Empathy is an important psychological process. It consists of two dissociable components: cognitive empathy (adopting another's perspective and understanding their emotions), and affective empathy (the vicarious experiences of another's emotions). Here we examined individual differences in cognitive and affective empathy, and how they were related to two different aspects of attentional control: focusing and shifting. A sample of 299 adult participants completed psychometrically validated questionnaires, the Attentional Control Scale and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy. Individuals who reported a greater ability to shift their attention in everyday life exhibited higher levels of cognitive but not affective empathy, whereas individuals who reported greater ability to focus their attention demonstrated lower levels of affective but not cognitive empathy. This reveals how cognitive-attentional processes are selectively related to core social and emotional functioning, highlighting the importance of considering these distinct sub-processes of empathy and of attentional control.

同情是一个重要的心理过程。它由两个可分离的部分组成：认知共情（采用他人的观点并理解他们的情感）和情感共情（他人的情感的替代体验）。在这里，我们研究了认知和情感移情中的个体差异，以及它们与注意力控制的两个不同方面之间的关系：聚焦和转移。299名成年参与者的样本完成了经心理计量学验证的问卷，注意控制量表和认知和情感移情问卷。那些在日常生活中转移注意力的能力较强的人表现出较高的认知水平，但没有情感移情，而具有较高注意力关注能力的人表现出较低的情感同情心，而不是认知同情心。这揭示了认知注意过程如何与核心的社会和情感功能选择性地相关，突出了考虑移情和注意控制的这些不同子过程的重要性。