Regulating negative emotions of others reduces own stress: Neurobiological correlates and the role of individual differences in empathy

Background: While witnessing the suffering of other people results in personal distress, it is not clear whether regulating others' emotions in such situations also comes at an emotional cost for the observer. Methods: This study included 62 subjects and used a newly developed functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) paradigm to investigate mechanisms of self and other emotion regulation via reappraisal while the subject and an interaction partner outside the scanner were facing the same distressing situation simultaneously. The relationship between distress levels and individual differences in emotional and cognitive empathy were also assessed.Results: We found that individuals exhibited especially high levels of personal distress when relating with a partner while both being exposed to aversive photographs and that especially highly empathetic individuals were prone to such personal distress. Moreover, when engaging in social emotion regulation, personal distress was reduced in the observer at a similar rate as in self emotion regulation. FMRI analyses revealed increased activation for other vs. self emotion regulation in the precuneus and the left temporo-parietal junction, which are commonly engaged in social cognition. Furthermore, this activation was associated with lower self-reported stress and decreased sympathetic autonomic activity. While regulating others, precuneus activation exhibited a distinctive functional connectivity profile with parietal emotion regulation regions.Conclusions: This study demonstrates benefits of actively regulating another person's emotions for reducing one's own distress and identifies the precuneus as an important node for social emotion regulation. Given the novelty of the study design, the results are of exploratory and preliminary nature.

Automated summary

The study found that observers experienced higher levels of personal distress when facing distressing situations with a partner, especially highly empathetic individuals were more prone to such distress. Engaging in social emotion regulation reduced personal distress in observers at a similar rate as self emotion regulation. FMRI analyses revealed increased brain activation for regulating others' emotions in regions associated with social cognition, which was also linked to lower self-reported stress and decreased physical stress responses. This study highlights the benefits of actively regulating another person's emotions for reducing one's own distress, with the precuneus identified as a crucial node for social emotion regulation.