Self-construal Modulates Neural Response To Others'pain

Empathy for pain refers to individual's feeling and perception of other's pain;self-construal refers to how individuals view their relationship with others,which is divided into independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal.People with independent self-construal believe that they are free and independent from ohers,while people with interdependent self-construal perceive that they are connected and interdependent with others.The present study aimed to explore whether and how self-construal modulates empathic neural responses to others'pain by using the Event-Related Potentials technique.In the first experiment,we recorded event-related potentials from participants while viewing pictures depicting the hands that were in painful or neutral situations.The results showed that the average amplitude of the fronto-central N2 as well as the central-parietal P3 of the participants when viewing painful pictures were significantly different from that when viewing neutral pictures.More importantly,we measured the self-construal of the participants and found that the amplitude of P3(400-500ms)when viewing painful relative to the neutral pictures were significantly correlated with participant's self-construal.That is to say,the more interdependent the participant's self-construal was,the greater the amplitude of P3 induced by painful relative to neutral pictures,which indicated that self-construal regulate the individual's late cognitive processing of other's pain.In the second experiment,we recorded event-related potentials from participants when viewing ingroup(who are labeled as from the same province with the participant)and outgroup(who are labeled as not from the same province with the participant)members receiving painful or neutral stimulus to examine whether the self-construal modulate the individual's empathy for pain of ingroup and outgroup members.The results showed that the interaction between the type of pain stimuli and the type of pain-receiver was significant on the early N2 component..The average amplitude of N2 evoked by painful versus neutral stimuli was significantly different for ingroup members but not for outgroup members.Besides,there was significant differentiation between painful and neutral stimuli at P3 regardless of pain-receiver.Moreover,as in Experiment 1,the amplitudes of P3 evoked by painful relative to neutral stimuli were significantly correlated with participant's self-construal no matter the pain-receiver was ingroup or outgroup members.The stable results of the two experiments showed that self-construal modulates the later cognitive process P3 of empathy for pain,suggesting that the more interdependent people's self-construal is,the stronger cognitive empathy people have for others'pain.In addition,empathic neural responses for in-group members'pain is different from that for out-group members' pain at the early emotional sharing stage N2,suggesting that people have more emotional sharing for in-group members's pain than that for out-group members' pain.