Empathy, defending, and functional connectivity while witnessing social exclusion

ABSTRACT

Peers are present for most bullying episodes. Peers who witness bullying can play an important role in either stopping or perpetuating the behavior. Defending can greatly benefit victimized peers. Empathy is strongly associated with defending. Yet, less is known about defenders’ neural response to witnessing social distress, and how this response may relate to the link between empathy and defending. Forty-six first-year undergraduate students (M_age = 17.7; 37 women), with varied history of peer defending, underwent fMRI scanning while witnessing a depiction of social exclusion. Functional connectivity analysis was performed across brain regions that are involved in cognitive empathy, empathetic distress, and compassion. History of defending was positively associated with functional connectivity (Exclusion > Inclusion) between the left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) – medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), and right OFC – left and right amygdalae. Defending was negatively associated with functional connectivity between the left OFC – anterior cingulate cortex. The relationship between history of defending and empathy (specifically, empathetic perspective taking) was moderated by functional connectivity of the right OFC – left amygdala. These findings suggest that coactivation of brain regions involved in compassionate emotion regulation and empathetic distress play a role in the relationship between empathy and peer defending.

KEYWORDS:

• Defending
• empathy
• functional connectivity
• social exclusion
• peer victimization

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Don Brien for technical assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2086618

Notes

¹ Results of the group-level functional connectivity contrasts for the main effect of Task and Task x Defending interaction (Regression for Defending score, controlling for victimization. Analysis-level ROI-to-ROI FDR-corrections reflects multiple comparison correction for number of connections included in the analysis.

² Conditional effects of the focal predictor (Empathy via Perspective Taking) at low, medium, and high values of the moderator (Difference in Magnitude of FxC of the right OFC – left amygdala for the contrast Exclusion > Inclusion). The low level of the moderator represents the16th percentile (FxC that is stronger for Inclusion than Exclusion, resulting in negative value for Fisher-transformed correlation coefficient in the contrast of Exclusion > Inclusion); medium level represents the 50th percentile (FxC minimally stronger for Exclusion compared to Inclusion, resulting in low positive value for Fisher-transformed correlation coefficient for the contrast Exclusion > Inclusion); and high level represents the 84th percentile (FxC that is stronger for Exclusion than Inclusion, resulting in positive Fisher-transformed correlation coefficient for the contrast Exclusion> Inclusion). Model 2 presents the results of the only significant interaction, with FxC of the right OFC – left amygdala (for the contrast Exclusion > Inclusion), moderating the positive relationship between peer Empathy (via Perspective Taking) and Defending..

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé [Career Award]; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [Canadian Graduate Scholarship, Doctoral]; The Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science [Early Researcher Award]; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [924-2015-0002].