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Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors

INTRODUCTION: Empathy is an interpersonal experience that enables understanding of other's emotions and can lead to altruistic behavior such as blood donation. Cognitive theories of empathy refer to selective attention as one of its cognitive dimensions. The current study examined if individual...

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Autores principales: Omyan, Sina, Mazidi, Mahdi, Khatibi, Ali
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9847598/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36454124
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2841
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author Omyan, Sina
Mazidi, Mahdi
Khatibi, Ali
author_facet Omyan, Sina
Mazidi, Mahdi
Khatibi, Ali
author_sort Omyan, Sina
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Empathy is an interpersonal experience that enables understanding of other's emotions and can lead to altruistic behavior such as blood donation. Cognitive theories of empathy refer to selective attention as one of its cognitive dimensions. The current study examined if individuals who engage in altruistic behavior are characterized by a distinct pattern of selective attention to observation of pain in others. METHODS: We recruited 50 volunteer blood donors. Half (n = 25) of the volunteers donated for a self‐declared altruistic reason, and the other half of the volunteers donated blood for a health‐related reason. We assessed the individuals’ self‐reported empathy with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). We then measured the individuals’ selective attention toward faces expressing pain in a pictorial dot‐probe task. RESULTS: Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, participants who donated blood out of altruism reported significantly higher empathic concern on the IRI than those who donated blood for a health‐related reason. The altruistic donors also showed significantly greater selective attention toward facial expressions of pain. Moreover, among all donors, self‐report empathic concern on the IRI was significantly correlated with greater selective attention toward faces expressing pain. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that altruistic individuals not only show higher levels of empathy, but also attend more to the pain of others. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-98475982023-01-24 Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors Omyan, Sina Mazidi, Mahdi Khatibi, Ali Brain Behav Brief Reports INTRODUCTION: Empathy is an interpersonal experience that enables understanding of other's emotions and can lead to altruistic behavior such as blood donation. Cognitive theories of empathy refer to selective attention as one of its cognitive dimensions. The current study examined if individuals who engage in altruistic behavior are characterized by a distinct pattern of selective attention to observation of pain in others. METHODS: We recruited 50 volunteer blood donors. Half (n = 25) of the volunteers donated for a self‐declared altruistic reason, and the other half of the volunteers donated blood for a health‐related reason. We assessed the individuals’ self‐reported empathy with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). We then measured the individuals’ selective attention toward faces expressing pain in a pictorial dot‐probe task. RESULTS: Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, participants who donated blood out of altruism reported significantly higher empathic concern on the IRI than those who donated blood for a health‐related reason. The altruistic donors also showed significantly greater selective attention toward facial expressions of pain. Moreover, among all donors, self‐report empathic concern on the IRI was significantly correlated with greater selective attention toward faces expressing pain. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that altruistic individuals not only show higher levels of empathy, but also attend more to the pain of others. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9847598/ /pubmed/36454124 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2841 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Brain and Behavior published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Brief Reports
Omyan, Sina
Mazidi, Mahdi
Khatibi, Ali
Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors
title Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors
title_full Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors
title_fullStr Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors
title_full_unstemmed Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors
title_short Selective attention to pain and empathy: Studying frequent blood donors
title_sort selective attention to pain and empathy: studying frequent blood donors
topic Brief Reports
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9847598/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36454124
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2841
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