Ido Shalev

Also, thank you, Khadijah, Hailey, @estherina.bsky.social, Arina, and Diogo. Could not have done it without you ❤️

I wasn’t sure whether to post, but decided I wanted to share and thank everyone who joined Saturday's focus group on identity loss in mental health conditions. When these wars end, we'll need kind, humane ways to heal and reconcile who we are with what we've lost, both in the world and in ourselves.

💕 Does oxytocin help wounds heal faster? Not on its own.

In 80 healthy couples, intranasal oxytocin accelerated wound healing only when paired with affectionate touch and partner appreciation.

Oxytocin acts as a "social amplifier".

buff.ly/IvuBcTq

#Oxytocin #SocialHealth #RelationshipScience

Empathic Disequilibrium in Autistic Traits and CU Traits: Investigating Empathy Imbalance in Children - Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology The current study investigated the relationship between CU traits, autistic traits, and empathic disequilibrium, which reflects the imbalance between cognitive empathy (CE) and affective empathy (AE)....

Our new paper, led by Dr Giorgos Georgiou. In 4–10-year-olds, autistic traits predict empathic disequilibrium (affective > cognitive empathy), echoing adult findings. Callous–unemotional traits show lower empathy and reduced disequilibrium in both forms.
doi.org/10.1007/s108...

Thanks, Lydia! ☺️

Delighted to present our SOMs tutorial with fresh-out-of-print slides at @mrccbu.bsky.social Weekly Seminar today! Even better getting to present alongside @estherina.bsky.social 🙌

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

Here it is! #rstats

@estherina.bsky.social

Congrats!! 👏 👏

Working on these guidelines with this brilliant team is an absolute privilege and a true team effort. Thank you! @estherina.bsky.social @mariabjelen.bsky.social @William_Mills @marcpbennett.bsky.social @beckyneuro.bsky.social @timdalgleish.bsky.social @duncanastle.bsky.social

New preprint 🎉 Psych constructs are complex. Symptoms overlap, people rarely fit neat categories, and patterns are non-linear. Most methods compromise this richness. Self-Organising Maps don't. We provide a step-by-step tutorial with annotated R code to make them accessible.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Empathic disequilibrium could change the way we think about empathy and help recognise and accept diverse empathic experiences, moving us beyond the usual “low” or “high” empathy narrative. #Neurodiversity #Autism #Empathy

www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Empathy for and From Embodied Robots: An Interdisciplinary Review - C. Daryl Cameron, Alan R. Wagner, Martina Orlandi, Eliana Hadjiandreou, India G. Oates, Stephen Anderson, 2025 Several years ago, the world was stunned when the cute robot HitchBOT was destroyed. Does empathy for robots—sharing experiences and feeling compassion—make sen...

Excited to announce a new open-access EMP Lab paper on empathic AI: an interdisciplinary collaboration between psychology, philosophy, & engineering on motivated empathy expression and reception with social robots.
@ssripennstate.bsky.social
@psuliberalarts.bsky.social
@rockethics.bsky.social
1/n

Frontiers | Temporal depth in a coherent self and in depersonalization: theoretical model Multiple theoretical models of dissociative experiences have been formulated over the last century. These theories are clinically useful; however, it remains...

Rethinking the mechanism of @dissociation . Combines first-principles & nonlinear dynamics: collapses in "temporal depth" is the key driver behind the loss of self-coherence. tinyurl.com/2wevuvvp
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social , ‪@tolchinsky.bsky.social @lancelotdacosta.bsky.social

What if it’s not about having “too much” or “too little” empathy, but about the balance between understanding and sharing others’ emotions? A new paper review empathic disequilibrium in autism and mental health, moving beyond deficit-oriented narratives: https://ow.ly/p5lH50XzTUW

Researchers from MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge and University of Cambridge showed that the brain stays in the adolescent phase until our early thirties. Find out more in the BBC article 👉 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgl6klez226o

We then discuss current limitations of the concept, the many open questions that remain, and urge future research to investigate empathic disequilibrium carefully and together with people who share this unique experience.

The idea has theoretical and clinical implications. It may change the way we think about empathy and help recognise and accept diverse empathic experiences, moving us beyond the usual “low” or “high” empathy narrative.

In this paper, we place empathic disequilibrium within a broader theoretical framework, showing how cognitive and emotional empathy form two global dimensions, the overall empathy level AND the balance (or imbalance) between its components. These two dimensions appear to be unrelated to one another.

Empathic disequilibrium has since emerged as a reliable correlate of neurodiverse and clinical characteristics, capturing patterns that overall empathy scores, or its components alone, often miss.

Research has long emphasised that social communication depends on both cognitive and emotional empathy, working together. Yet studies on neurodiverse and clinical groups have often examined these components separately, which may have contributed to the inconsistent findings in the literature.

Empathic disequilibrium: theoretical implications and clinical relevance Empathy is central to social cognition, yet efforts to link it with neurodiverse and clinical conditions have yielded contradictory findings, often reinforcing a deficit-focused narrative that conflic...

🧵 New paper! Five years ago, we, @fuzefovsky.bsky.social, Dr Alal Eran, and I, introduced empathic disequilibrium, the mismatch between cognitive and emotional empathy. In our article published in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, we discuss the theoretical and clinical implications of the concept.

Empathic disequilibrium: theoretical implications and clinical relevance Empathy is central to social cognition, yet efforts to link it with neurodiverse and clinical conditions have yielded contradictory findings, often reinforcing a deficit-focused narrative that conflicts with individuals’ experiences. While traditional models distinguish cognitive (understanding others’ emotions) from emotional empathy (being affected by others’ emotions), they often neglect how their interplay shapes individual outcomes. Addressing these limitations, this article focuses on the emerging concept of empathic disequilibrium, the intrapersonal imbalance between cognitive and emotional empathy. We synthesise current evidence linking empathic disequilibrium with individual differences in autistic traits and mental health, discuss its potential mechanisms, and propose a framework that recognises empathy as a multifaceted system with interacting components, with implications for advancing theory and practice across cognitive sciences.

Online Now: Empathic disequilibrium: theoretical implications and clinical relevance

Amazing! Huge congrats! 👏

Our new preprint is out! We show a replicable relationship between empathic disequilibrium and eating disorders.

Led by Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier, @fuzefovsky.bsky.social, and Dr Rachel Moseley. So lucky to be working with this brilliant team.

Path Asymmetry in Complex Dynamic Systems of Psychopathology This article illustrates the assumption of path symmetry in current theories of psychopathology and calls for the development of dynamical systems of mental illness that incorporate asymmetry.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Moral injury prevention and intervention Background: Those working in high-risk occupations may often face ethical dilemmas that violate their moral code which can lead to moral injury (MI). While research into the impact of MI is growing...

Paper on moral injury- www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New paper: doi.org/10.1111/jora... What mental health profiles exist during preclinical stages? Data were drawn from 13 studies with over 100,000 young people from community and school samples. Discussed are early-stage profiles spanning from excellent mental health to more at-risk profiles.