Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Shared Hearts and Minds: Physiological Synchrony During Empathy

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
  • Published:
Affective Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Empathy is a multidimensional construct that includes changes in cognitive, affective, and physiological processes. However, the physiological processes that contribute to empathic responding have received far less empirical attention. Here, we investigated whether physiological synchrony emerged during an empathy-inducing activity in which individuals disclosed a time of suffering while their romantic partner listened and responded (N = 111 couples). Further, we examined the extent to which trait and state measures of cognitive and affective empathy were associated with each other and with physiological synchrony during this activity. We found evidence for physiological synchrony in skin conductance reactivity and also in interbeat interval reactivity, though only when disclosers were women, but not for respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity. Physiological synchrony was not consistently associated with other well-established trait and state measures of empathy. These findings identify the nuanced role of physiological synchrony in empathic responding to others’ suffering.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Participants also took part in other tasks (reading to each other, discussing something they wanted their partner to change, and expressing gratitude towards each other) collected to answer unrelated research questions.

  2. After the laboratory session, couples filled out other measures unrelated to the current project, including a daily-diary study and a follow-up survey.

  3. One participant did not complete the background survey and four did not complete the lab survey—these participants were retained to study physiology.

  4. To allow for more direct comparison of IBI and SCL with RSA, we examined synchrony when IBI (B = 0.00, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [− 0.06, 0.05], t(2230) =  − 0.15, p = .88) and SCL (B = 0.10, SE = 0.04, 95% CI [0.04, 0.17], t(2170) = 2.99, p < .01) were binned at 30 s and found consistent results. We also created 60-s bins for RSA, for readers concerned about our 30-s RSA bins, and found consistent results (B =  − 0.05, SE = 0.07, 95% CI [− 0.19, 0.08], t(52.69) =  − 0.78, p = .44).

  5. Gay couples (N = 2) were randomly assigned roles as man or woman. To ensure their assignment had no effect, we replicated the results when switching the assigned gender roles and excluding gay couples (see Supplemental Table S3).

  6. Testing these models using alternate difference-score measures of empathic accuracy and emotion contagion showed the same results, as did dividing these measures into positive and negative emotions (see Supplemental Tables S10:11).

