What are the determinants of altruism? While economists assume that altruism is mainly driven by fairness norms, social psychologists consider empathy to be a key motivator for altruistic behavior. To unite these two theories, we conducted an experiment in which we compared behavior in a standard economic game that assesses altruism (the so-called Dictator Game) with a Dictator Game in which participants’ behavioral choices were preceded either by an empathy induction or by a control condition without empathy induction. The results of this within-subject manipulation show that the empathy induction substantially increased altruistic behavior. Moreover, the increase in experienced empathy predicted over 40% of the increase in sharing behavior. These data extend standard economic theories that altruism is based on fairness considerations, by showing that empathic feelings can be a key motivator for altruistic behavior in economic interactions.

We demonstrated for the first time that perceptual insensitivity to facial affect can be addressed by an implicit training that directs attention to salient regions of a face and gradually decreases the intensity of the emotional expression. Future studies should focus on the potential of this intervention to effectively increase empathy and inhibit violent behavior in antisocial individuals.

The present study aimed to investigate the identification of threat-related facial expressions in aggressive individuals with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Thirty-two male delinquents and matched healthy controls were presented with a series of animated morph-clips that gradually display the onset and development of angry, fearful, and happy facial expressions. ASPD subjects required significantly higher levels of emotional intensity to correctly identify the onset of an angry facial expression as compared to control participants. In contrast, recognition of fearful and happy expressions was unimpaired. These findings suggest a specific deficit in the identification of hostile facial expressions in ASPD populations.

Deficiencies in empathic functioning are considered a core characteristic of violent behavior. Enhancing empathy in aggressive populations may thus represent a promising intervention target. Hence, the aims of the present work were two-fold: First, we wanted to thoroughly assess empathic competencies and second, we aimed to investigate effects of an empathy induction on experienced empathy levels and prosocial behavior in a sample of violent offenders relative to matched controls. Empathy was assessed using both self-report as well as objective measures. For the empathy induction, participants were presented with empathy inducing and control videos. To assess the effects of the empathy induction on behavior, participants played a dictator game indicative of prosocial behavior after every video. Violent offenders showed no systematic impairment in empathy measures. Despite lower shares in the dictator game across conditions, the empathy induction led to a substantial increase in prosocial behavior in both groups. Importantly, high psychopathy scores were distinctively associated with lower self-reported empathy levels, an attenuated affective responsiveness to the empathy induction, and less altruistic behavior. Treatment programs aiming to improve empathy should take individual characteristics into account and may be applied to distinctive subgroups rather than to violent offenders per se.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders worldwide. About 20-30% of patients do not respond to the standard psychopharmacological and/or psychotherapeutic interventions. Mounting evidence from neuroimaging studies in MDD patients reveal altered activation patterns in lateral prefrontal brain areas. Successful cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is associated with a recovery of these neural alterations. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is capable of influencing prefrontal cortex activity and cognitive functions such as working memory and emotion regulation. Thus, a clinical trial investigating the effects of an antidepressant intervention combining CBT with tDCS seems promising. The present study investigates the antidepressant efficacy of a combined CBT-tDCS intervention as compared to CBT with sham-tDCS or CBT alone. A total of 192 patients (age range 20-65 years) with MDD (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Score ≥ 15, 21-item version) will be recruited at four study sites across Germany (Berlin, Munich, Tuebingen, and Freiburg) and randomly assigned to one of the following three treatment arms: (1) CBT + active tDCS; (2) CBT + sham-tDCS; and (3) CBT alone. All participants will attend a 6-week psychotherapeutic intervention comprising 12 sessions of CBT each lasting 100 min in a closed group setting. tDCS will be applied simultaneously with CBT. Active tDCS includes stimulation with an intensity of 2 mA for 30 min with the anode placed over F3 and the cathode over F4 according to the EEG 10-20 system, if assigned. The primary outcome measure is the change in Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale scores from baseline to 6, 18, and 30 weeks after the first session. Participants also undergo pre- and post-treatment neuropsychological testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess changes in prefrontal functioning and connectivity. The study investigates whether CBT can be augmented by non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such as tDCS in the treatment of MDD. It is designed as a proof-of-principle trial for the combined tDCS-CBT treatment, but also allows the investigation of the neurobiological underpinnings of the interaction between both interventions in MDD. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT02633449.