Self-report Measures Of Empathy Research Articles

Psychometric evaluation of the German version of the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE)

Empathy as a central element of social cognition plays a decisive role in various psychosocial areas and interpersonal dynamics, especially within the context of psychotherapy. Despite the controversy surrounding a standardized definition, empathy is generally regarded as a multidimensional concept that encompasses both cognitive and affective dimensions. This differentiation between cognitive and affective facets is addressed by a widely used and internationally well-established self-report measure of empathy, the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE). This study focuses on evaluating the psychometric properties of the German version of the QCAE. In a convenience sample (N=1300), the postulated confirmatory five-factor model showed an adequate fit to the underlying structure. The subscales of the QCAE exhibited satisfactory internal consistency and convergent validity with other instruments measuring empathy. Despite certain methodological limitations, our findings suggest that the German version of the QCAE is suitable as a reliable and valid instrument for measuring empathy. Further studies in population-representative samples and clinical populations are required before a clear recommendation regarding its utilization can be provided.

Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of the Digital Communication Empathy Scale (DCES)

This investigation developed a self-report measure of empathy as experienced within digital communication – “digital empathy”. 72 items were developed using six validated empathy constructs as conceptual bases. In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis revealed the expected six factors underpinning 67 of the items. Six items per factor were chosen to create a parsimonious Digital Communication Empathy Scale (DCES). Study 2 verified the six-factor structure of the shorter, 36-item DCES using confirmatory factor analysis, and established preliminary validity evidence by examining its relationships with two variables often related to empathy: gender and social desirability. Similar to existing self-report empathy scales, females scored higher than males on five DCES subscales and the DCES total score. Relationships between DCES scores and social desirability were broadly consistent with those previously observed between existing self-report empathy scales and social desirability. The DCES exhibits good psychometrics, demonstrates preliminary validity evidence, and provides a multi-dimensional measure of digital empathy. Future research may extend this work by examining relationships between the DCES and digital behaviors like online helping and cyber-aggression.

Behind the mask: What the eyes can't tell: Facial emotion recognition in a sample of Italian health care students.

Wearing a facemask remains a pivotal strategy to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection even after vaccination, but one of the possible costs of this protection is that it may interfere with the ability to read emotion in facial expressions. We explored the extent to which it may be more difficult for participants to read emotions in faces when faces are covered with masks than when they are not, and whether participants' empathy, attachment style, and patient-centred orientation would affect their performance. Medical and nursing students (N = 429) were administered either a masked or unmasked set of 24 adult faces depicting anger, sadness, fear, or happiness. Participants also completed self-report measures of empathy, patient-centredness, and attachment style. As predicted, participants made more errors to the masked than the unmasked faces with the exception of the identification of fear. Of note, when participants missed happiness, they were most likely to see it as sadness, and when they missed anger, they were most likely to see it as happiness. A multiple linear regression analysis showed that more errors identifying emotions in faces was associated with faces being masked as opposed to unmasked, lower scores on the empathy fantasy scale, and higher scores on the fearful attachment style. The findings suggest that wearing facemasks is associated with a variety of negative outcomes that might interfere with the building of positive relationships between health care workers and patients. Those who teach student health care workers would benefit from bringing this finding into their curriculum and training.

Psychopathic Traits in a Swedish Court-Ordered Forensic Sample: Preferential Associations of Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition.

The construct validity of the triarchic psychopathy model has yet to be evaluated in the Swedish forensic psychiatric context. We examined associations between the three phenotypic constructs of the triarchic model of psychopathy (i.e., boldness, meanness, disinhibition), self-assessed empathy and anxiety, and clinical variables in 91 individuals undergoing pretrial forensic psychiatric evaluation in Sweden. Participants completed the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) and self-report measures of empathy and anxiety. Clinical variables, including psychiatric diagnoses and criminal behavior, were collected from the forensic psychiatric evaluations (FPE). All three subscales of the TriPM displayed significant and predominantly anticipated correlations with empathy and trait anxiety measures. TriPM Disinhibition was the only subscale with significant associations with the clinical variables collected from the FPEs. The results provide evidence for the reliability and construct validity of the Swedish translation of the TriPM in a pretrial forensic setting.

Revisiting the association between self-reported empathy and behavioral assessments of social cognition.

