Emotional preferences and goals and emotion dysregulation in children with Asperger's syndrome and typically developing children.

OBJECTIVES: Emotion goals lie at the heart of emotion regulation, as people have to first decide what emotions they want to feel before engaging in emotion regulation. Given that children with Asperger's syndrome (AS) are characterized by exhibiting difficulties in emotion regulation, studying whether they display similar or different emotion goals compared to typically developing (TD) children may provide insightful information. METHODS: Thirty AS and 30 TD children (10-12 years) reported about their general (i.e., how they want to feel in general) and contextualized (i.e., how they want to feel when confronting vs. collaborating with someone) emotion goals, and about their difficulties in emotion regulation through questionnaires. RESULTS: Results showed that both groups did not differ in their general emotional goals and in their contextualized emotion goals for happiness for collaboration and anger for confrontation. AS children only differed from TD children in a higher preference for sadness for collaboration and happiness for confrontation. These emotion goals predicted their difficulties to engage in goal-directed behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: The obtained results support the need to further study emotion goals as an aspect of emotion dysregulation, namely the difficulties to engage in goal-directed behaviour when experiencing different emotions. PRACTITIONER POINTS: AS and TD children did not differ in their general emotion goals. AS and TD children did not vary in their preferences for happiness for collaboration and anger for confrontation. AS children only differed in a higher preference for sadness for collaboration and happiness for confrontation. Understanding emotion goals might help practitioners to develop better interventions.

Interpersonal emotion regulation in Asperger's syndrome and borderline personality disorder.

OBJECTIVES: Interpersonal emotion regulation (ER) plays a significant role in how individuals meet others' emotional needs and shape social interactions, as it is key to initiating and maintaining high-quality social relationships. Given that individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) or Asperger's syndrome (AS) exhibit problems in social interactions, the aim of this study was to examine their use of different interpersonal ER strategies compared to normative control participants. METHODS: Thirty individuals with AS, 30 with BPD, and 60 age-, gender-, and education-matched control participants completed a battery of measures to assess interpersonal ER, which assessed to what extent participants tended to engage in interpersonal affect improvement and worsening and to what extent they used different strategies. Before completing those measures, all groups were screened for disorders of Axis I and Axis II with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I and Axis II Disorders. RESULTS: Compared to controls, individuals with AS and with BPD engaged less in affect improvement. No differences were found for affect worsening. Individuals with AS reported to use less adaptive (attention deployment, cognitive change) and more maladaptive (expressive suppression) interpersonal ER strategies, compared to individuals with BPD and control participants who did not differ from each other. CONCLUSIONS: The obtained results suggest the need to develop tailored ER interventions for each of the clinical groups studied. Furthermore, they highlight the need to study further potential differences in intrapersonal and interpersonal ER in clinical populations. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Individuals with Asperger's syndrome (AS) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) engaged significantly less than healthy controls in interpersonal affect improvement. Individuals with BPD did not differ from healthy controls in the use of interpersonal strategies. Individuals with AS reported to use more maladaptive and less adaptive strategies than BPD individuals and healthy controls. Understanding differences in interpersonal emotion regulation in individuals with AS and with BPD and normative controls might help practitioners develop better interventions.

Can empathic concern be generalized from one person to others? Another positive side of the 'one-among-others' effect.

Previous research on the one-among-others effect has shown that inducing empathic concern towards a victim presented among other individuals in need enhances: (1) awareness of these others and (2) the willingness to help them individually. In this work, we test that these outcomes are linked by an additional process: the generalization of empathic concern felt for the victim towards the others in need. Study 1 revealed that inducing empathic concern for a victim presented as one-among-others led to see the others as separate and different individuals, not as a unitary group. Study 2 showed that the one-among-others presentation (vs. only-one-victim) increased empathic concern towards those presented along with the main victim. Study 3 showed that the one-among-others presentation (vs. a single-victim or a statistical presentation) increased the empathic concern felt for other individuals in need. Therefore, the one-among-others presentation does not weaken empathic concern but, instead, it leads to its generalization from one to others.

