifically, compared to their less flexible counterparts, individuals with greater vagal flexibility, when assigned to receive negative social feedback, report more shame, show more pronounced stress responses, and display less sociable behavior, but when receiving positive social feedback display more sociable behavior. Taken together, these findings suggest that vagal flexibility is a useful individual difference physiological predictor of social sensitivity, which may have implications for clinical, developmental, and health psychologists.
Recently, investigators have challenged long‐standing assumptions that facial expressions of emotion follow specific emotion‐eliciting events and relate to other emotion‐specific responses. We address these challenges by comparing spontaneous facial expressions of anger, sadness, laughter, and smiling with concurrent, “on‐line” appraisal themes from narrative data, and by examining whether coherence between facial and appraisal components were associated with increased experience of emotion. Consistent with claims that emotion systems are loosely coupled, facial expressions of anger and sadness co‐occurred to a moderate degree with the expected appraisal themes, and when this happened, the experience of emotion was stronger. The results for the positive emotions were more complex, but lend credence to the hypothesis that laughter and smiling are distinct. Smiling co‐occurred with appraisals of pride, but never occurred with appraisals of anger. In contrast, laughter occurred more often with appraisals of anger, a finding consistent with recent evidence linking laughter to the dissociation or undoing of negative emotion.
What accounts for variation in empathy felt for strangers in need? Currently, one of the most popular explanations among personality and social psychologists is perceived similarity: We feel sympathy and compassion for others to the degree that we perceive them to be like us. Two experiments designed to test the perceived similarity explanation more directly than previous research failed to find support. Results of the second experiment instead supported a classical, but currently less popular, explanation of empathy felt for strangers: nurturant tendencies based on the impulse to care for and protect offspring. We noted distinct theoretical and practical implications of the similarity and nurturance explanations. In addition, we encourage increased attention to nurturance as a possible source of empathy.
The mechanisms underlying the association between positive emotions and physical health remain a mystery. We hypothesize that an upward-spiral dynamic continually reinforces the tie between positive emotions and physical health and that this spiral is mediated by people's perceptions of their positive social connections. We tested this overarching hypothesis in a longitudinal field experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to an intervention group that self-generated positive emotions via loving-kindness meditation or to a waiting-list control group. Participants in the intervention group increased in positive emotions relative to those in the control group, an effect moderated by baseline vagal tone, a proxy index of physical health. Increased positive emotions, in turn, produced increases in vagal tone, an effect mediated by increased perceptions of social connections. This experimental evidence identifies one mechanism-perceptions of social connections-through which positive emotions build physical health, indexed as vagal tone. Results suggest that positive emotions, positive social connections, and physical health influence one another in a self-sustaining upward-spiral dynamic.
The purposes of this study were threefold: (a) to determine whether physiological (heart rate), facial, and self-report indices could be used to differentiate between different vicariously induced negative emotional states (i.e., those related conceptually to the study of empathy), (b) to examine developmental differences in the degree of differentiation in the aforementioned indices of emotional response, and (c) to assess the pattern of interrelations among heart rate (HR), facial, and self-report indices of response to emotion-eliciting stimuli. Preschoolers and second graders viewed three films that portrayed situations related to others' emotions of anxiety or apprehension, empathic sadness, and cognitively induced sympathy. Children's HR accelerated during the anxiety film and decelerated during the cognitive-sympathy and sad films. Children's nonphysiological reactions also were highly consistent with the film content. The interrelations among modes of responses were generally consistent with the view that the various indices were positively rather than inversely related. There were also some positive relations between the indices of emotion and a questionnaire measure of empathy. The results are discussed in terms of current work concerning empathy and other emotional responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the behavioral and physiological correlates of children's reactions to others in distress and the relation of these to dispositional helpfulness. 37 3rd graders and 29 6th graders watched a film about a distressed child. Facial expressions, heart rate variability (HRV), and skin conductance (SC) were recorded during the film. An index of dispositional helpfulness was obtained from children's mothers. High HRV was predictive of children's sympathetic rather than distressed reactions. For boys, sympathetic responsiveness positively predicted dispositional helpfulness; for girls, SC was inversely related to dispositional helpfulness. It was concluded that children who are able to regulate their vicariously induced emotional responsiveness are relatively likely to experience sympathy and relatively unlikely to experience personal distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A model is presented to account for the natural selection of what is termed reciprocally altruistic behavior. The model shows how selection can operate against the cheater (non-reciprocator) in the system. Three instances of altruistic behavior are discussed, the evolution of which the model can explain: (1) behavior involved in cleaning symbioses; (2) warning cries in birds; and (3) human reciprocal altruism. Regarding human reciprocal altruism, it is shown that the details of the psychological system that regulates this altruism can be explained by the model. Specifically, friendship, dislike, moralistic aggression, gratitude, sympathy, trust, suspicion, trustworthiness, aspects of guilt, and some forms of dishonesty and hypocrisy can be explained as important adaptations to regulate the altruistic system. Each individual human is seen as possessing altruistic and cheating tendencies, the expression of which is sensitive to developmental variables that were selected to set the tendencies at a balance ap...