Previous research has shown a weak association between self-reported empathy and performance on behavioral assessments of social cognition. However, previous studies have often overlooked important distinctions within these multifaceted constructs (e.g., differences among the subcomponents of self-reported empathy, distinctions in tasks assessing lower- vs. high-level social cognition, and potential covariates that represent competing predictors). Using data from three separate studies (total N = 2,376), we tested whether the tendency to take the perspective of others (i.e., perspective-taking), and the tendency to catch the emotions of others (i.e., emotional contagion for positive and negative emotions), were associated with performance on tasks assessing lower- to higher-level social-cognitive ability (i.e., emotion recognition, theory of mind, and empathic accuracy) and affect sharing. Results showed little evidence of an association between any of the self-reported empathy measures and either social-cognitive ability or affect sharing. Using several large samples, our findings add additional evidence to previous work showing that self-report measures of empathy are not valid proxies of behaviorally assessed social cognition. Moreover, we find that the ease with which individuals recognize and understand their own emotions (i.e., alexithymia) is more related to social-cognitive abilities and affect sharing, than their tendency to take the perspective of others, or to vicariously experience the emotions of others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Polygenic scores for empathy associate with posttraumatic stress severity in response to certain traumatic events

BackgroundPosttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is triggered by environmental stressors. Empathy may predispose an individual to respond to life events differently if high empathizers are emotionally more sensitive to trauma. For the first time, we test this hypothesis using genetic information. MethodsWe applied polygenic scoring (PGS) to investigate the shared genetics linking empathy (measured using the Empathy Quotient (EQ), a self-report measure of empathy; N = 46,861) and PTSD symptom severity (measured using the 6-item PTSD Checklist 6-item (PCL-6)) in the UK Biobank (N = 126,219). Follow-up analyses were performed in the context of (1) experiencing any of 16 potential traumas, (2) the total number of traumas endorsed, and (3) the context of trauma. Autism, depression, generalized anxiety, and PCL-17 PGS were included as covariates to verify the specificity of the effect. ResultsEQPGS associated with PCL-6 (R2 = 0.012%, P = 9.35 × 10−5). This effect remained significant after accounting for autism, depression, PTSD, and anxiety PGS but was observed only in those who endorsed experiencing at least one traumatic event. EQPGS showed the strongest effect on PCL-6 (β = 2.32, s.e. = 0.762, P = 0.002) among those who endorsed childhood neglect/abuse (felt hated as a child). With respect to case status, the highest probability of PTSD was 17.93% and 10.04% for those who endorsed “feeling hated as a child” and those who did not, respectively (Pdiff = 0.011; Cohen's d = 1.951, 95%CI 1.70–2.20). ConclusionsA genetic predisposition to higher empathy, which may index greater emotional sensitivity, predisposes an individual to more severe PTSD symptoms, especially after early-life adversity.

Stronger mentalizing network connectivity in expectant fathers predicts postpartum father-infant bonding and parenting behavior

ABSTRACT Fathers play a critical role in parenting and in shaping child outcomes. However, the neurobiological underpinnings of successful adjustment to fatherhood have not been well-specified. Empathy and mentalizing abilities may characterize more effective fathering. These abilities may be supported by the functional connectivity (FC) of brain regions associated with social cognition and executive control. We used a seed-region-based approach to assess resting-state FC (rsFC) of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in 40 expectant fathers. We tested associations between mPFC whole-brain rsFC and fathers’ self-report measures of empathy during pregnancy, as well as their ratings of father-infant bonding and fathering behaviors at six months postpartum. Stronger prenatal rsFC between the mPFC and precuneus, frontal pole, planum polare, and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was negatively associated with self-reported empathic concern and perspective-taking, whereas mPFC rsFC with the lateral occipital cortex (LOC) was positively associated with self-reported perspective-taking. Additionally, stronger prenatal connectivity between the mPFC rsFC and the superior parietal lobule and LOC regions predicted father reports of postpartum bonding with infants, and stronger prenatal mPFC rsFC with the LOC predicted more effective postpartum parenting. This study is the first to measure rsFC in expectant fathers as a predictor of subsequent adjustment to fathering.

An Investigation of Behavioural and Self-Reported Cognitive Empathy Deficits in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Adolescents With Behavioural Difficulties.

