Empathy, physiological synchrony, and psychopathy: preliminary insights from naturalistic dyadic interactions

Empathy forms the basis of all human social interactions. Yet, most existing research neglects the social component of empathy and relies on questionnaires or artificial settings that fail to capture the richness of genuine social dynamics. This limitation is especially evident in psychopathy research, where studies involving real social interactions are lacking entirely, leaving critical questions unanswered. To address this gap, we conducted a study using naturalistic dyadic interactions to explore how conversation content, familiarity, and psychopathic traits are associated with empathic accuracy, affective sharing, and physiological synchrony. Dyads engaged in naturalistic conversations about positive and negative major life events while being video-recorded, with multiple physiological markers collected simultaneously. Using mixed-effects regression models, we analyzed data from 41 community-dwelling dyads (N = 82) in New Zealand. We found that empathic accuracy was higher among individuals who know each other, although even strangers demonstrated significant empathic accuracy. Psychopathic traits were negatively associated with affective sharing and, to some degree, physiological synchrony, but not with empathic accuracy. Our findings underscore the need to reconsider how empathy is studied, particularly in the context of psychopathy. Furthermore, we provide concrete recommendations to support replication efforts and outline potential directions for future research.