Task 5: moral development, empathy, psychopathology

Question 1

definition empathy

Answer 1

• an effective state that:
• is elicited by observing/imagining another’s affective state
• is similar to the other’s emotional state
• is caused by the other’s emotional state

Question 2

affective/emotional empathy

Answer 2

• empathic concern, leads to compassionate responses to other’s emotional states
• involved emotion understanding skills (recognition) and reactivity processes (emotion contagion)

Question 3

cognitive empathy

Answer 3

• More advanced cognitive perspective-taking system
• Involves theory of mind (distinguish own emotion from others) and empathic accuracy (infer feelings from behavior)
• Associated with positive social behaviors

-Affective and cognitive empathy function independently, an empathic response may draw on either or both components

Question 4

sex-differences

Answer 4

• early adolescence girls more sensitive
• adult males and females: comparable patterns of neural response to empathy-eliciting cues, despite sex differences in self-reported empathic experience
• differences may reflect gendered social norms regarding the expression of empathic feelings

Question 5

genetic tendency toward empathy

Answer 5

• genes modulate development and function of brain regions and systems that implement empathic experiences and responses
• moderately strong genetic influences

Question 6

OXTR gene / oxytocin

Answer 6

?

Question 7

Bottum-up processes - empathy

Answer 7

• > affective empathy
• Involuntary capacities to detect and respond to others’ affective cues by subcortical structures: amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus
• > Begin to mature early
• Anterior insula (cortical region) engages during affective empathy -> development more protracted (langwierig) than subcortical areas
• hippocampus especially vulnerable in preschool years to environmental insults

Question 8

Oxytocin - empathy

Answer 8

• modulates activity in the amygdala (can increase responsiveness in amygdala), midbrain regions and neural striatum
• > can also weaken coupling of amygdala to brainstem regions implicated in autonomic and behavioral manifestations to fear: calming and bonding effects of oxytocin

Question 9

Top-down processes & empathy

Answer 9

• emerge slightly later = cognitive empathy
• medial and DLPFC: linked to cognitive empathy
• mature slowly, synaptic trajectories extend into young adulthood
• neural elements to experience cognitive empathy are present and engaged from birth, but elements interact and shape each other into adulthood

Question 10

dopamine - empathy

Answer 10

• may be the primary modulator for prefrontal regions in top-down components of empathy
• oxytocin and dopamine may interact here

Question 11

empathic reactions that may facilitate emergence of internalizing problems

Answer 11

reactions to others’ distress that

1) are excessively aversive
2) involve excessive cognitive perspective-taking
3) result in self-focused comforting responses/self-focused rumination about one’s role in the observed distress

Question 12

2 subfactors of internalizing disorders

Answer 12

1) fear/arousal sub factor

2) anhedonia (Unfähigkeit Freude oder Lust zu empfinden)/misery

Question 13

fear/arousal sub factor

Answer 13

-underlies agoraphobia, social phobia, specific phobia, and panic disorder

genetic liability to physiological arousal + tendency to empathic sensitivity = contributes to neurobiological processes underlying personal distress because of others’ pain/unhappiness
-> increases risk for fear/arousal symptoms

Question 14

anhedonia/misery subfactor

Answer 14

-explains covariance of MDD, dysthymic disorder, and GAD

Genetic tendency for negative thinking + empathic sensitivity = contributes to interpersonal guilt in response to others’ distress
-> Increases risk for anhedonia/misery

• negative thought processes: habitual negative attribution and expectations, biased attention and memory, worry, rumination)

Question 15

inter-individual moderators

Answer 15

Moderators: maladaptive parenting, chronic exposure to parents’ negative affect -> interact with genes -> amplifies risk for distress and guilt and therefore internalizing problems

Question 16

personal distress

Answer 16

• linked to fear/arousal subfactor
• maladaptive affective response to negative emotions in others
• self-focused response, physiological hyperarousal, behavioral withdrawal
• linked with anxiety, guilt, depression
• associations with neuroticism, burnout, behavior

Question 17

interpersonal guilt

Answer 17

• maladaptive form of cognitive empathy
• excessive and irrational altruistic concerns: e.g. unreasonable beliefs that one is responsible for alleviating the suffering of others and intense worries about harming others
• linked to loneliness and alienation, depression and anxiety

Question 18

5HTTLPR as intraindividual moderator

Answer 18

• SS:
• elevated HPA axis reactivity, elevated cortisol
• measures of hyperarousal
• stronger startle potentiation in fear conditioning paradigms
• linked to biased attention for emotional stimuli
• attentional vigilance toward threat cues

Study in children had less consistent findings:
> Attentional biases to avoid sad cues were amplified in 8 to 12 yo offspring of depressed mothers, particularly if expressing S or Lg alleles

Question 19

environmental exposure (family) and empathy

Answer 19

• Link between effective parenting (secure attachment, providing support, and encouraging emotional expression) and healthy empathic development
• Effects of inadequate parenting -> particularly potent in youths who carry a genetically mediated neurobiological liability for empathic sensitivity
• Maladaptive parenting behavior may skew children’s empathic development toward problematic outcomes

Question 20

fostering healthy empathic development

Answer 20

• Intraindividual and interindividual moderators exerts greatest influence during early childhood
• Improve parents’ knowledge about contexts and experiences that distress their child
• Relieving parent depression and/or chronic stress: indirect benefit for offspring
• Decreasing cognitive and emotional dysregulation difficulties in very young children
• Addressing cognitive biases -> unclear if this is appropriate/effective for preschoolers
• Intranasally administered oxytocin may improve social cognition and emotion regulation in internalizing conditions (social anxiety) or autism (empathy deficit)