References

  • Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Sage Publications, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ax, A. F. (1964). Goals and methods of psychophysiology. Psychophysiology, 1(1), 8–25.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Batson, C. D., Batson, J. G., Slingsby, J. K., Harrell, K. L., Peekna, H. M., & Todd, R. M. (1991). Empathic joy and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(3), 413–426.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Batson, C. D., Eklund, J. H., Chermok, V. L., Hoyt, J. L., & Ortiz, B. G. (2007). An additional antecedent of empathic concern: Valuing the welfare of the person in need. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(1), 65–74.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Berntson, G. G., & Stowell, J. R. (1998). ECG artifacts and heart period variability: Don’t miss a beat! Psychophysiology, 35(1), 127–132.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bolger, N., & Laurenceau, J. P. (2013). Intensive longitudinal methods: An introduction to diary and experience sampling research. The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, C. L., West, T. V., Sanchez, A. H., & Mendes, W. B. (2021). Emotional empathy in the social regulation of distress: A dyadic approach. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(6), 1004–1019.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Burnstein, E., Crandall, C., & Kitayama, S. (1994). Some Neo-Darwinian decision rules for altruism: Weighing cues for inclusive fitness as a function of the biological importance of the decision. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(5), 773–789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, D. S., & Perrewè, P. L. (1999). The role of social support in the stressor-strain relationship: An examination of work-family conflict. Journal of Management, 25, 513–540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christov-Moore, L., Simpson, E. A., Coudé, G., Grigaityte, K., Iacoboni, M., & Ferrari, P. F. (2014). Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 46, 604–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corner, G. W., Saxbe, D. E., Chaspari, T., Rasmussen, H. F., Perrone, L., Pettit, C., Friendly, M., Timmons, A. C., & Margolin, G. (2019). Compassion in a heartbeat: Physiology during couples’ loss discussions. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(6), 1671–1694.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Danyluck, C., & Page-Gould, E. (2019). Social and physiological context can affect the meaning of physiological synchrony. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 8222.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, M. H. (1983). The effects of dispositional empathy on emotional reactions and helping: A multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality, 51(2), 167–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Waal, F. B. M. (2008). Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology, 59(1), 279–300.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • de Geus, E. J. C., Willemsen, G. H. M., Klaver, C. H. A. M., & van Doornen, L. J. P. (1995). Ambulatory measurement of respiratory sinus arrhythmia and respiration rate. Biological Psychology, 41(3), 205–227.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Di Mascio, A., Boyd, R., Greenblatt, M., & Solomon, H. (1955). The psychiatric interview: A sociophysiologic study. Diseases of the Nervous System, 16, 4–9.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dindia, K., & Allen, M. (1992). Sex differences in self-disclosure: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 106–124.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dwyer, J. (1983). Statistical models for the social and behavioral sciences. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fritz, H. L., Nagurney, A. J., & Helgeson, V. S. (2003). Social interactions and cardiovascular reactivity during problem disclosure among friends. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(6), 713–725.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gates, K. M., Gatzke-Kopp, L. M., Sandsten, M., & Blandon, A. Y. (2015). Estimating time-varying RSA to examine psychophysiological linkage of marital dyads. Psychophysiology, 52(8), 1059–1065.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gonzalez, R., & Griffin, D. (1999). The correlational analysis of dyad-level data in the distinguishable case. Personal Relationships, 6(4), 449–469.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grossman, P., van Beek, J., & Wientjes, C. (1990). A comparison of three quantification methods for estimation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Psychophysiology, 27, 702–714.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Grossman, P., Karemaker, J., & Wieling, W. (1991). Prediction of tonic parasympathetic cardiac control using respiratory sinus arrhythmia: The need for respiratory control. Psychophysiology, 28(2), 201–216.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Haataja, E., Malmberg, J., & Järvelä, S. (2018). Monitoring in collaborative learning: Co-occurrence of observed behavior and physiological synchrony explored. Computers in Human Behavior, 87, 337–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, J. A., & Schwartz, R. (2019). Empathy present and future. The Journal of Social Psychology, 159(3), 225–243.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, J. A., Schwartz, R., & Duong, F. (2021). How do laypeople define empathy? The Journal of Social Psychology, 161(1), 5–24.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1992). Primitive emotional contagion. Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helm, J. L., Sbarra, D. A., & Ferrer, E. (2014). Coregulation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia in adult romantic partners. Emotion, 14(3), 522–531.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Helm, J. L., Miller, J. G., Kahle, S., Troxel, N. R., & Hastings, P. D. (2018). On measuring and modeling physiological synchrony in dyads. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 53(4), 521–543.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • IBM Corp. (2021). IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows (Version 28.0) [Computer software]. IBM Corp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jennings, J. R., Kamarck, T., Stewart, C., Eddy, M., & Johnson, P. (1992). Alternate cardiovascular baseline assessment techniques: Vanilla or resting baseline. Psychophysiology, 29(6), 742–750.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kenny, D. A., Kashy, D. A., & Cook, W. L. (2006). Dyadic data analysis. The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kliewer, W., Lepore, S. J., Broquet, A., & Zuba, L. (1990). Developmental and gender differences in anonymous support-seeking: Analysis of data from a community help line for children. American Journal of Community Psychology, 18(2), 333–339.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kollai, M., & Mizsei, G. (1990). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia is a limited measure of cardiac parasympathetic control in man. The Journal of Physiology, 424(1), 329–342.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Levenson, R. W., & Ruef, A. M. (1992). Empathy: A physiological substrate. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(2), 234–246.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lundqvist, L. O. (1995). Facial EMG reactions to facial expressions: A case of facial emotional contagion? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 36(2), 130–141.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Marci, C. D., Ham, J., Moran, E., & Orr, S. P. (2007). Physiologic correlates of perceived therapist empathy and social-emotional process during psychotherapy. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 195(2), 103–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mauss, I. B., Levenson, R. W., McCarter, L., Wilhelm, F. H., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The tie that binds? Coherence among emotion experience, behavior, and physiology. Emotion, 5(2), 175–190.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Morelli, S. A., Lee, I. A., Arnn, M. E., & Zaki, J. (2015). Emotional and instrumental support provision interact to predict well-being. Emotion, 15(4), 484–493.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, B. A., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2019). Are self-report cognitive empathy ratings valid proxies for cognitive empathy ability? Negligible meta-analytic relations with behavioral task performance. Psychological Assessment, 31(8), 1062–1072.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Palumbo, R. V., Marraccini, M. E., Weyandt, L. L., Wilder-Smith, O., McGee, H. A., Liu, S., & Goodwin, M. S. (2017). Interpersonal autonomic physiology: A systematic review of the literature. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21(2), 99–141.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Porges, S. W. (2007). The Polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74(2), 116–143.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(1), 1–20.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Salazar, L. R. (2016). The relationship between compassion, interpersonal communication apprehension, narcissism and verbal aggressiveness. The Journal of Happiness & Well-Being, 4(1), 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stellar, J., Feinberg, M., & Keltner, D. (2014). When the selfish suffer: Evidence for selective prosocial emotional and physiological responses to suffering egoists. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35(2), 140–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stellar, J. E., Cohen, A., Oveis, C., & Keltner, D. (2015). Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: Compassion and vagal activity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(4), 572–585.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stellar, J. E., Anderson, C. L., & Gatchpazian, A. (2020). Profiles in empathy: Different empathic responses to emotional and physical suffering. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(7), 1398–1416.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stosic, M. D., Fultz, A. A., Brown, J. A., & Bernieri, F. J. (2022). What is your empathy scale not measuring? The convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of five empathy scales. The Journal of Social Psychology, 162(1), 7–25.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tschacher, W., & Meier, D. (2019). Physiological synchrony in psychotherapy sessions. Psychotherapy Research, 30(5), 558–573.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ulloa, E. C., Hammett, J. F., Meda, N. A., & Rubalcaba, S. J. (2017). Empathy and romantic relationship quality among cohabitating couples: An actor–partner interdependence model. The Family Journal, 25(3), 208–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waters, S. F., West, T. V., & Mendes, W. B. (2014). Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and infants. Psychological Science, 25(4), 934–942.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Waters, S. F., West, T. V., Karnilowicz, H. R., & Mendes, W. B. (2017). Affect contagion between mothers and infants: Examining valence and touch. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(7), 1043–1051.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Yokozuka, T., Ono, E., Inoue, Y., Ogawa, K.-I., & Miyake, Y. (2018). The relationship between head motion synchronization and empathy in unidirectional face-to-face communication. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1622.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Zaki, J. (2014). Empathy: A motivated account. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 1608–1647.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Zaki, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. (2008). It takes two: The interpersonal nature of empathic accuracy. Psychological Science, 19(4), 399–404.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Jaweria Qaiser, Emily A. Impett & Jennifer E. Stellar

