Emotion dysregulation modulates visual perspective taking and spontaneous facial mimicry

Thompson, N. M., van Reekum, C. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1516-1101 and Chakrabarti, B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6649-7895 (2024) Emotion dysregulation modulates visual perspective taking and spontaneous facial mimicry. Emotion, 24 (1). pp. 164-176. ISSN 1931-1516 doi: 10.1037/emo0001254

Abstract/Summary

Understanding and sharing others’ emotions (i.e. empathy) requires the ability to manage one’s own emotions (i.e. emotion regulation). Indeed, empirical evidence suggests that empathy and emotion regulation are related. This evidence is largely based on self-report measures of both constructs. The current study examined how task measures that assess processes related to empathy are associated with self-reported emotion dysregulation in a young adult sample. An eye-tracking based perspective-taking task was used as a proxy measure of cognitive empathy. A spontaneous facial mimicry (SFM) task, wherein the activation of the Zygomaticus Major and the Corrugator Supercilii were measured during the passive viewing of happy and angry faces, was used as a proxy measure of affective empathy. The perspective-taking task metric showed a negative relationship with emotion dysregulation. The overall SFM metric was not significantly associated with emotion dysregulation. Follow-up analyses revealed that SFM for angry faces was inversely proportional to emotion dysregulation; no such relationship was observed for SFM for happy faces. These findings build upon prior work by demonstrating a positive relationship between adaptive emotion regulation and a behavioural measure of cognitive empathy. The findings for affective empathy are suggestive of a valence-specific relationship between SFM and emotion regulation.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/111955
Identification Number/DOI	10.1037/emo0001254
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
Publisher	American Psychological Association
Publisher Statement	This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001254 For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.
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