Year: 2020
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Social anxiety and depression are associated with interpretation biases and impairment in social cognitive ability (e.g., understanding the mental states of others), yet there is little known about their associations with emotional congruence (i.e., the extent to which a perceiver shares the emotional experience of a target). The present study examined the association between dimensional levels of social anxiety, depression, and emotional congruence, as well as the moderating role of anhedonia and stimuli valence. Neither social anxiety nor depressive symptoms significantly predicted emotional congruence. Further, no significant associations were found when including the moderators following multiple test correction. Although previous studies have shown that social anxiety and depressive symptoms can impact cognitive empathic processes, the present findings demonstrate that these symptoms may not be related to affective empathy.
Author: Talha Alvi
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3047355047