Shisei Tei

Empathy cultivates deeper interpersonal relationships and is important for socialization. However, frequent exposure to emotionally-demanding situations may put people at risk for burnout. Burnout has become a pervasive problem among medical professionals because occupational burnout may be highly sensitive to empathy levels. To better understand empathy-induced burnout among medical professionals, exploring the relationship between burnout severity and strength of empathy-related brain activity

Behavioural flexibility is essential for everyday life. This involves shifting attention between different perspectives. Previous studies suggest that flexibility is mainly subserved by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, although rarely emphasized, the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is frequently recruited during flexible behaviour. A crucial question is whether TPJ plays a role in different types of flexibility, compared to its limited role in perceptual flexibility. We hypoth

Medical professionals are highly vulnerable to burnout, which may lead to medical errors and even suicide. Burnout may be triggered by excessive empathic distress responses,1 but may be mitigated by an enhanced sense of meaning in one's work,2 which increases satisfaction and job commitment. However, the effects of sense of meaning on the correlation between empathy and burnout remain unclear. Thirty-nine nurses (29 women, aged 22–35 years) completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (subscales: emo

Social-anxiety disorder involves a fear of embarrassing oneself in the presence of others. Taijin-kyofusho (TKS), a subtype common in East Asia, additionally includes a fear of embarrassing others. TKS individuals are hypersensitive to others' feelings and worry that their physical or behavioral defects humiliate others. To explore the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms, we compared TKS ratings with questionnaire-based empathic disposition, cognitive flexibility (set-shifting), and empathy-ass

Individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) often experience difficulty and confusion in acknowledging others' perspectives and arguably exhibit egocentricity. However, whether this egocentricity necessarily results in selfish behavior during social situations remains a matter of debate. To study this relationship, we used computerized visuospatial perspective-taking task (VPT) and social-discounting task (SDT), derived from cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, and examined egoc

Inflexible behaviours in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) broadly obstruct social communication. Meanwhile, flexibility implicates cognitive control to resolve socially conflicting situations; however, it remains unclear how people with ASD behave in the face of these conflicts in this respect. We used the ultimatum game (UG) and the implicit-association test (IAT) to examine goal-directed/economic flexibility, both of which involve conflict and cognitive control. In addition, we used

Abstract Fears and social ties have been frequently discussed during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, it is still insufficiently examined how people have developed or mitigated social ties, bias and inter-group conflicts caused by fear. This review examined relevant COVID-19 literature and the psychology of anxiety, distress and aggression to consider how these adverse behaviours might be neutralised by cognitive flexibility. The results showed that social ties function as both risk and protectiv

OPINION article Front. Psychol., 26 May 2023Sec. Personality and Social Psychology Volume 14 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1090297

OPINION article Front. Psychol., 07 November 2022Sec. Health Psychology https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1037637

Rapid digitization is reshaping our daily lives and worldview. Driven by advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) and artificial intelligence (AI), this change affects our cognition and behavioral patterns. These technologies facilitated remote work through online connections (i.e., mediated communication; Table S1), which became particularly crucial during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. However, while digitization offers numerous benefits, it also poses challenges (Cat

Although mitigating burnout has long been a pressing issue in healthcare, recent global disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic and wars, have exacerbated this problem. Medical professionals are frequently exposed to diverse job-induced distress; furthermore, the importance of people's sense of coherence (SOC) over work has been addressed to better deal with burnout. However, the neural mechanisms underlying SOC in medical professionals are not sufficiently investigated. In this study, the in