Measuring general dispositions to feeling empathy and distress.

The Vicarious Experience Scale (VES) is a new measure aimed at measuring the disposition to feeling empathy and personal distress. In Study 1, participants completed the VES along with the classic measure of Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). In Studies 2 and 3, participants observed the case of a person in need and subsequently reported the elicited emotions of empathy and personal distress; participants filled in the VES either a few minutes later (Study 2) or three months before the presentation of the case (Study 3). The results supported both the convergent validity of the VES and its capacity in a specific situation.

Local versus Global Perceptual Scope, Empathic Concern, and Helping Preferences in Multiple-Victim Situations.

Previous research on the one-among-others effect has shown that inducing empathic concern towards a victim presented alongside with a small number of other victims enhances (a) the perception of this set of victims as separate and different individuals (instead of as a group), and (b) the preference to help them individually (rather than collectively). We propose that inducing a local (vs. global) perceptual scope increases (vs. lessens) these two outcomes. In this work, participants first reported their perception of an ad that showed a victim depicted as one-among-others and, afterwards, were unexpectedly asked to indicate their preference for giving the victims either "individualized", "collective", or "equal" assistance. In Experiment 1 (N = 48), we manipulated the participants' local (vs. global) perceptual scope and allowed empathy concern to occur naturally. In Experiment 2 (N = 213), we manipulated both the perceptual scope and empathy concern. Overall, results showed that the combined presence of local scope and empathic concern increased the awareness of others (η p 2 = .203 and .047, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.35] and [0.03, 0.13], ps < .03) and the preference for individualized assistance (zs = 2.08 and 2.74, ps < .02). Lastly, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of perceiving a set of victims as individuals (rather than as a group) in need.

Influence of the type of patient in the emotional response of nurses and nursing students.

Nurses are playing a vital role in caring for patients. However, this can be very emotionally taxing. In two studies, professional nurses and nursing students from two different countries (Spain and United States) were compared on different measures-objective and self-perspective-taking, personal distress, and emotional impact-when facing different types of patients who suffered from the same illness: One terminally ill and one non-terminal. Results showed that the type of patient (terminal vs. non-terminal) only affected significantly the nursing students, who reported a higher self-perspective taking, personal distress, and emotional impact when the patient was terminal. Nursing students, compared to professional ones, seem to be more vulnerable to the type of patient they care for as they exhibited higher levels of negative emotional experience when the patient described was terminal. The significant implications are discussed.

Children's Moral Emotion Attribution in the Happy Victimizer Task: The Role of Response Format.

Previous research in the happy victimizer tradition indicated that preschool and early elementary school children attribute positive emotions to the violator of a moral norm, whereas older children attribute negative (moral) emotions. Cognitive and motivational processes have been suggested to underlie this developmental shift. The current research investigated whether making the happy victimizer task less cognitively demanding by providing children with alternative response formats would increase their attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation. In Study 1, 93 British children aged 4-7 years old responded to the happy victimizer questions either in a normal condition (where they spontaneously pointed with a finger), a wait condition (where they had to wait before giving their answers), or an arrow condition (where they had to point with a paper arrow). In Study 2, 40 Spanish children aged 4 years old responded to the happy victimizer task either in a normal or a wait condition. In both studies, participants' attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation was significantly higher in the conditions with alternative response formats (wait, arrow) than in the normal condition. The role of cognitive abilities for emotion attribution in the happy victimizer task is discussed.

Feeling at hospitals: perspective-taking, empathy and personal distress among professional nurses and nursing students.

When facing a person in need, professional nurses will tend to adopt an objective perspective compared to nursing students who, instead, will tend to adopt an imagine-other perspective. Consequently, professional nurses will show lower vicarious emotional reaction such as empathy and distress. Using samples from Spain (Studies 1 and 2) and United states (Study 3), we compared perspective taking strategies and the emotional responses of nurses and nursing students when perceiving a sick child (Study 1) and a sick adult (Studies 2 and 3). Taken together, the results supported our hypotheses. We discuss the applied value of considering the relationship between perspective-taking and its emotional consequences for the nursing profession.