Social Anxiety and Empathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
individuals with social anxiety
predicting variance in empathy using social anxiety scores or comparing empathy scores between socially anxious individuals and a control group
socially anxious individuals vs. control group
association between social anxiety and affective (AE) and cognitive empathy (CE)
Abstract
This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to clarify the association between social anxiety and affective (AE) and cognitive empathy (CE). 1442 studies from PsycINFO, Medline, and EMBASE (inception-January 2020) were systematically reviewed. Included studies (N = 48) either predicted variance in empathy using social anxiety scores or compared empathy scores between socially anxious individuals and a control group. Social anxiety and AE were statistically significantly positively associated, k = 14, r = .103 (95%CI [.003, .203]), z = 2.03, p = .043. Sex (Q There was evidence for a positive association between social anxiety and AE, but future studies are needed to verify the moderating roles of sex and type of measure. Besides, low CE might only hold for patients with SAD.