This study measured heart-rate variability and cortisol to explore whether Compassion-Focused Imagery (CFI) could stimulate a soothing affect system. We also explored individual differences (self-reported self-criticism, attachment style and psychopathology) to CFI. Participants were given a relaxation, compassion-focused and control imagery task. While some individuals showed an increase in heart rate variability during CFI, others had a decrease. There was some indication that this was related to peoples self-reports of self-criticism, and attachment style. Those with an increase in heart rate variability also showed a significant cortisol decrease. Hence, CFI can stimulate a soothing affect system and attenuate hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity in some individuals but those who are more self-critical, with an insecure attachment style may require therapeutic interventions to benefit from CFI.
ABSTRACT—Developmental research on emotion regulation is increasingly advancing toward a systems view that integrates behavioral and biological constituents of emotional self-control. However, this view poses fundamental challenges to prevailing conceptualizations of emotion regulation. In portraying emotion regulation as a network of multilevel processes characterized by feedback and interaction between higher and lower systems, it becomes increasingly apparent that emotion regulation is a component of (rather than a response to) emotional activation, that it derives from the mutual influence of multiple emotion-related systems (rather than the maturation of higher control processes alone), and that it sometimes contributes to maladaptive behavioral outcomes, especially in conditions of environmental adversity. The implications of this perspective for the developmental study of emotion regulation are discussed.
Neural circuits regulate cytokine production to prevent potentially damaging inflammation. A prototypical vagus nerve circuit,
the inflammatory reflex, inhibits tumor necrosis factor–α production in spleen by a mechanism requiring acetylcholine signaling
through the α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor expressed on cytokine-producing macrophages. Nerve fibers in spleen lack the
enzymatic machinery necessary for acetylcholine production; therefore, how does this neural circuit terminate in cholinergic
signaling? We identified an acetylcholine-producing, memory phenotype T cell population in mice that is integral to the inflammatory
reflex. These acetylcholine-producing T cells are required for inhibition of cytokine production by vagus nerve stimulation.
Thus, action potentials originating in the vagus nerve regulate T cells, which in turn produce the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine,
required to control innate immune responses.
This study examined neural activation during the experience of compassion, an emotion that orients people toward vulnerable others and prompts caregiving, and pride, a self-focused emotion that signals individual strength and heightened status. Functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) were acquired as participants viewed 55 s continuous sequences of slides to induce either compassion or pride, presented in alternation with sequences of neutral slides. Emotion self-report data were collected after each slide condition within the fMRI scanner. Compassion induction was associated with activation in the midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG), a region that is activated during pain and the perception of others' pain, and that has been implicated in parental nurturance behaviors. Pride induction engaged the posterior medial cortex, a region that has been associated with self-referent processing. Self-reports of compassion experience were correlated with increased activation in a region near the PAG, and in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Self-reports of pride experience, in contrast, were correlated with reduced activation in the IFG and the anterior insula. These results provide preliminary evidence towards understanding the neural correlates of important interpersonal dimensions of compassion and pride. Caring (compassion) and self-focus (pride) may represent core appraisals that differentiate the response profiles of many emotions.
