I feel your pain: Emotional closeness modulates neural responses to empathically experienced rejection

Empathy is generally thought of as the ability to share the emotional experiences of others. In scientific terms, this is usually operationalized as an ability to vicariously feel others' mental and emotional experiences. Supporting this account, research demonstrates that watching others exper...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social neuroscience 2011-08, Vol.6 (4), p.369-376
Main Authors: Beeney, Joseph E., Franklin, Robert G., Levy, Kenneth N., Adams, Reginald B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Anatomical correlates of behavior
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain
Brain - blood supply
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Emotions - physiology
Empathy
Female
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Interpersonal Relations
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Mirror neurons
Neurosciences
Oxygen - blood
Pain
Pain - psychology
Peer Group
Peer rejection
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Rejection (Psychology)
Social attribution, perception and cognition
Social exclusion
Social interactions. Communication. Group processes
Social psychology
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Empathy is generally thought of as the ability to share the emotional experiences of others. In scientific terms, this is usually operationalized as an ability to vicariously feel others' mental and emotional experiences. Supporting this account, research demonstrates that watching others experience physical pain activates similar brain regions to the actual experience of pain itself. First-hand experience of social rejection also activates this network. The current work extends these findings by examining whether the "pain" network is similarly implicated in witnessing rejection, and whether emotional closeness modulates this response. We provide evidence for each of these suppositions, demonstrating: (a) that the pain network is activated when watching a friend suffer social rejection, and (b) that interpersonal closeness with that friend modulates this response. Further, we found that the inferior frontal gyrus, critical for representing others' mental and emotional states, mediates the relationship between emotional closeness and neural responses to watching the rejection of a friend.
ISSN:1747-0919
1747-0927
DOI:10.1080/17470919.2011.557245