情绪强度对疼痛共情的影响

The Effect of Emotional Intensity on Pain Empathy

摘要: 现已有研究发现情绪对疼痛共情的确存在较大的影响，积极情绪会促进个体对他人疼痛共情的产生，而消极情绪则会抑制个体对他人的疼痛共情。但情绪的强度对疼痛共情是否存在不同程度的影响还存在质疑。为了探索情绪强度对个体疼痛共情能力的影响，本研究通过让被试观看不同情绪唤醒类型，及不同唤醒强度的视频来诱发被试产生不同类型及不同强度的情绪。被试在完成情绪诱发任务后，观看两组图片类型(即疼痛图片和非疼痛图片)并进行疼痛判断任务(即图片中的个体是否会感到疼痛)。结果发现，积极情绪状态下个体对疼痛图片判断的正确率更低，反应时更长；消极情绪状态下个体对疼痛图片判断的正确率更低；中性情绪状态下个体对疼痛图片判断的正确率更高，反应时更短。本研究发现积极情绪和消极情绪均会抑制个体对他人的疼痛共情，而情绪强度并不会影响个体对他人疼痛共情。

Abstract: Previous studies have found that emotions do have a greater impact on pain empathy. Positive emotions could promote individual empathizes other’s pain, while negative emotion would inhibit it. However, it is still questionable whether the intensity of emotions affects empathy to varying degrees. In order to explore the effect of emotional intensity of individual empathy, this study in-duced participants to have different levels of emotion by allowing participants to watch different types and intensity of emotional videos. After finishing the task of emotion, all participants viewed two types of pictures (i.e. pain picture vs. non-pain picture) and performed pain judgment tasks (i.e. whether the individual in the picture felt pain). We found that individuals were less accurate in judging pain pictures, and the response time was longer than non-pain picture under positive emotional state. Under negative emotions state, participants have a lower accuracy of pain picture than non-pain picture. However, under neutral emotional state, individuals have a higher accuracy and shorter response time of pain picture rather than non-pain picture. This study found that both positive and negative emotions can suppress an individual’s empathy for other’s pain, but emotional intensity does not affect an individual’s empathy for others’ pain.