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The eye region is thought to play an important role in the ability to accurately infer others' feelings, or empathic accuracy (EA), which is an important skill for social interaction. However, most past studies used static pictures, including only visual information, and knowledge about the contribution of the eye region to EA when visual information is presented together with verbal content is lacking. We therefore examined whether eye gazing contributes to EA during videos of emotional autobiographical stories including both visual and verbal content. One hundred seven perceivers watched videos of targets talking about positive and negative life events and continuously rated the targets' feelings during the videos. Simultaneously, perceivers' eyes were tracked. After each video, perceivers reported on their feelings and the extent to which they empathized with and took the perspective of the targets. In contrast to studies using static pictures, we found that gazing to the eyes of targets during the videos did not significantly contribute to EA. At the same time, results on the association between the amount of gaze towards the eye region of targets and perceivers' state and trait empathy ratings suggest that eye gazing might signal empathy and social engagement to others., (© 2022 The Authors. International Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Union of Psychological Science.)

Empathy is deemed indispensable for sensitive caregiving. Neuroimaging studies have identified canonical empathy networks consisting of regions supporting cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. However, not much is known about how these regions support empathy towards one's own offspring and how this neural activity relates to parental caregiving. We introduce a novel task to assess affective and neural responses to the suffering of one's own adolescent child. While in the scanner, 60 parents (n = 35 mothers, n = 25 fathers) were confronted with unpleasant situations involving their own child, an unfamiliar child, and themselves. Parents were asked to vividly imagine these situations and indicate their levels of distress. Parents reported higher levels of distress when imagining suffering for their own child relative to an unfamiliar child or themselves. Neuroimaging results showed increased activation within the cognitive empathy network (i.e., temporoparietal junction, dorsomedial- and ventromedial prefrontal cortex) when contrasting suffering of one's own child versus an unfamiliar child or the self. The task also engaged regions of the affective empathy network (i.e., anterior insula and anterior mid-cingulate cortex), which was however not modulated by whether suffering was for the self, one's own child, or an unfamiliar child. Parental care did not co-vary with activity in the empathy networks, but parents who were perceived as less caring exhibited increased activity in anterior prefrontal regions when imagining their own child suffering. These results provide new insights into neural processes supporting parental empathy, highlighting the importance of regions in the cognitive empathy network when confronted with the suffering of their own adolescent child, and suggest that additional (i.e., emotion regulation) networks may be relevant for parental caring behavior in daily life., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Objective: This qualitative study examines patients' and oncologists' views on how to best address emotions during consultations, and explores oncologists' opinions on their own communication and on strategies to improve oncologists' response to patients' emotions., Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 cancer patients and 13 oncologists, after watching videotaped consultations illustrating three communication strategies for addressing emotions., Results: Many participants preferred emotion-oriented speech to address patients' emotions; this strategy was assumed to (positively) affect a broad range of outcomes. Nevertheless, some preferred attentive silence or no emotion-oriented talk at all. Oncologists and patients had similar views on factors that may hinder oncologists to address emotions. Generally, oncologists mentioned that their response to emotions could be improved; for this, various (educational) strategies were suggested., Conclusion: Patients and oncologists generally agree that patients' emotions can best be addressed by empathic, explorative, acknowledging, and supportive statements. Still, differences in preferences exist, thus oncologists need to attune their communication to the individual patient., Practice Implications: The findings can inform medical communication training and encourage oncologists to improve their communication. The regular videotaping of consultations might be a promising method to provide feedback and reflect, thereby improving oncologists' response to patients' emotions., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Dissociation proneness is a trait-like individual difference and a cardinal feature of trauma-related disorders. Dissociative symptoms have been associated with repeated exposure to aversive interpersonal contexts. While research has shown that dissociation proneness involves alterations in basic information processing, less attention has been brought to socio-cognitive processing. Here, a deficit in empathic abilities is hypothesized. Method: Ninety Dutch university students were selected with high, medium, or low dissociation proneness. A dissociation questionnaire and a behavioral task measuring both emotional and cognitive empathy were administered, as well as questionnaires on negative affect, emotional awareness, and parenting styles. Results: High dissociation proneness was significantly associated with lower accuracy rates on cognitive empathy, and this association could partly be explained by difficulties in emotional awareness and perceived parenting styles, but not by negative affect. No association was found between dissociation and emotional empathy. Conclusions: Weakened cognitive empathy appears to be a socio-cognitive attribute of dissociation proneness. Future research should study the impact of reduced empathy in dissociation on interpersonal interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]