A Modifying Effect of Trait Empathy on Frustration-Related Attentional Processing of Aggression-Related Words

Abstract. This study describes two experiments conducted to investigate the modifying effect of trait empathy on attentional processing of emotionally laden (i.e., aggression-related) words in frustrating situations. A dot-probe task was used in the first experiment. The results showed that low-empathy individuals exhibited attentional bias toward aggressive words under both frustrating and nonfrustrating conditions. High-empathy individuals demonstrated attentional bias only under frustrating conditions. In the second experiment, the effect of frustration on high-empathy individuals’ aggression was reflected by N200, P300, and late positive potential amplitudes. It was discussed that these amplitudes might indicate that frustrating situations caused high-empathy individuals to show attentional bias toward aggressive words. Our findings suggested that high-empathy individuals were sensitive to emotionally laden (i.e., aggression-related) stimuli under frustrating conditions.