Increased neural responses to empathy for pain might explain how acute stress increases prosociality

Abstract

Recent behavioral investigations suggest that acute stress can increase prosocial behavior. Here, we investigated whether increased empathy represents a potential mechanism for this finding. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we assessed the effects of acute stress on neural responses related to automatic and regulatory components of empathy for pain as well as subsequent prosocial behavior. Stress increased activation in brain areas associated with the automatic sharing of others’ pain, such as the anterior insula, the anterior midcingulate cortex, and the primary somatosensory cortex. In addition, we found increased prosocial behavior under stress. Furthermore, activation in the anterior midcingulate cortex mediated the effects of stress on prosocial behavior. However, stressed participants also displayed stronger and inappropriate other-related responses in situations which required them to take the perspective of another person, and to regulate their automatic affective responses. Thus, while acute stress may increase prosocial behavior by intensifying the sharing of others’ emotions, this comes at the cost of reduced cognitive appraisal abilities. Depending on the contextual constraints, stress may therefore affect empathy in ways that are either beneficial or detrimental.

Acute stress alters neural patterns of value representation for others

“…The present findings might also relate to prior research showing that stress increased the magnitude of responding in "empathy for pain" brain regions in response to seeing someone else in pain 8 . A potential common mechanism that could relate our present findings to these prior results might be that under stress, individuals become more other-oriented, which increases empathy for others and also valuation of others' rewards.…”

“…This would be in line with converging evidence from behavioral research indicating that stress increases prosocial behavior [1][2][3][4][5][6] , which has been interpreted in light of the "tend-and-befriend" hypothesis stating that individuals become more prosocial under stress in order to secure help from others 7 . Furthermore, previous research has shown that stress increases the magnitude of brain activity in empathy for pain areas when viewing others in pain which predicted later prosocial behavior 8 . The results of the present study extend this research by showing that in the domain of value computation, stress leads to an increased differentiation between high and low value for others suggesting that stressed individuals track the potential reward for others more closely.…”

“…Thus, participant's performance will gradually decline in comparison to the average performance they are instructed to reach, inducing a threat of negative social evaluation, which has been shown to result in a stress response 39 . We furthermore increased the social evaluative threat in the task by adding an observer during the stress condition (see 8 for details). In the control condition of the MIST, the mental arithmetic problems are presented without time pressure and without social evaluative threat to match the stress condition in all elements, except the stress inducing features.…”

“…However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying such stress-induced prosociality are still far from clear. A recent study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) found that stressed individuals show increased activity in the "empathy for pain network" (i.e., anterior insula and anterior midcingulate cortex) when seeing someone else in pain, which correlated with later prosocial behavior 8 . These findings suggest that stress might increase emotion contagion, which subsequently increases prosocial behavior 8 .…”

“…A recent study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) found that stressed individuals show increased activity in the "empathy for pain network" (i.e., anterior insula and anterior midcingulate cortex) when seeing someone else in pain, which correlated with later prosocial behavior 8 . These findings suggest that stress might increase emotion contagion, which subsequently increases prosocial behavior 8 . A potential underlying mechanism of these effects could be that the distinction of self-from other related emotions might be decreased under stress.…”