Counter-empathy significantly affects people’s social lives. Previous evidence indicates that the degree of counter-empathy can be either strong or weak. Strong counter-empathy easily occurs when empathizers are prejudiced against the targets of empathy (e.g. prejudice against outgroup members) and activates brain regions that are opposite to those activated by empathy. Weak counter-empathy may have different neural processing paths from strong ones, but its underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. In this work, we used an unfair distribution paradigm, which can reduce participants’ prejudice against persons empathized with, and functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the neural mechanisms underlying counter-empathy. Here, empathy and counter-empathy shared a common neural mechanism, induced by unfair distribution, in the right middle temporal gyrus. Counter-empathy activated distinct brain regions that differed from those of empathic responses in different situations. The functions of these brain regions, which included the middle frontal, middle temporal and left medial superior gyri, were similar and mostly related to emotional regulation and cognitive processing. Here, we propose a process model of counter-empathy, involving two processing paths according to whether or not prejudice exists. This study has theoretical significance and broadens our understanding of the cognitive neural mechanisms underlying empathy and counter-empathy.

中文翻译：

---

建立反共情处理模型：来自功能磁共振成像的证据


反同理心显着影响人们的社交生活。先前的证据表明，反同理心的程度可以是强的，也可以是弱的。当共情者对共情的目标存在偏见（例如对外群体成员的偏见）并激活与共情激活的大脑区域相反的大脑区域时，很容易出现强烈的反共情。弱反同理心可能与强反同理心有不同的神经处理路径，但其潜在的神经机制仍不清楚。在这项工作中，我们使用了不公平的分配范式，可以减少参与者对共情者的偏见，并使用功能磁共振成像来探索反共情背后的神经机制。在这里，同理心和反同理心共享一个共同的神经机制，这是由右侧颞中回的不公平分配引起的。反共情激活的大脑区域与不同情况下的共情反应不同。这些大脑区域，包括额中回、颞中回和左内侧上回，功能相似，主要与情绪调节和认知处理有关。在这里，我们提出了一种反共情的过程模型，根据偏见是否存在涉及两条处理路径。这项研究具有理论意义，拓宽了我们对共情和反共情背后的认知神经机制的理解。