Deficits in empathy have been considered hallmarks in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) but are also considered to underlie antisocial behaviour associated with individuals with callous unemotional traits (CU). Research has suggested that individuals with autism spectrum disorders show more difficulties with cognitive empathy, and that individuals diagnosed with behaviours difficulties, characterised by CU traits and antisocial behaviour, demonstrate low affective empathy. In the current manuscript we present findings of two studies. The first study describes the validation of a new stimulus set developed for the empathic accuracy task, focused on its cognitive component. The second study compares the performance of 27 adolescents with ASD, 27 age matched typically developing adolescents and 17 adolescents with behavioural difficulties on the empathic accuracy task and a self-report measure of empathy. While, no differences were observed between the three groups across the empathy accuracy task, the adolescents with ASD and CD showed deficits in their cognitive empathy across the self-report measure. Adolescents with ASD showed lower scores in particularly their perspective taking abilities, whereas the adolescences with behavioural difficulties showed more difficulties with their online simulation. No differences in self-reported affective empathy across the three groups were observed. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Mentalized affectivity in a nutshell: Validation of the Italian version of the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale (B-MAS).

The term “mentalized affectivity” describes the ability to reflect on, process, modulate and express emotions through the prism of autobiographical memory. It represents a bridge concept that integrates previous contributions on emotion regulation and mentalization, offering a quite unique perspective on affective and reflective functioning. The overall aim of this study was to validate the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale (B-MAS), a 12-items self-report instrument, on the Italian population. We tested both the factorial validity of the instrument and its reliability and convergent validity with other similar constructs. We also obtained normative data for the Italian population, broken down by gender. Participants (n = 389) were recruited through snowball sampling. Data was collected through an online survey. Besides the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale, the survey included an ad hoc schedule with questions investigating socio-demographic characteristics, and self-report measures of empathy and reflective functioning. Statistical analysis has shown a three-component (Identifying, Processing, and Expressing emotions) hierarchical structure underlying mentalized affectivity, mirroring the model already proposed in the original validation of the instrument. Moreover, the B-MAS showed good psychometric properties for what regards both reliability and convergent validity. The results of our study highlight the good operationalization and robust empirical foundation of the construct, revealing that the B-MAS is a promising instrument to assess mentalized affectivity. Its brevity makes it particularly valuable both in clinical and research contexts, and the normative data provided in this study will allow an easy comparison with the scores obtained by other samples (clinical and non-clinical).

The Effects of Virtual Reality-Based Education on Empathy and Understanding of the Physical Environment for Dementia Care Workers in Australia: A Controlled Study

Background: There is support for the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) technology in dementia education. However, it is not yet known if VR is a useful tool for improving empathy and understanding of dementia care environments among dementia care workers. Objective: This study compared learning outcomes of VR versus non-VR (control) workshops for dementia care workers of different ages and English-speaking backgrounds. Methods: Dementia care workers enrolled in workshops on dementia care principles. Once participants were enrolled, workshops were assigned at random to deliver non-VR or VR-based education. Participants (N = 114, 91.8%female, mean age = 46.4; SD = 13.2; n = 60VR condition, 54control condition) completed self-report measures of empathy towards people living with dementia, understanding of dementia care environments, dementia knowledge, and attitudes towards dementia at pre- and post-workshop. Results: Significant pre-post main effects were observed for empathy, understanding of dementia care environments, and attitudes. Interaction effects were not found; improvements in outcomes were similar between conditions. However, interaction effects were observed for subgroups. Empathy improved significantly more in the VR condition for older participants. Understanding of dementia care environments improved more in the VR condition for younger and non-English-speaking background participants. Conclusion: Using VR may not augment teaching outcomes for all learners. VR may differentially assist leaners of different ages and English-speaking backgrounds. More research is needed to understand for which variables and for whom VR is a useful teaching tool.

Impact of physician empathy on patient outcomes: a gender analysis.

BackgroundEmpathy in primary care settings has been linked to improved health outcomes. However, the operationalisation of empathy differs between studies, and, to date, no study has concurrently compared affective, cognitive, and behavioural components of empathy regarding patient outcomes. Moreover, it is unclear how gender interacts with the studied dimensions.AimTo examine the relationship between several empathy dimensions and patient-reported satisfaction, consultation’s quality, and patients’ trust in their physicians, and to determine whether this relationship is moderated by a physician’s gender.Design and settingAnalysis of the empathy of 61 primary care physicians in relation to 244 patient experience questionnaires in the French-speaking region of Switzerland.MethodSixty-one physicians were video-recorded with two male and two female patients. Six different empathy measures were assessed: two self-reported measures, a facial recognition test, two external observational measures, and a Synchrony of Vocal Mean Fundamental Frequencies (SVMFF), measuring vocally coded emotional arousal. After the consultation, patients indicated their satisfaction with, trust in, and quality of the consultation.ResultsFemale physicians self-rated their empathic concern higher than their male counterparts did, whereas male physicians were more vocally synchronised (in terms of frequencies of speech) to their patients. SVMFF was the only significant predictor of all patient outcomes. Verbal empathy statements were linked to higher satisfaction when the physician was male.ConclusionGender differences were observed more often in self-reported measures of empathy than in external measures, indicating a probable social desirability bias. SVMFF significantly predicted all patient outcomes, and could be used as a cost-effective proxy for relational quality.

