More empathy for others, more hurt for oneself? Empathy for pain is related to poor mental health and negative emotion regulation.

IF 2.7 3区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY BMC Psychology Pub Date : 2025-03-13 DOI:10.1186/s40359-025-02585-4

Mengze Li, Bin Liu, Qiannan Jia, Tifei Yuan, Yuting Feng, Hugo Critchley, Qun Yang, Jamie Ward

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Abstract

Background: Empathy for pain refers to a simulation of pain experiences evoked when seeing others in pain. Empathy for pain (vicarious pain) responders make up 27% of the healthy population, and are divided into two subsets: Sensory/Localized responders who feel localized physical pain and Affective/General responders who experience diffuse emotional pain. Empathy for pain is linked to pro-social behavior but can increase mental health symptoms.

Methods: Multivariate analysis of variance and latent variable mediation model were used to investigate the relationship between empathy for pain, mental health, and emotion regulation based on a university student dataset (mainly Caucasian) from 2020 to 2021.

Results: (1) Responders express significantly higher anxiety and somatization than non-responders, with Sensory/Localized responders reporting the greatest somatic concerns; (2) Sensory/localized responders show significantly higher depression than non-responders; (3) Two responder groups don't differ from non-responders on most positive emotional regulation strategies, but use more negative strategies (self-blame, rumination, and catastrophizing). (4) negative emotional regulation fully mediates the link between empathy and mental health.

Conclusions: These findings reveal a previously unrecognized link between empathy for pain and mental health, mediated by the increased use of negative emotion regulation strategies among responders. Our findings have particular implications for the mental health of empathic individuals or people who are often exposed to the pain of others (counselor or nurse, etc.).

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背景：痛觉共鸣是指看到他人疼痛时所产生的一种模拟疼痛体验。疼痛移情（替代疼痛）反应者占健康人群的 27%，分为两个子集：感官/局部反应者会感受到局部的身体疼痛，情感/一般反应者会体验到弥漫性的情感疼痛。对疼痛的移情与亲社会行为有关，但会增加心理健康症状：基于 2020 年至 2021 年的大学生数据集（主要为白种人），采用多变量方差分析和潜变量中介模型研究对疼痛的移情、心理健康和情绪调节之间的关系。结果：（1）共情者的焦虑和躯体化程度明显高于非共情者，其中感知/定位共情者的躯体化程度最高；（2）感知/定位共情者的抑郁程度明显高于非共情者；（3）两组共情者在大多数积极情绪调节策略上与非共情者没有差异，但使用了更多的消极策略（自责、反刍和灾难化）。(4）消极情绪调节完全介导了移情与心理健康之间的联系：这些研究结果揭示了以前未曾认识到的对疼痛的移情与心理健康之间的联系，这种联系是由反应者更多地使用消极情绪调节策略所中介的。我们的研究结果对具有同理心的人或经常接触他人痛苦的人（心理咨询师或护士等）的心理健康具有特别的意义。

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来源期刊

BMC Psychology Psychology-Psychology (all)

CiteScore

3.90

自引率

2.80%

发文量

265

审稿时长

24 weeks

期刊介绍： BMC Psychology is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers manuscripts on all aspects of psychology, human behavior and the mind, including developmental, clinical, cognitive, experimental, health and social psychology, as well as personality and individual differences. The journal welcomes quantitative and qualitative research methods, including animal studies.