  2. School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

    Nathan D. Leonhardt

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Bonnie M. Le

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Amie M. Gordon

Authors
  1. Jaweria Qaiser
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nathan D. Leonhardt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Bonnie M. Le
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Amie M. Gordon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Emily A. Impett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Jennifer E. Stellar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jaweria Qaiser.

Ethics declarations

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (#503200) and Canada Foundation for Innovation (#502426).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Availability of Data and Material

Data and materials for this study can be accessed at https://osf.io/ka6mq/.

Code Availability

 The code for this study can be accessed at https://osf.io/ka6mq/.

Authors’ Contributions

BML, EAI, JES, contributed to the study design and data collection. JES formulated the initial research question. AG provided critical inputs on data analyses. JQ analyzed the data, interpreted the results, and drafted the manuscript. All authors provided critical revisions and approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Ethics Approval

All procedures comply with ethical regulations and were approved by the University of Toronto Office for Research Ethics.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was received from all participants prior to conducting the study.

Consent for Publication

Not applicable.

Additional information

Handling editor: Michelle Shiota

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 60 KB)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Qaiser, J., Leonhardt, N.D., Le, B.M. et al. Shared Hearts and Minds: Physiological Synchrony During Empathy. Affec Sci 4, 711–721 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-023-00210-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-023-00210-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation