Social cognition
How an imbalance in empathy types relates to mental health
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
An imbalance between understanding others' emotions and sharing them is linked to distinct mental health symptoms, often driven by how strongly we react to emotions.
Key findings
Individuals with emotional-empathy dominance (feeling emotions more than understanding them) showed higher anxiety and social autistic traits, both of which were mediated by heightened emotional reactivity. In contrast, those with cognitive-empathy dominance (intellectually understanding emotions more than feeling them) reported higher depressive symptoms, psychopathic tendencies, and non-social autistic traits. The balance between empathy components was a stronger predictor of these mental health profiles than overall empathy levels.
Methodology
Researchers measured different empathy components, emotional reactivity, and psychological symptoms in 408 adults recruited from the general population using online questionnaires. They calculated the degree of imbalance between participants' cognitive empathy (understanding emotions) and emotional empathy (sharing emotions) to see how this imbalance predicts traits like anxiety, depression, and autism. To ensure the reliability of their findings, they split the sample into a discovery group of 123 participants and a replication group of 285 participants.
Limitations
Because this study relied on a cross-sectional design, it cannot prove whether empathy imbalances cause psychological symptoms or if those symptoms cause the imbalance. The data was gathered entirely through self-report measures, which assess participants' self-perceptions rather than their objective empathic skills in real-world scenarios. Additionally, the sample was highly skewed toward female participants, limiting the generalizability of the sex differences found, and the findings may not perfectly translate to individuals with clinical diagnoses.
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