Emotion intensity modulates perspective taking in men and women: an event-related potential study

When empathizing with another individual, one can imagine the individual’s emotional states and how he or she perceives a situation. However, it is not known to what extent imagining the other differs from imagining oneself under different emotional intensity situations in both sexes. The present study investigated the regulatory effect of emotional intensity on perspective taking in men and women by event-related potentials. The participants were shown pictures of individuals in highly negative (HN), moderately negative, and neutral situations, and instructed to imagine the degree of pain perceived from either a self-perspective or an other-perspective. The results showed that there was no N2 differentiation between the self-perspective and other-perspective under all conditions. Nor was there late positive potential differentiation under moderately negative and neutral conditions in either sex. In contrast, late positive potential induced by HN pictures under the self-perspective was significantly larger than that under the other-perspective only in women. These results suggested that women tended to overestimate the pain of HN stimuli from a self-perspective than from an other-perspective.