The Transdiagnostic Relevance of Self-Other Distinction to Psychiatry Spans Emotional, Cognitive and Motor Domains

Fantasy is the experience of identifying with characters in movies, novels, plays, and other fictional situations. In social contexts, individuals take on the perspective of others by sensing their emotions through empathy. During this process, perspective-taking and emotional sharing affect one’s metacognition, which deals with the distinction between and the understanding of one’s emotions (clarity) and their regulation (repair); previous studies have primarily focused on these processes. However, perspective-taking—considering another individual’s viewpoint—requires one to imagine their outlook; it also induces emotional responses. This study examined the role of fantasy in clarity and repair in metacognition, for which data derived from 475 Japanese participants were analyzed. The results of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index showed that fantasy was positively associated with clarity and repair in the Trait Meta-Mood Scale; these relationships were moderated by perspective-taking and personal distress. Our results revealed that the emotions experienced within oneself might be understood as the distinction between “imagining” (through their imagination; e.g., internal or mental pictures) and “imaging” (from an image; e.g., external pictures). Individuals imagine their immersion into others using lower-level automatic body sensations (emotional contagion), and the accompanying negative emotions are regulated by metacognition.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of fantasy in emotional clarity and emotional regulation in empathy: A preliminary study

Shiota

Nomura²

2022

“…Self-other distinction describes an intraindividual concept or experience, but it is likely to be closely linked to empathy and social behavior. Therefore while self-other distinction may be applied to different domains (e.g., motor, cognitive, and emotional: see Eddy, 2022 ), measuring self-other distinction may appear to overlap with affective empathy, when applied to emotional experience. For example, when self-other distinction within an individual is less pronounced, it may facilitate greater affective empathy or manifest as greater resonance with the emotion of another, such as experiencing personal distress in response to another person’s distress (e.g., Eddy, 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore while self-other distinction may be applied to different domains (e.g., motor, cognitive, and emotional: see Eddy, 2022 ), measuring self-other distinction may appear to overlap with affective empathy, when applied to emotional experience. For example, when self-other distinction within an individual is less pronounced, it may facilitate greater affective empathy or manifest as greater resonance with the emotion of another, such as experiencing personal distress in response to another person’s distress (e.g., Eddy, 2022 ). Intact CE in the context of lower AE, and many characteristics associated with narcissism, such as socially competitive emotions, seem to imply higher self-other distinction in highly narcissistic individuals ( Eddy, 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

I understand your pain but I do not feel it: lower affective empathy in response to others’ social pain in narcissism

Shahri,

Zabihzadeh,

Taqipanahi

et al. 2024

Self Cite

IntroductionWhile the relationship between narcissism and empathy has been well-researched, studies have paid less attention to empathic accuracy, i.e., appreciating the precise strength of another person’s emotions, and self-other distinction, in terms of the disparity between affective ratings for self and other in response to emotive stimuli. Furthermore, empathic responses may vary depending on whether the pain is physical or social.MethodsWe investigated empathic accuracy, affective empathy, and the distinction between pain, emotion and intensity ratings for self and other, in high (n = 44) and low (n = 43) narcissism groups (HNG and LNG, respectively) selected from 611 students, in response to both types of pain. Participants watched six videos where targets expressed genuine experiences of physical and social pain, and rated the perceived affect and pain experienced by the person in the video and their own empathic emotional responses.Results and discussionThe HNG displayed lower affective empathy and empathic accuracy than the LNG for both pain types. Within the HNG there was higher empathic accuracy for social vs. physical pain, despite reduced affective empathy for social pain, in contrast to the LNG. In addition to this paradox, the HNG demonstrated greater differences between ratings for the self and for target others than the LNG, suggesting that narcissism is associated with higher self-other distinction in response to viewing other people describing social pain.

“…Researchers concluded that both the right temporo-parietal junction and brain areas associated with the human mirror neuron system are likely to critically influence self-other distinction. The appropriate degree of self-other distinction will vary according to the exact social situation, e.g., affective empathy may involve low self-other distinction, whereas understanding false belief requires higher self-other distinction ( Eddy, 2022 ). These studies demonstrate that there is a difference between the processing of the ‘self’ perspective and the processing of the ‘other’ perspective.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chinese cognitive processing of ToM: Distinctions in understanding the mental states of self, close others, and strangers

Wang

Yuan

2023

Previous studies showed that people differ in attributing mental states to themselves and in understanding the mental states of others, but have not explored the differences when people attribute mental states to others at different social distances. The present study adds a ‘close other’ condition to the Self/Other differentiation paradigm to explore the potential differences in attributing mental states to others with different social distances. It emerged that the time required to reflect on one’s self mental state is shortest in mental state attribution, longer when comprehending the mental state of close others, and longest for strangers. This result indicates that Chinese participants distinguish between close others and strangers when performing perspective-taking. When the perspective-shifting of belief-attribution is performed, a beforehand processing of information about close others or strangers does not interfere with the processing of information from oneself subsequently. However, when the information processed in the previous stage cannot be used for subsequent processing, it interferes with the processing of information from close others or strangers in the later stage. The lower the degree of automated processing of pre-processed information, the greater the interference effect produced. This finding indicated that processing the self mental state is automatically activated, but comprehending the mental state of others is not. The comprehension of others’ mental states occurs only when required by the task and it entails more cognitive resources to process and maintain.