TY - JOUR

T1 - Are strong empathizers better mentalizers? Evidence for independence and interaction between the routes of social cognition

AU - Kanske, Philipp

AU - Böckler, Anne

AU - Trautwein, Fynn Mathis

AU - Lesemann, Franca H.Parianen

AU - Singer, Tania

N1 - Funding Information: Tania Singer, as principal investigator, received funding for the ReSource Project from a) the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013/ ERC Grant Agreement Number 205557 to T.S.), and b) from the Max Planck Society.

PY - 2016/9

Y1 - 2016/9

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Dynamic causal modeling

KW - Empathy

KW - fMRI

KW - Mentalizing

KW - Social cognition

KW - Theory of mind

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84987600989&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/scan/nsw052

DO - 10.1093/scan/nsw052

M3 - Article

C2 - 27129794

AN - SCOPUS:84987600989

VL - 11

SP - 1383

EP - 1392

JO - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

JF - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

SN - 1749-5016

IS - 9

ER -