In the past, research on prosocial behaviors in antisocial and psychopathic violent offenders focused on their empathetic tendencies and the resulting prosocial behavior under negatively valenced...Show moreIn the past, research on prosocial behaviors in antisocial and psychopathic violent offenders focused on their empathetic tendencies and the resulting prosocial behavior under negatively valenced social situations (e.g. pain inflicted), disregarding the potential of positively valenced situations to elicit such behavior. This study aimed at closing this gap, by assessing prosocial behavior in psychopathic and antisocial violent offenders as opposed to a non-offender group, after presenting them with positively valenced social situations. This was done by employing an Empathy Dictator Game (EDG), in which 50 participants were asked to distribute coins between themselves and a male or female target, which they previously observed in a neutral, positive, or prosocial situation. Results showed that while psychopathic offenders did not differ significantly in their coin offers from antisocial offenders or the control group, the prosociality of the social situation influenced higher coin allocation. This effect was especially strong for individuals higher in empathetic skills. Lastly, male targets generally received more coins than female targets. This effect further influenced the effect of the diagnosis of participants on prosocial behavior, yet not the effect of the valence of the social situation. Taken together, these results suggest that violent offenders lacking empathy do have the capacity to display prosocial behaviors under the right circumstances and practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.Show less
Background: Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a form of anxiety distinguished by fear and avoidance of social situations. SAD can be transferred from parent to child. In addition to genetic...Show moreBackground: Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a form of anxiety distinguished by fear and avoidance of social situations. SAD can be transferred from parent to child. In addition to genetic inheritance of anxious traits, this transmission of anxiety can occur environmentally when parents verbally communicate threat or anxiety in social situations towards the child. Methods: This study tested whether parents’ verbal threat (versus safety) expressions give rise to more anxious fear beliefs in the child and explored whether this relation is moderated by parents’ trait social anxiety. Sixty-five children (mean age = 4,74, SD = 0,78) participated in this study with their parents. Both parents were asked to fill out the short version of the Social Phobia Avoidance Inventory (SPAI-short). In a lab parents were privately instructed to transfer information regarding two judges to their child. This information consisted of one judge being nice (safe judge) and one being unkind (threat judge). Thereafter, children were asked to sing a song in front of these judges. Afterwards child fear beliefs for each of the judges was measured via the Fear Beliefs Questionnaire (FBQ). Results: Significantly higher (anxious) fear beliefs for the threat judge were found compared to the safe judge, no moderating effects were found for parental social anxiety. Conclusion: Exposure to verbal expression of anxiety from the parent is related to children’s fear beliefs, however parents’ trait social anxiety has no moderating effect on that relationship. Replication of this study is desired with a between-subject design and diverse sampling.Show less
Emerging evidence indicates that rumination, a core feature of depression, might be responsible for the compromised working-memory (WM) observed in this disorder. The current study aims to explore...Show moreEmerging evidence indicates that rumination, a core feature of depression, might be responsible for the compromised working-memory (WM) observed in this disorder. The current study aims to explore the neural underpinnings of this hypothesized effect by investigating the role of three brain networks using fMRI: the Default Mode Network (DMN; involved in self-referential thought and rumination), the Central Executive Network (CEN; involved in executive cognition and WM), and the Salience Network (SN; involved in detection of novel or relevant stimuli and subsequent prioritizing of functional neural networks). After rumination-induction in thirty-three healthy female participants, functional connectivity within the three networks was measured during a 2-back WM task, which alternated between active and resting blocks. As expected, the DMN showed increased connectivity during the resting blocks, the CEN showed increased connectivity during the active blocks, and the SN showed higher connectivity in the beginning of the active blocks than during the remaining time of the active blocks. As hypothesized, self-reported rumination was correlated with lower SN functional connectivity in the beginning of the active blocks and a slower disengagement of the DMN. CEN functional connectivity showed no significant association with rumination. These results might reflect rumination-related difficulties in re-directing cognitive resources from self-referential thoughts to external stimuli, which may arise due to the weak mapping of external stimuli. The current findings expand understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying the effects of rumination on executive function and indicate that future research should further explore the interactions between these three networks.Show less
Psychopaths are known for their lack of empathy and immoral behaviours, and have shown to be unable to distinguish moral from conventional violations. Research demonstrated that morality can be...Show morePsychopaths are known for their lack of empathy and immoral behaviours, and have shown to be unable to distinguish moral from conventional violations. Research demonstrated that morality can be influenced by empathy, as well as developmental changes. The current study therefore aimed to investigate differences in moral decision-making behaviours between healthy males and psychopathic males in the evaluation of complex social situations. A total of 39 participants took part in this study, with 20 healthy male controls and 19 psychopathic males. The participants observed and evaluated pictures depicting various social situations. These included offenders of intentional pain (IP), offenders of accidental pain (AP), victims of IP, and victims of AP. Participants were then instructed to distribute coins between themselves and a random target from the social situation. The results showed that the controls could differentiate between more conditions than the psychopaths. More specifically, the controls and psychopaths both showed most prosocial behaviour towards victims of IP, followed by victims of AP, and showed most punishing behaviour towards offenders of IP, followed by offenders of AP. However, the psychopaths showed less prosocial behaviour than the controls towards victims of IP and AP. No significant differences were found in punishing behaviour between the controls and psychopaths towards offenders of AP. Finally, no significant correlation was found between age and prosocial behaviour in both the controls and psychopaths towards victims. Taken together, these findings further support the notion that psychopaths’ lack of prosocial behaviour stems from an empathy deficiency, rather than an impairment in moral judgement.Show less
Empathisch vermogen wordt cruciaal tijdens de adolescentie, wanneer het centraal wordt om relaties met leeftijdsgenoten te onderhouden en emoties te kunnen begrijpen en delen (Masten, Eisenberger,...Show moreEmpathisch vermogen wordt cruciaal tijdens de adolescentie, wanneer het centraal wordt om relaties met leeftijdsgenoten te onderhouden en emoties te kunnen begrijpen en delen (Masten, Eisenberger, Pfeifer & Dapretto, 2010). Dit onderzoek kijkt naar of empathisch vermogen verbetert met de leeftijd en of jongens en meisjes verschillende sociale situaties (daders van fysieke pijn en sociale exclusie) verschillend beoordelen. De deelnemers zijn 88 normaal ontwikkelende Nederlanse kinderen tussen de 7 en 14 jaar oud (44 meisjes en 44 jongens), die de Empathy Dictator Game uitvoeren, waarbij de deelnemers munten moeten verdelen tussen zichzelf en het target op een foto in een specifieke sociale situatie. De resultaten laten zien dat hoe ouder kinderen ze zijn, hoe empathischer ze reageren. Er blijkt geen verschil te zijn in hoe jongens en meisjes sociale situaties beoordelen, ook niet afhankelijk van het gender van het target. Dit kan verklaard worden doordat veel onderzoeken die dit verschil laten zien worden uitgevoerd door middel van vragenlijsten, waarbij sociale wenselijkheid meespeelt. Naar het verband tussen gender, empathisch vermogen en sociale wenselijkheid zou meer onderzoek gedaan moeten worden. Daarnaast blijkt dat daders van fysieke pijn strenger worden beoordeeld dan daders van sociale exclusie, wat suggereert dat kinderen het makkelijker vinden om zich in te leven in situaties van fysieke pijn dan sociale exclusie. Een mogelijke verklaring hiervoor is dat het herleven van sociale exclusie ingewikkeld en langdurend is (Chen, Williams, Fitness & Newton, 2008) en dat de sociale pijn van een ander altijd wordt onderschat (Nordgren, Banas, MacDonald, 2011).Show less
