Electroencephalographic α-band and β-band correlates of perspective-taking and personal distress.

Perspective-taking and personal distress are argued to play contrasting roles in empathic processing, with perspective-taking promoting empathic concern and personal distress promoting egoistic motivations. Previous research has shown that emotionally negative valence imagery induced α and β power changes relative to neutral imagery and that α activity relates inversely to empathy. We therefore investigated the hypothesis that enhanced β is associated with personal distress and is accompanied by a correlation between α and perspective-taking.