Although evidence has suggested that synchronized movement can foster cooperation, the ability of synchrony to increase costly altruism and to operate as a function of emotional mechanisms remains unexplored. We predicted that synchrony, due to an ability to elicit low-level appraisals of similarity, would enhance a basic compassionate response toward victims of moral transgressions and thereby increase subsequent costly helping behavior on their behalf. Using a manipulation of rhythmic synchrony, we show that synchronous others are not only perceived to be more similar to oneself but also evoke more compassion and altruistic behavior than asynchronous others experiencing the same plight. These findings both support the view that a primary function of synchrony is to mark others as similar to the self and provide the first empirical demonstration that synchrony-induced affiliation modulates emotional responding and altruism.
Vagal tone (VT), an index of autonomic flexibility, is linked to social and psychological well-being. We posit that the association between VT and well-being reflects an "upward spiral" in which autonomic flexibility, represented by VT, facilitates capitalizing on social and emotional opportunities and the resulting opportunistic gains, in turn, lead to higher VT. Community-dwelling adults were asked to monitor and report their positive emotions and the degree to which they felt socially connected each day for 9 weeks. VT was measured at the beginning and end of the 9-week period. Adults who possessed higher initial levels of VT increased in connectedness and positive emotions more rapidly than others. Furthermore, increases in connectedness and positive emotions predicted increases in VT, independent of initial VT level. This evidence is consistent with an "upward spiral" relationship of reciprocal causality, in which VT and psychosocial well-being reciprocally and prospectively predict one another.
What is compassion? And how did it evolve? In this review, we integrate 3 evolutionary arguments that converge on the hypothesis that compassion evolved as a distinct affective experience whose primary function is to facilitate cooperation and protection of the weak and those who suffer. Our empirical review reveals compassion to have distinct appraisal processes attuned to undeserved suffering; distinct signaling behavior related to caregiving patterns of touch, posture, and vocalization; and a phenomenological experience and physiological response that orients the individual to social approach. This response profile of compassion differs from those of distress, sadness, and love, suggesting that compassion is indeed a distinct emotion. We conclude by considering how compassion shapes moral judgment and action, how it varies across different cultures, and how it may engage specific patterns of neural activation, as well as emerging directions of research.
Studies of emotion signaling inform claims about the taxonomic structure, evolutionary origins, and physiological correlates of emotions. Emotion vocalization research has tended to focus on a limited set of emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, happiness, and for the voice, also tenderness. Here, we examine how well brief vocal bursts can communicate 22 different emotions: 9 negative (Study 1) and 13 positive (Study 2), and whether prototypical vocal bursts convey emotions more reliably than heterogeneous vocal bursts (Study 3). Results show that vocal bursts communicate emotions like anger, fear, and sadness, as well as seldom-studied states like awe, compassion, interest, and embarrassment. Ancillary analyses reveal family-wise patterns of vocal burst expression. Errors in classification were more common within emotion families (e.g., 'self-conscious,' 'pro-social') than between emotion families. The three studies reported highlight the voice as a rich modality for emotion display that can inform fundamental constructs about emotion.
Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSAREST) indexes important aspects of individual differences in emotionality. In the present investigation, the authors address whether RSAREST is associated with tonic positive or negative emotionality, and whether RSAREST relates to phasic emotional responding to discrete positive emotion-eliciting stimuli. Across an 8-month, multiassessment study of first-year university students (n = 80), individual differences in RSAREST were associated with positive but not negative tonic emotionality, assessed at the level of personality traits, long-term moods, the disposition toward optimism, and baseline reports of current emotional states. RSAREST was not related to increased positive emotion, or stimulus-specific emotion, in response to compassion-, awe-, or pride-inducing stimuli. These findings suggest that resting RSA indexes aspects of a person's tonic positive emotionality.
Assessed sympathy and personal distress with facial and physiological indexes (heart rate) as well as self-report indexes and examined the relations of these various indexes to prosocial behavior for children and adults in an easy escape condition. Heart rate deceleration during exposure to the needy others was associated with increased willingness to help. In addition, adults' reports of sympathy, as well as facial sadness and concerned attention, were positively related to their intention to assist. For children, there was some indication that report of positive affect and facial distress were negatively related to prosocial intentions and behavior, whereas facial concern was positively related to the indexes of prosocial behavior. These findings are interpreted as providing additional, convergent support for the notion that sympathy and personal distress are differentially related to prosocial behavior. Over the years, numerous philosophers (e.g., Blum, 1980) and psychologists (e.g., Barnett, 1987; Feshbach, 1978; Hoffman, 1984; Staub, 1978) have argued that empathy and sympathy, denned primarily in affective terms, are important motivators of altruistic behavior. In general, it has been asserted that people who experience emotional reactions consistent with the state of another and who feel other-oriented concern for the other are relatively likely to be motivated to alleviate the other's need or distress.
1What is an Emotion?2Universals and Cultural Variations in Emotion3Emotion and Reason4Social Construction of Emotion5Emotion and Happiness6Summary
In the present paper, we introduce the Quadratic Vagal Activity-Prosociality Hypothesis,
a theoretical framework for understanding the vagus nerve’s involvement in prosociality. We
argue that vagus nerve activity supports prosocial behavior by regulating physiological systems
that enable emotional expression, empathy for others’ mental and emotional states, the regulation
of one’s own distress, and the experience of positive emotions. However, we contend that
extremely high levels of vagal activity can be detrimental to prosociality. This paper presents
three studies providing support for our model, finding consistent evidence of a quadratic
relationship between respiratory sinus arrhythmia—the degree to which the vagus nerve
modulates the heart rate—and prosociality. Individual differences in vagal activity were
quadratically related to prosocial traits (Study 1), prosocial emotions (Study 2), and outside
ratings of prosociality by complete strangers (Study 3). Thus, too much or too little vagal activity
appears to be detrimental to prosociality. The present paper provides the first theoretical and
empirical account of the non-linear relationship between vagal activity and prosociality.
We tested associations among empathic responsiveness, attachment style, and vagal tone (a physiologic index of emotion regulation) in 103 mother–adolescent dyads. Dyads discussed positive and negative topics and then separately reviewed a videotape of the interaction and rated their own and the other person's affect at one‐minute intervals. We used multilevel modeling to analyze the association between one's rating of the other person's affect and the other person's affect (empathic sensitivity), and the association between one's rating of the other person's affect and one's own affect (perceived concordance). Adolescents’ empathic responsiveness was predicted by attachment style, vagal tone, and interactions between them. Adolescents with the greatest empathic responsiveness had low levels of attachment insecurity and high levels of vagal tone.
Although a common and occasionally troubling reaction, social blushing has received little systematic attention from either medical or behavioral researchers. This article reviews what is known of the physiological and psychological processes that mediate social blushing, and speculates regarding the role of central mechanisms in the phenomenon. Blushing is characterized by the unusual combination of cutaneous vasodilatation of the face, neck, and ears, accompanied by activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Psychologically, blushing appears to occur when people receive undesired social attention from others and may be analogous to the appeasement displays observed in non-human primates. Although poorly understood, the central mechanisms that mediate blushing obviously involve both involuntary autonomic effector systems and higher areas that involve self-reflective thought. Questions for future research are suggested.
The study of prosocial behavior-altruism, cooperation, trust, and the related moral emotions-has matured enough to produce general scholarly consensus that prosociality is widespread, intuitive, and rooted deeply within our biological makeup. Several evolutionary frameworks model the conditions under which prosocial behavior is evolutionarily viable, yet no unifying treatment exists of the psychological decision-making processes that result in prosociality. Here, we provide such a perspective in the form of the sociocultural appraisals, values, and emotions (SAVE) framework of prosociality. We review evidence for the components of our framework at four levels of analysis: intrapsychic, dyadic, group, and cultural. Within these levels, we consider how phenomena such as altruistic punishment, prosocial contagion, self-other similarity, and numerous others give rise to prosocial behavior. We then extend our reasoning to chart the biological underpinnings of prosociality and apply our framework to understand the role of social class in prosociality.
Theoretically, people who have the benefits of secure social attachments should find it easier to perceive and respond to other people's suffering, compared with those who have insecure attachments. This is because compassionate reactions are products of what has been called the caregiving behavioral system, the optimal functioning of which depends on its not being inhibited by attachment insecurity (the failure of the attachment behavioral system to attain its own goal, safety and security provided by a caring attachment figure). In a series of recent studies, we have found that compassionate feelings and values, as well as responsive, altruistic behaviors, are promoted by both dispositional and experimentally induced attachment security. These studies and the theoretical ideas that generated them provide guidelines for enhancing compassion and altruism in the real world.
Two experiments tested the idea that empathy-induced helping is due to self–other merging. To manipulate empathy, half of the participants in each experiment received instructions to remain objective while hearing about a young woman in need (low-empathy condition), and half received instructions to imagine her feelings (high-empathy condition). To check generality of the empathy–helping relationship, half in each empathy condition learned that the young woman was a student at their university (shared group membership), and half learned that she was a student at a rival university (unshared group membership). Self-reported empathy for and willingness to help the young woman were assessed, and 3 measures of self–other merging were taken. In each experiment, an empathy–helping relationship was found, unqualified by group membership, that could not be accounted for by any of the merging measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Mindfulness meditation has beneficial effects on brain and body, yet the impact of Vipassana, a type of mindfulness meditation, on heart rate variability (HRV) - a psychophysiological marker of mental and physical health - is unknown. We hypothesised increases in measures of well-being and HRV, and decreases in ill-being after training in Vipassana compared to before (time effects), during the meditation task compared to resting baseline (task effects), and a time by task interaction with more pronounced differences between tasks after Vipassana training. HRV (5-minute resting baseline vs. 5-minute meditation) was collected from 36 participants before and after they completed a 10-day intensive Vipassana retreat. Changes in three frequency-domain measures of HRV were analysed using 2 (Time; pre- vs. post- Vipassana) x 2 (Task; resting baseline vs. meditation) within subjects ANOVA . These measures were: normalised high-frequency power (HF n.u.), a widely used biomarker of parasympathetic activity; log-transformed high frequency power (ln HF), a measure of RSA and required to interpret normalised HF; and Traube-Hering-Mayer waves (THM), a component of the low frequency spectrum linked to baroreflex outflow. As expected, participants showed significantly increased well-being, and decreased ill-being. ln HF increased overall during meditation compared to resting baseline, while there was a time*task interaction for THM. Further testing revealed that pre-Vipassana only ln HF increased during meditation (vs. resting baseline), consistent with a change in respiration. Post-Vipassana, the meditation task increased HF n.u. and decreased THM compared to resting baseline, suggesting post-Vipassana task-related changes are characterised by a decrease in absolute LF power, not parasympathetic-mediated increases in HF power. Such baroreflex changes are classically associated with attentional load, and our results are interpreted in light of the concept of 'flow' - a state of positive and full immersion in an activity. These results are also consistent with changes in normalised HRV reported in other meditation studies.
The Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 2007) represents a biobehavioral model that relates autonomic functioning to self-regulation and social engagement. The aim of the two presented studies was to test the proposed association of cardiac vagal tone (CVT), assessed via resting high-frequency heart rate variability (respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA), with coping, emotion-regulation, and social engagement in young adults. In Study 1 (retrospective self-report), RSA was positively associated with engagement coping (situation control, response control, positive self-instructions, social-support seeking) and aspects of social well-being. In Study 2 (ecological momentary assessment), for 28 days following the initial assessment, RSA predicted less use of disengagement strategies (acceptance and avoidance) for regulating negative emotions and more use of socially adaptive emotion-regulation strategies (i.e., social-support seeking as a reaction to sadness and making a concession as a reaction to anger caused by others). Furthermore, RSA was higher in participants who reported no anger episodes compared to those who reported at least one anger episode and was positively associated with reported episodes of negative emotions. Results support the association proposed by the PVT between CVT and self-regulatory behavior, which promotes social bonds.