Question 21

5 months vs 8 months reaction to antisocial others

Answer 21

5: evaluated actors solely on the basis of the local valence of their actions (good/bad)
8: preferred individuals who acted positively toward prosocial others and preferred those who acted negatively to antisocial others
- 8 months: infants capable of evaluating third-party social behaviors that goes beyond simple ‘prosocial = good’, ‘antisocial = bad’

Question 22

toddlers: giving/taking a treat

Answer 22

-Giving-a-treat: toddlers gave a treat more often to prosocial puppet
-Taking-a-treat: toddler took treat more often from antisocial puppet
> Toddlers avoided taking from the individual (victim) who already suffered antisocial treatment from a third party -> empathic behavior

Question 23

conduct disorder

Answer 23

• Childhood behavior disorder, characterized by persistent aggressive/antisocial behavior
• Some children with conduct disorder have psychopathic traits

Question 24

2 forms of psychopathic traits

Answer 24

1) callous - unemotional component (psychopathic)

2) impulsive - antisocial

Question 25

callous unemotional component of psychopathic traits

Answer 25

2 out of 4 must be met: lack of remorse/guilt, callousness (lack of empathy), lack of concern about performance, shallow/deficient affect - > reduced empathic response to distress of others - > linked to decrease amygdala response

Question 26

impulsive-antisocial component of psychopathic traits

Answer 26

- deficits in decision making and in reinforcement learning | - > dysfunction in the ventromedial PFC and striatum

Question 27

communicatory function of emotional empathy

Answer 27

understand emotional cues of others, learning social value of actions/objects -> important for appropriate decision making

Question 28

reduced emotional empathy - brain

Answer 28

reduced amygdala and vmPFC responsiveness to distress

Question 29

impaired decision making - brain

Answer 29

dysfunction in vmPFC and striatum

Question 30

Impaired processing of distressing cues and happy expressions -> reduced aversion for actions that harm others

Answer 30

Reduced amygdala response to fearful expressions -reduced amygdala and rostral medial frontal cortex response to pain expression Response is not completely absent -If intensity of emotional stimulus is increased -> recognition of fearful expression

Question 31

Youths with Psychopathic traits: Deficits in processes underlying aversive conditioning:

Answer 31

Passive avoidance learning, operant extinction, reversal learning - Deficits in capacity to link outcomes with stimuli/responses - Dysfunction within amygdala, striatum, vmPFC

Question 32

Disrupted prediction error signaling

Answer 32

Result in poorer, slower learning of reinforcements with objects/actions - Reduced vmPFC response to receipt of a reward (involved in encoding received rewards) , striatum - Prediction error needed for effective use of reinforcement outcome info

Question 33

Poor at using and representing expected value information - consequence and brain

Answer 33

- > might impair decision making | - vmPFC

Question 34

Response to punishments that are worse than expected

Answer 34

-increased responses in vmPFC and striatum (in healthy ones this is reduced)

Question 35

summary emotional learning and decision making in psychopaths

Answer 35

reduced representation of reward outcomes and expected values in the vmPFC & reduced reward prediction error signaling & potentially highly atypical punishment prediction error signaling in the striatum

Question 36

amygdala in psychopathic traits

Answer 36

reduced volume

Question 37

temporal cortex in conduct disorder

Answer 37

-reduced volume and thickness

Question 38

Unikate fasiculus

Answer 38

- possible disruption in that area and the white-matter tract that connects amygdala and frontal lobe - functional anisotropy in white-matter tract (psychopathic)

Question 39

environment and psychopathic traits

Answer 39

- Exposure to high threat levels (abuse/family violence) - neglect - > heightened amygdala responses to threat - increased risk of reactive aggressive - maternal substance abuse during pregnancy - > Increases likelihood of callous-unemotional traits

Question 40

genes involved in psychopathic traits

Answer 40

L allele in 5HTTLPR MAOA COMT - Variants of these genes Associated with reduced amygdala response to threat -> risk for being more callous, unemotional - Increased aggressiveness

Question 41

treatment implications psychopathic traits

Answer 41

- Difficult to treat - social and emotional learning prevention strategies may be helpful: development of emotional regulation, relationship skills and responsible decision making - Multidimensional treatment foster care and multisystemic therapy - Different types of conduct disorder might need different therapies

Question 42

treatment psychopathic traits with dopamine

Answer 42

-Some dysfunctions regarding psychopathic traits can be mimicked through manipulation of the serotoninergic and dopaminergic systems > Dopamine antagonists reduce amygdala responsiveness to threat stimuli > Dopamine agonists increase amygdala response to fearful expressions -Atypical antipsychotic drugs can be efficient in treatment of aggression

Question 43

1 year old - empathy normal development

Answer 43

demonstrate capacity to exhibit distress when confronted with others’ negative affect & to orient attention towards distressed others

Question 44

2 year old - empathy normal development

Answer 44

better able to differentiate themselves form others, more capable of directing their concern externally -In first few years of life: ability to reason about others’ goals and intentions

Question 45

3 year old - empathy normal development

Answer 45

relatively stable levels of empathy

Question 46

preschool and school - empathy normal development

Answer 46

capable of prosocial behaviors based on empathic feelings (as a function of cognitive and behavioral competences)

Question 47

middle childhood - empathy normal development

Answer 47

manage feelings with cognitive strategies | > Link between maturing emotion regulation capacities & emergence of empathic skills (influence in both directions)

Question 48

adolescence - empathy normal development

Answer 48

patterns of empathic responding remain stable, some skills increase,