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Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals

Cognitive empathy allows individuals to recognize and infer how others think and feel in social situations and provides a foundation for the formation and maintenance of mutually constructive relationships. It may seem intuitive to assume that individuals who engage in antisocial behavior, who disre...

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Autores principales: Chang, Shou-An A., Tillem, Scott, Benson-Williams, Callie, Baskin-Sommers, Arielle
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8287099/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34290630
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.677975
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author Chang, Shou-An A.
Tillem, Scott
Benson-Williams, Callie
Baskin-Sommers, Arielle
author_facet Chang, Shou-An A.
Tillem, Scott
Benson-Williams, Callie
Baskin-Sommers, Arielle
author_sort Chang, Shou-An A.
collection PubMed
description Cognitive empathy allows individuals to recognize and infer how others think and feel in social situations and provides a foundation for the formation and maintenance of mutually constructive relationships. It may seem intuitive to assume that individuals who engage in antisocial behavior, who disregard the rights of others, might have problems with cognitive empathy. However, careful examination of the literature suggests that any dysfunction in cognitive empathy associated with antisociality varies by subtype of antisocial individual and is specific to subcomponents of cognitive empathy. In this review, we (1) briefly define subtypes of antisocial individuals (“psychopathic” vs. “antisocial-only”), (2) summarize specific components of cognitive empathy; (3) review existing literature examining cognitive empathy through questionnaires, behavioral tasks, and neuroimaging within different antisocial subtypes; and (4) discuss the limitations of the current research and potential future directions. Individuals in the psychopathic subtype fail to implicitly engage in cognitive empathy, and potentially lack insight into this issue reflected in no self-reported problems with cognitive empathy, but show an ability to engage in cognitive empathy when explicitly required. Individuals in the antisocial-only subtype appear able to engage in cognitive empathy, showing no differences on questionnaire or behavioral tasks that tap explicit cognitive empathy, but may display subtle difficulties accurately inferring (affective theory of mind) the emotions of others. We end the review by noting areas for future research, including the need to: (1) document the patterns of equifinality that exist across levels of analysis for these antisocial subtypes; (2) examine the temporality of empathy and antisociality development; (3) carefully consider and label subcomponents of cognitive empathy in research on antisocial behavior; and (4) investigate the intersection among environmental experiences, cognitive empathy, and antisocial behavior.
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spelling pubmed-82870992021-07-20 Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals Chang, Shou-An A. Tillem, Scott Benson-Williams, Callie Baskin-Sommers, Arielle Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Cognitive empathy allows individuals to recognize and infer how others think and feel in social situations and provides a foundation for the formation and maintenance of mutually constructive relationships. It may seem intuitive to assume that individuals who engage in antisocial behavior, who disregard the rights of others, might have problems with cognitive empathy. However, careful examination of the literature suggests that any dysfunction in cognitive empathy associated with antisociality varies by subtype of antisocial individual and is specific to subcomponents of cognitive empathy. In this review, we (1) briefly define subtypes of antisocial individuals (“psychopathic” vs. “antisocial-only”), (2) summarize specific components of cognitive empathy; (3) review existing literature examining cognitive empathy through questionnaires, behavioral tasks, and neuroimaging within different antisocial subtypes; and (4) discuss the limitations of the current research and potential future directions. Individuals in the psychopathic subtype fail to implicitly engage in cognitive empathy, and potentially lack insight into this issue reflected in no self-reported problems with cognitive empathy, but show an ability to engage in cognitive empathy when explicitly required. Individuals in the antisocial-only subtype appear able to engage in cognitive empathy, showing no differences on questionnaire or behavioral tasks that tap explicit cognitive empathy, but may display subtle difficulties accurately inferring (affective theory of mind) the emotions of others. We end the review by noting areas for future research, including the need to: (1) document the patterns of equifinality that exist across levels of analysis for these antisocial subtypes; (2) examine the temporality of empathy and antisociality development; (3) carefully consider and label subcomponents of cognitive empathy in research on antisocial behavior; and (4) investigate the intersection among environmental experiences, cognitive empathy, and antisocial behavior. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8287099/ /pubmed/34290630 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.677975 Text en Copyright © 2021 Chang, Tillem, Benson-Williams and Baskin-Sommers. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Chang, Shou-An A.
Tillem, Scott
Benson-Williams, Callie
Baskin-Sommers, Arielle
Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals
title Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals
title_full Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals
title_fullStr Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals
title_full_unstemmed Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals
title_short Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals
title_sort cognitive empathy in subtypes of antisocial individuals
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8287099/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34290630
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.677975
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