The DOI matches its Crossref record; 65 of the 65 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Are strong empathizers better mentalizers? Evidence for independence and interaction between the routes of social cognition
Open accessAbstract
Although the processes that underlie sharing others' emotions (empathy) and understanding others' mental states (mentalizing, Theory of Mind) have received increasing attention, it is yet unclear how they relate to each other. For instance, are people who strongly empathize with others also more proficient in mentalizing? And (how) do the neural networks supporting empathy and mentalizing interact? Assessing both functions simultaneously in a large sample (N = 178), we show that people's capacities to empathize and mentalize are independent, both on a behavioral and neural level. Thus, strong empathizers are not necessarily proficient mentalizers, arguing against a general capacity of social understanding. Second, we applied dynamic causal modeling to investigate how the neural networks underlying empathy and mentalizing are orchestrated in naturalistic social settings. Results reveal that in highly emotional situations, empathic sharing can inhibit mentalizing-related activity and thereby harm mentalizing performance. Taken together, our findings speak against a unitary construct of social understanding and suggest flexible interplay of distinct social functions.
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“Indeed, when confronted with others' distress, the AI, which is activated for negative affect sharing, inhibits activity in TPJ, an important hub of the mentalizing network [27 ].”
From On the interaction of social affect and cognition: empathy, compassion and theory of mind (2018) · cites this paper as [27]
In the citing paper
“This reduction in TPJ activity is related to impaired ToM performance [27 ].”
From On the interaction of social affect and cognition: empathy, compassion and theory of mind (2018) · cites this paper as [27]
Citations
Cites
Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach.
Davis, M. H. (1983) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113 · Cited by 10,272 · cited 4×
“Employing questionnaires such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983) or the Questionnaire of Affective and Cognitive Empathy (Reniers et al., 2011), researchers showed correlations between participants’ tendencies to describe and/or perceive themselves as empathic and as willing to…”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialDoes the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?
Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00076512 · Cited by 8,743 · cited 1×
“ToM, in contrast, refers to cognitively representing and reasoning on others’ mental (or affective) states (Premack and Woodruff 1978; Frith and Frith, 2005).”
BackgroundSaliency, switching, attention and control: a network model of insula function
Menon, V., & Uddin, L. Q. (2010) · Brain Structure and Function · doi:10.1007/s00429-010-0262-0 · Cited by 5,592 · cited 1×
“The adaptive function of this down-regulation, on the other hand, may be to efficiently draw attention to those aspects of a social situation that require immediate action, such as others’ emotions (Menon and Uddin, 2010).”
BackgroundFriston, K. J., Harrison, L., & Penny, W. (2003) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/s1053-8119(03)00202-7 · Cited by 4,583 · cited 7×
“…empathy and ToM are coordinated in an individual brain in the process of understanding another person, we used DCM. DCM allows the characterization of temporal causal influences between core brain regions and their modulation by experimental conditions (Friston et al., 2003; Stephan et al., 2007).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialFrith, C., & Frith, U. (2005) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2005.08.041 · Cited by 3,561
DPARSF: a MATLAB toolbox for “pipeline” data analysis of resting-state fMRI
Yan (2010) · Frontiers in System Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnsys.2010.00013 · Cited by 3,475 · cited 1×
“SPM8 and DPARSF were applied to analyse the resting state data (Chao-Gan and Yu-Feng, 2010).”
MethodThe g factor: the science of mental ability
(1998) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.36-2443 · Cited by 2,763
Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.10.014 · Cited by 2,016 · cited 6×
“Meta-analyses yielded a core network including anterior insula (AI), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) for empathy for pain (Lamm et al., 2011).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationThe empathic brain: how, when and why?
de Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.08.008 · Cited by 1,846
Self-citationFractionating theory of mind: a meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies
Schurz, M., Radua, J., Aichhorn, M., Richlan, F., & Perner, J. (2014) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.01.009 · Cited by 1,656 · cited 9×
“…in the EmpaToM because (1) meta-analyses identified these as the most consistently activated regions for empathy and ToM (Lamm et al., 2011; Schurz et al., 2014) and because (2) seeding from these peaks in resting state scans corroborated their embedding in separate networks in taskfree…”
Influential
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Kanske, 2015, Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences – Social Behavior from Rodents to Humans: Neural Foundations and Clinical Implications, 1
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Schurz, M., Raduà, J., Tholen, M. G., Maliske, L., Margulies, D. S., Mars, R. B., Sallet, J., & Kanske, P. (2020) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000303 · Cited by 702
“Such a relationship could be found across different modalities such as pain, disgust, or unfairness (CorradiDell’Acqua, Tusche, Vuilleumier, & Singer, 2016; but see Krishnan et al., 2016), which suggests that parts of these brain areas encode affective rather than sensory features of stimuli.”
BackgroundSelf-citationOn the interaction of social affect and cognition: empathy, compassion and theory of mind
Preckel, K., Kanske, P., & Singer, T. (2018) · Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.010 · Cited by 348
Self-citationWhat Do Theory-of-Mind Tasks Actually Measure? Theory and Practice
Quesque, F., & Rossetti, Y. (2020) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691619896607 · Cited by 287
“Current experimental evidence is available in support of both hypotheses (Bons et al., 2013; Cook, Brewer, Shah, & Bird, 2013; Erle & Topolinski, 2015, 2017; Hamilton et al., 2009; Kanske et al., 2016; Mattan et al., 2016; Maurage et al., 2016; Shamay-Tsoory & Aharon-Peretz, 2007).”
Valk, S. L., Bernhardt, B. C., Trautwein, F.-M., Böckler, A., Kanske, P., Guizard, N., Collins, D. L., & Singer, T. (2017) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.1700489 · Cited by 264
Self-citationEmpathic Care and Distress: Predictive Brain Markers and Dissociable Brain Systems
Ashar, Y. K., Andrews‐Hanna, J. R., Dimidjian, S., & Wager, T. D. (2017) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2017.05.014 · Cited by 244
“Distinctions among multiple systems are central to recent conceptualizations of empathy and compassion (Ashar et al., 2016a; de Waal, 2008; Kanske et al., 2016; Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009; Singer and Klimecki, 2014; Zaki and Ochsner, 2012).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Kanske, P., Böckler, A., Trautwein, F.-M., Parianen Lesemann, F. H., & Singer, T.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
- Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Venue
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2016-04-28
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1383-1392
- ISSN
- 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-5024
- PMC
- PMC5015801
- OpenAlex
- W2342413551
- Semantic Scholar
- 55960e37c6377d2f0c4a358abc234123a99a4d0f
- Cited by
- 209
- References
- 65
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 46 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 5
- FWCI
- 26.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Keywords
- empathy, mentalization, theory of mind, social cognition, artificial neural networks, dynamic causal modeling, emotional events, social understanding, neural inhibition
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Cognition, Emotions, Empathy, Female, Humans, Individuality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Nerve Net, Social Behavior, Social Perception, Theory of Mind
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