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Competitive Intensity Modulates the Pain Empathy Response: An Event-Related Potentials Study
Pinchao Luo1, Yu Pang1,2, Beibei Li1
1School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Frontiers in Psychology
|October 18, 2018
Summary
High competition intensity significantly reduces empathy for others' pain by inhibiting early automatic arousal. This neuroscientific evidence suggests competition down-regulates pain empathy, especially at high levels.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Competition is known to affect empathy for pain.
- The specific impact of varying competition intensity on pain empathy remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how different levels of competitive intensity influence pain empathy.
- To explore the neuroscientific underpinnings of competition-modulated empathy.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Eriksen Flanker task to establish high, medium, and low competitive intensity contexts.
- Recorded event-related potentials (ERP) during a recognition task involving painful and non-painful stimuli.
- Assessed participants' empathy response to opponents under varying competitive conditions.
Main Results:
- An early N2 differentiation between pain and no-pain stimuli was observed under medium and low competitive intensity, but not high.
- A late LPP differentiation was present across all competitive intensity levels.
- High competitive intensity led to a down-regulation of pain empathy, indicated by the absence of early N2 differentiation.
Conclusions:
- High competitive intensity inhibits the automatic arousal response to an opponent's pain.
- This suggests a deficit in early, bottom-up processing of pain empathy under intense competition.
- Findings provide neuroscientific evidence for the detrimental effect of high competition on pain empathy.
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