Universidad de San Andrés

Author Of 1 Presentation

Neuropsychology and Cognition Poster Presentation

P0826 - Social emotions in patients with multiple sclerosis (ID 320)

Presentation Number
P0826
Presentation Topic
Neuropsychology and Cognition

Abstract

Background

In addition to sensory, motor, and cognitive symptoms, multiple sclerosis (MS) involves diverse socio-emotional disorders. However, no work has experimentally studied the processing of social emotions (those that are triggered in interpersonal contexts) in this population.

Objectives

We aim to report preliminary results on the processing of two social emotions, envy and Schadenfreude (pleasure in the misfortune of others), in MS patients relative to healthy controls.

Methods

We evaluated 15 patients with relapsing-remitting MS and 15 control subjects matched for gender, age, educational level, executive functioning, and anxious and depressive symptoms. In an ecological paradigm (validated and reported in other populations), participants read sentences denoting fortunate experiences (designed to evoke envy) and unfortunate experiences (designed to evoke Schadenfreude) of different characters and judged how much envy and pleasure they felt, respectively. The situations belonged to three dimensions: merit (undeserved fortunate experiences for the envy condition and deserved unfortunate experiences for the Schadenfreude condition), morality (fortunate or unfortunate experiences related to moral transgressions) and legality (fortunate or unfortunate experiences related to transgressions of laws). Neutral events were also included as a control condition. We compared the emotional levels reported by each group in each experimental condition.

Results

Compared to the control group, MS patients reported experiencing lower levels of envy (t = 2.22, p = .02) and Schadenfreude (t = 1.74, p = .04) in the merit dimension. Likewise, they tended to have lower scores in total envy ratings (t = 1.61; p = .06) and in the moral dimension (t = 1.68; p = .05), although these results did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions

To our knowledge, this is the first experimental assessment of social emotions in MS patients. Our preliminary results suggest a possible alteration in particular subdomains, particularly those involving merit. Despite their exploratory nature, these data invite further research to corroborate or refine the observed patterns. Acknowledging and characterizing the impact of socio-emotional symptoms on MS offers new vistas on the multidimensional impact of the disease, laying the foundations for new evaluation and intervention strategies.

FUNDING

This work is partially supported by grants from CONICET; CONICYT/FONDECYT Regular (1170010); FONCYT-PICT 2017-1818; FONCYT-PICT 2017-1820; FONDAP 15150012; Programa Interdisciplinario de Investigación Experimental en Comunicación y Cognición (PIIECC), Facultad de Humanidades, USACH; GBHI ALZ UK-20-639295; and NIH NIA R01 AG057234.

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