This study examined mothers' physiological reactivity in response to infant distress during the Still-Face Paradigm. We aimed to explore normative regulatory profiles and associated physiological and behavioral processes in order to further our understanding of what constitutes regulation in this dyadic context. We examined physiological patterns-vagal tone, indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)-while mothers maintained a neutral expression over the course of the still face episode, as well as differential reactivity patterns in mothers with depression symptoms compared to non-depressed mothers. Behavioral and physiological data were collected from mothers of 5-month-old infants during the emotion suppression phase of the Still-Face Paradigm. We used Hierarchical Linear Modeling to examine changes in mothers' RSA during infant distress and explored maternal depression as a predictor of physiological profiles. Mothers were generally able to maintain a neutral expression and simultaneously demonstrated a mean-level increase in RSA during the still face episode compared to baseline, indicating an active regulatory response overall. A more detailed time-course examination of RSA trajectories revealed that an initial RSA increase was typically followed by a decrease in response to peak infant distress, suggesting a physiological mobilization response. However, this was not true of mothers with elevated depressive symptoms, who showed no change in RSA during infant distress. These distinct patterns of infant distress-related physiological activation may help to explain differences in maternal sensitivity and adaptive parenting.
How accurately can people remember how they felt in the past? Although some investigators hold that emotional memories are resistant to change, we review evidence that current emotions, appraisals, and coping efforts, as well as personality traits, are all associated with bias in recalling past emotions. Bias occurs as memories of emotional states are updated in light of subsequent experience and goals. Biased memories in turn influence future plans and emotions, and may contribute to the formation of enduring personality traits. People's memories for emotions provide highly condensed and accessible summaries of the relevance of past experiences to current goals.
Background:
The induction of one particular emotion - sadness - has shown two different profiles of autonomic nervous system (ANS) response that are characterized by activation, or withdrawal in cardiac parasympathetic activation. We tested whether individual differences in emotion expression predict cardiac vagal reactivity from baseline to autobiographical sadness induction.
Methods:
Respiration sinus arrhythmia (RSA(c)) was measured in 56 adults (28 men) asked to relive an episode of sadness. Participants completed an emotional intelligence (EI) test, and a measure of trait affect intensity.
Results:
Sadness resulted in cardiac vagal activation with concomitant increase in HR suggestive of parasympathetic and sympathetic co-activation. Individual differences were observed in autonomic reactivity during sadness. Higher scores on the affect intensity measure and the emotional intelligence test predicted greater change in RSA(c) during sadness and recovery.
Conclusion:
The tendency to experience affect intensely and the ability to perceive emotions predict adaptive physiological regulation during sadness.
This chapter presents an overview of the major facts about the functional neuroanatomy of positive affect in humans. It sketches a model of differentiation between two types of positive affect that is based on a consideration of underlying neural circuitry. Data on the functional neuroanatomy of this circuitry are reviewed with an emphasis on evidence accrued from brain-imaging studies. The data provide a foundation for a consideration of individual differences in components of this circuitry. The chapter then focuses on the nomological network of associations that define one form of positive affective style. The consequences of this style for a broad range of phenomena, including immune function, neuroendocrine function, and cognitive processing, are considered. The chapter also addresses the question of plasticity and considers some of the implications of these data for varied interrelated issues, including self-efficacy and mastery, physical health, resilience and illness, and invulnerability to psychopathology. It explicitly considers what bearing these data might have on understanding the biological bases of compassion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Little work on the psychophysiology of blushing has been done since Darwin's 1872 observations. Facial vascular and temperature changes have been largely ignored in psychophysiology. We had 16 female and 16 male undergraduate volunteers watch a videotape intended to produce blushing (the individual's singing recorded the previous day), and a videotape not intended to produce blushing, but elicit physiological responses for comparison (a segment from Hitchcock's movie Psycho). Four people were present as a subject watched these video segments. Cheek and ear coloration, measured photoplethysmographically, cheek temperature, and finger skin conductance responses were significantly greater during stimulation intended to elicit blushing than during comparison stimulation. Gender interacted statistically with kind of stimulation only in cheek temperature. Only video segments of the subject's face that coincided with maximal cheek coloration during stimulation intended to produce blushing were judged reliably as blushing, and then more often in females than in males.
