共情及其子成分对帮助行为的驱动作用及神经机制

"The relationship of empathy and helping behavior" is a long-term hot issue in traditional psychology and social neuroscience. Literature in the field has firmly suggested that empathy is a strong motivator for helping behaviors. However, due to the complex nature of empathy, the existing studies haven’t investigated the motivational role of empathy to helping behaviors as a consistent personality trait as well as instant neural responses and also failed to investigate the driving roles of different sub-components of empathy (i.e. empathic concern and personal distress) separately. This present project plans to use fMRI, ERP, oxytocin delivery technology, combined with a newly-designed experimental paradigm to investigate the driving force of empathy and its sub-components on helping behavior and their corresponding neural mechanisms. The innovation of this project is to separate and quantify the driving force of empathic concern and personal distress on helping behavior and explore their corresponding neural mechanism, so as to offer a comprehensive and in-depth understanding to this long-lasting question. Research on this topic would help us to understand the role of empathy in helping behavior and help further refine our understanding to the empathy-related disorders, such as autism, psychopathy. Practically, it can guide us to promote prosocial behaviors more efficiently and properly.

“共情与帮助行为的关系”是传统心理学和社会认知神经科学研究的长期热点问题。由于“共情”这一概念自身的复杂性，现有研究未能从即时性和稳定性两方面考察其对帮助行为的驱动作用,也未能在神经层面上细化共情关切和个人痛苦两个子成分的驱动作用。本项目计划使用fMRI、ERP、催产素给药等技术，结合疼痛共情和动机研究领域的经典实验范式、行为及问卷研究，考察共情及其子成分对帮助行为的驱动及其对应的神经机制。本项目旨在分离和量化共情的不同子成分对帮助行为的驱力，并探索其对应的神经生理机制。该课题将有助于深入理解共情在帮助行为中所起的作用，进而解释其情绪本质，从而更加合理地利用共情促进亲社会行为的产生。同时帮助进一步精细化如孤独症，精神变态等共情障碍人群的缺陷。

共情指体会和分享他人情感和采择他人视角的能力，对促进社会互动和建立社会连接起着核心作用。亲社会行为指以帮助他人或者使他人或其他团体受益为目的的行为，对于人类社会的发展与稳固至关重要。二者之间紧密联结：共情被认为是产生亲社会行为，包括分享、帮助和关怀的重要动机。共情和亲社会行为的脑机制是社会神经科学和决策神经科学领域的研究热点，对于解释人类的社会属性和社会行为、预测的狭义和广义动态人际关系尤为重要。本项目主要集中在实验操纵的因素如何调节共情及亲社会行为两个主题上。利用课题组原创的“社会框架范式”和“噪音资源范式”，结合ERP、FMRI、TDCS和催产素等技术，通过多个实验验证了外界因素如何通过调节颞顶联合区、脑岛等脑区的活动调节对他人的共情反应，在脑电成分上则反应在他人疼痛刺激诱发的N2和P3成分，以及超扫描捕捉到的α频段的双脑同步性振荡上。另一部分工作关注了情境性因素如何促进/抑制亲社会行为，以及共情在其中所扮演的角色。通过关注两个关键性情境因素：资源充足性和决策情境的呈现框架揭示了情境性因素如何通过内侧前额叶——颞顶联合区构成的认知共情网络和前脑岛——扣带前中回构成的情感共情网络调节亲社会决策与行为。