Blame and responsibility in the context of youth produced sexual imagery: The role of teacher empathy and rape myth acceptance

This study examined Pre-Service Teachers’ (PSTs; N = 92; 75% women, 25% men) tendency to blame students or to feel responsibility when confronted with different vignettes of the sharing of youth produced sexual images. Self-report measures of empathy and rape myth acceptance were collected. Findings showed that PSTs felt more responsible for girl targets depending on the vignette type. Moreover, they blamed the target more in the attention seeking vignette compared to other vignette types. Finally, PSTs who tended to blame the target showed lower levels of empathic concern and higher levels of rape myth acceptance. Implications for teaching education are discussed.

Associations between cognitive and affective empathy and internalizing symptoms in late childhood

BackgroundEmpathy is a multidimensional construct, which includes cognitive and affective components. Studies in adults have demonstrated that both cognitive and affective empathy are associated with anxious and depressive symptoms. The aim of this study was to examine these associations in childhood. MethodsParticipants were 127 9- and 10-year-old children, recruited from the community. Self-report measures of cognitive and affective empathy, and internalizing symptoms were administered, as well as a task-based measure of cognitive empathy. ResultsCanonical correlation analysis demonstrated that components of affective empathy, specifically affective sharing and empathic distress, were associated with internalizing (particularly social anxiety) symptoms (Rc = 0.63, non-parametric p < .001). Cognitive empathy was not associated with internalizing symptoms. LimitationsMost of our findings were based around self-report measures of empathy, which may not accurately reflect empathy ability. ConclusionsFindings suggests that children who share each other's emotions strongly are more likely to experience anxiety, particularly of a social nature.

Girls exhibit greater empathy than boys following a minor accident

Hundreds of studies find that girls and women report feeling greater empathy than boys and men in response to adverse events befalling others. Despite this, few non-self-report measures demonstrate similar sex differences. This produces the oft-cited conclusion that to conform to societal expectations of appropriate sex-typed behavior females report higher levels of empathy. Several studies of sex differences in areas of brain activation and on infants’ and young children’s behavior however provide suggestive findings that self-reports reflect actual underlying sex differences in experiencing concern about others. We demonstrate using behavioral indices that females experience more empathy than males after witnessing an adverse event befall a same-sex classmate. In our study, one member of a pair experienced a minor accident on the way to constructing a tower while a bystander observed. We measured whether bystanders ceased their ongoing activity, looked at the victim, waited for the victim to recover from the accident, and actively intervened to help the victim. Female more than male bystanders engaged in these activities. These behavioral results suggest that an adverse event produces different subjective experiences in females than males that motivate objectively different behaviors, consistent with findings from self-report measures of empathy.

Social Cognition and Interpersonal Problems in Persistent Depressive Disorder vs. Episodic Depression: The Role of Childhood Maltreatment.

Objective: Little is known about the specific psychological features that differentiate persistent depressive disorder (PDD) and episodic depression (ED). Thus, the present study aimed to investigate differences in social cognition and interpersonal problems between these two forms of depression and healthy controls. In addition, we aimed to examine childhood maltreatment (CM) as a possible origin of these alterations.Methods: In a cross-sectional study, adult patients with a current PDD (n = 34) or in a current episode of ED (n = 38), and healthy controls (n = 39) completed questionnaires about depression severity, empathy, interpersonal problems, and CM, as well as tests of affective theory of mind and facial emotion recognition.Results: Patients with PDD reported higher empathic distress than patients with ED and healthy controls. Both depressive groups recognized angry faces with higher accuracy and reported more interpersonal problems, with no differences between PDD and ED. Empathic distress and interpersonal problems mediated the link between CM and depression in the combined sample.Limitations: Patient groups were not drug-naïve and antidepressant intake might have influenced social-cognitive functions. Self-report measures of empathy and interpersonal problems are vulnerable to bias. The cross-sectional design does not allow causal conclusions.Conclusion: Depressed patients may not show deficits in decoding the affective states of others and in feeling with others. However, depressed individuals—in particular patients with PDD—may feel easily overwhelmed by emotionally tense situations, resulting in empathic distress and avoidant/submissive interpersonal behavior. Exposure to CM might be an origin of alterations in social cognition and interpersonal problems.