In this article, we advance the perspective that distinct emotions amplify different moral judgments, based on the emotion's core appraisals. This theorizing yields four insights into the way emotions shape moral judgment. We submit that there are two kinds of specificity in the impact of emotion upon moral judgment: domain specificity and emotion specificity. We further contend that the unique embodied aspects of an emotion, such as nonverbal expressions and physiological responses, contribute to an emotion's impact on moral judgment. Finally, emotions play a key role in determining which issues acquire moral significance in a society over time, in a process known as moralization (Rozin, 1999). The implications of these four observations for future research on emotion and morality are discussed.
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is being used increasingly in psychophysiological studies as an index of vagal control of the heart and may be among the most selective noninvasive indices of parasympathetic control of cardiac functions. A comprehensive understanding of RSA, however, requires an appreciation of its multiple autonomic and physiological origins. We review the physiological bases of RSA and show that RSA arises from multiple tonic and phasic processes of both central and peripheral origin. These underlying mechanisms are at least partially differentiated, have distinct dynamics and consequences, and may be differentially sensitive to behavioral and cognitive events. These multiple mechanisms are relevant for psychophysiological studies of RSA, and a thorough understanding of RSA can only be achieved through an appreciation of the dynamics of its underlying origins. There is a distinction between the psychophysiological and neurophysiological domains, and conceptual and empirical bridges between these domains are needed.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of a measure of children's dispositional prosocial behavior (i.e., peer nominations) to individual differences in children's negative emotionality, regulation, and social functioning. Children with prosocial reputations tended to be high in constructive social skills (i.e., socially appropriate behavior and constructive coping) and attentional regulation, and low in negative emotionality. The relations of children's negative emotionality to prosocial reputation were moderated by level of dispositional attentional regulation. In addition, the relations of prosocial reputation to constructive social skills and parent-reported negative emotionality (for girls) increased with age. Vagal tone, a marker of physiological regulation, was negatively related to girls' prosocial reputation.
Multiple measures of children's emotionality (emotional intensity and negative affectivity), regulation (including attentional and behavioral regulation and coping), and social functioning (teachers' reports of nonaggressive/socially appropriate behavior and prosocial/socially competent behavior; and parents' reports of problem behavior) were obtained for 6–8-year-olds. In addition, emotionality, attentional regulation, and coping were assessed 2 years previously. Social functioning was expected to be predicted by low negative emotionality and high levels of regulation. In general, the data supported the predictions, although the findings for parent reports of problem behavior were primarily for boys. Prediction of social functioning from measures of regulation and emotionality occurred primarily within a given context (school vs. home) rather than across contexts, even though there were relations across reporters within the school or home context. In addition, vagal tone, a marker of physiological regulation, was positively related to competent social functioning and emotionality/regulation for boys, but inversely related for girls.
Following decades of controversy and uncertainty, there is now sufficient empirical basis for asserting the existence of a limited set of autonomic differences among emotions. Findings of autonomic distinctions among emotions-derived from the work of the author and his colleagues using two methods of emotion elicitation are reviewed. For five of these autonomic distinctions, convergent findings from the work of other investigators using the same and other elicitation methods are presented. © 1992, Association for Psychological Science. All rights reserved.
Documented with 2 experiments a phenomenon of duration neglect in people's global evaluations of past affective experiences. In Study 1, 32 Ss viewed aversive film clips and pleasant film clips that varied in duration and intensity. Ss provided real-time ratings of affect during each clip and global evaluations of each clip when it was over. In Study 2, 96 Ss viewed these same clips and later ranked them by their contribution to an overall experience of pleasantness (or unpleasantness). Experimental Ss ranked the films from memory; control Ss were informed of the ranking task in advance and encouraged to make evaluations on-line. Effects of film duration on retropsective evaluations were small, entirely explained by changes in real-time affects and further reduced when made from memory. Retrospective evaluations appear to be determined by a weighing average of "snapshots" of the actual affective experiences, as if duration did not matter.
Previous research indicates that lower-class individuals experience elevated negative emotions as compared with their upper-class counterparts. We examine how the environments of lower-class individuals can also promote greater compassionate responding-that is, concern for the suffering or well-being of others. In the present research, we investigate class-based differences in dispositional compassion and its activation in situations wherein others are suffering. Across studies, relative to their upper-class counterparts, lower-class individuals reported elevated dispositional compassion (Study 1), as well as greater self-reported compassion during a compassion-inducing video (Study 2) and for another person during a social interaction (Study 3). Lower-class individuals also exhibited heart rate deceleration-a physiological response associated with orienting to the social environment and engaging with others-during the compassion-inducing video (Study 2). We discuss a potential mechanism of class-based influences on compassion, whereby lower-class individuals' are more attuned to others' distress, relative to their upper-class counterparts.
Individuals who are homozygous for the G allele of the rs53576 SNP of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene tend to be more prosocial than carriers of the A allele. However, little is known about how these differences manifest behaviorally and whether they are readily detectable by outside observers, both critical questions in theoretical accounts of prosociality. In the present study, we used thin-slicing methodology to test the hypotheses that (i) individual differences in rs53576 genotype predict how prosocial observers judge target individuals to be on the basis of brief observations of behavior, and (ii) that variation in targets' nonverbal displays of affiliative cues would account for these judgment differences. In line with predictions, we found that individuals homozygous for the G allele were judged to be more prosocial than carriers of the A allele. These differences were completely accounted for by variations in the expression of affiliative cues. Thus, individual differences in rs53576 are associated with behavioral manifestations of prosociality, which ultimately guide the judgments others make about the individual.
Compassion and pride serve contrasting social functions: Compassion motivates care-taking behavior, whereas pride enables the signaling and negotiation of rank within social hierarchies. Across 3 studies, compassion was associated with increased perceived self-other similarity, particularly to weak or vulnerable others. In contrast, pride was associated with an enhanced sense of similarity to strong others, and a decreased sense of similarity to weak others. These findings were obtained using trait measures (Study 1) and experimental inductions (Studies 2 and 3) of compassion and pride, examining the sense of similarity to strong or weak groups (Studies 1 and 2) and unfamiliar individuals (Study 3). The influences of compassion and pride on perceived self-other similarity could not be accounted for by positive mood, nor was this effect constrained by the ingroup status of the target group or individual. Discussion focuses on the contributions these findings make to an understanding of compassion and pride.
In contrast to a general model of stress, a functional model suggests that emotions may regulate stress responses in specific adaptive ways. The current study examined whether anger and fear during a challenging stress task (Trier Social Stress Task) were differentially associated with cortisol and proinflammatory cytokine responses to an acute stressor. Baseline anger and fear were related to greater cortisol and proinflammatory cytokines. However, anger reactions to the stressor were associated with greater stress-related increases in cortisol over time but not proinflammatory cytokines. In contrast, fear reactions to the stressor were associated with increases in stress-related proinflammatory cytokines over time and a decrease in cortisol. Results are consistent with the functional perspective that distinct emotional experiences appear to trigger temporally-patterned adaptive biological processes to mobilize energy in response to anger and to promote withdrawal in response to fear. Discussion focuses on the role of the HPA axis to increase available metabolic fuel and proinflammatory cytokines to prompt behavioral withdrawal.
People are often profoundly moved by the virtue or skill of others, yet psychology has little to say about the 'other-praising' family of emotions. Here we demonstrate that emotions such as elevation, gratitude, and admiration differ from more commonly studied forms of positive affect (joy and amusement) in many ways, and from each other in a few ways. The results of studies using recall, video induction, event-contingent diary, and letter-writing methods to induce other-praising emotions suggest that: elevation (a response to moral excellence) motivates prosocial and affiliative behavior, gratitude motivates improved relationships with benefactors, and admiration motivates self-improvement. Mediation analyses highlight the role of conscious emotion between appraisals and motivations. Discussion focuses on implications for emotion research, interpersonal relationships, and morality.