THE DARK SIDE OF HELPING: PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF A ‘PROBLEMATIC’ ACTIVATION OF CAREGIVING BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM

Helping behaviors are prosocial acts aimed at promoting others’ well-being. They can be affected by individual’s empathic skills, allowing to be sensitive to others’ needs and emotions, and by personal distress, implying feelings of apprehension and discomfort in response others’ distress and producing a selfish motivation to reduce such feelings once elicited. The caregiving behavioral system can be considered to account for variability in helping behaviors. Following the two-dimensional model of attachment-system functioning, based on the concepts of hyperactivation and deactivation, a two-dimensional model of the caregiving behavioral system has recently been proposed. Here, across two studies, we tested predictions derived from the two-dimensional model of caregiving-system functioning regarding the contribution of a ‘problematic’ high-high pattern, characterized by the coexistence of both hyperactivating and deactivating strategies, to psychopathological symptoms. The first study was aimed to validate the ‘problematic’ high-high pattern, by examining personal distress and empathy as proxies of the two dimensions, i.e., control and indifference respectively. Non-clinical adults (N = 242) completed self-report measures of caregiving activation, empathy, and personal distress. The main results identified a problematic activation style characterized by high personal distress (high control) and low empathy (high indifference), fitting the view of coexisting hyperactivation and deactivation strategies. A second study on a different non-clinical sample (N = 383) investigated the association between caregiving activation styles and psychopathological symptoms. Results demonstrated that the ‘problematic’ pattern was associated with greater symptoms of depression and anxiety, alongside with executive function difficulties. These results provide initial demonstration of the psychopathological implications of the ‘problematic’ high-high pattern of caregiving-system functioning and contribute to understanding of the nuanced expressions of helping behaviors.