When our hearts beat together: Cardiac synchrony as an entry point to understand dyadic co-regulation in couples.

The degree to which romantic partners' autonomic responses are coordinated, represented by their pattern of physiological synchrony, seems to capture important aspects of the reciprocal influence and co-regulation between spouses. In this study, we analyzed couple's cardiac synchrony as measured by heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). A sample of 27 couples (N=54) performed a structured interaction task in the lab where they discussed positive and negative aspects of the relationship. During the interaction, their cardiac measures (HR and HRV) were recorded using the BIOPAC System. Additional assessment, prior to the lab interaction task, included self-report measures of empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Interpersonal Reactivity Index for Couples) and relationship satisfaction (Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale). Synchrony computation was based on the windowed cross-correlation of both partner's HR and HRV time series. In order to control for random synchrony, surrogate controls were created using segment-wise shuffling. Our results confirmed the presence of cardiac synchrony during the couple's interaction when compared to surrogate testing. Specifically, we found evidence for negative (antiphase) synchrony of couple's HRV and positive (in-phase) synchrony of HR. Further, both HRV and HR synchronies were associated with several dimensions of self-report data. This study suggests that cardiac synchrony, particularly, the direction of the covariation in the partners' physiological time series, may have an important relational meaning in the context of marital interactions.

Adolescent empathic concern and perspective taking: Heterogeneous developmental trajectories and childhood social and psychological factors.

The joint developmental trajectories of empathic concern and perspective taking were examined across adolescence, along with childhood social and psychological predictors. Adolescents completed self-report measures of empathy annually from Grades 7 to 10 (i.e., ages 13 to 16; N=609; 53.9% girls; 76.2% White). Childhood social and psychological predictors were assessed in Grades 5 and 6 using self- and parent-reports. As predicted, the majority of individuals reflected a joint trajectory of moderate stable empathic concern and moderate increasing perspective taking (31.9%), followed by joint high increasing (17.2%) and joint low stable (7.4%) empathy. Fewer adolescents reflected joint trajectories of being high on one form of empathy but not the other (e.g., high empathic concern only, 1.6%; high increasing perspective taking only, 2.8%). High increasing perspective taking was a better indicator of high increasing empathic concern than the reverse. Higher childhood hyperactivity, higher bullying perpetration, and lower perceived school climate were prominent predictors of developing low levels of at least one form of empathy, but childhood anxiety was a predictor of developing high empathy. The skills and abilities associated with perspective taking and empathic concern should be promoted, with special attention paid to early indicators of affective, cognitive, and behavioral self-regulation.

Age-Related Effects on Social Cognition in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Possible Protective Effect on Theory of Mind.

Impaired social cognition has been suggested to underlie the social communication difficulties that define autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In typical development, social cognition may deteriorate in older age, but age effects in ASD adults have been little explored. In the present study, we compared groups of younger and older adults with and without ASD (n=97), who completed a set of social cognition tasks assessing theory of mind (ToM), and self-report measures of empathy and alexithymia. While typically developing (TD) younger adults outperformed elderly TD and younger ASD participants, younger and older ASD adults did not differ in their ToM performance, and the elderly ASD and TD groups performed equivalently. By contrast, ASD adults reported lower empathy scores and higher levels of alexithymia symptoms compared to TD adults regardless of age. The difference between ASD and TD groups in self-reported empathy scores was no longer significant when alexithymia was covaried (with the exception of the Perspective Taking subscore). Results suggest a possible age-protective effect on ToM in the ASD group. In addition, empathy difficulties appear to be associated with alexithymia rather than ASD per se. Possible interpretations are discussed, and future directions for autism aging research are proposed. LAY SUMMARY: People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with social understanding. Some age-related studies in typical development have shown a decline in social understanding in older age. We investigated whether a similar pattern is present in adults with ASD. We found that understanding what someone is thinking was not worse in older versus younger autistic adults. