Attentional control both helps and harms empathy

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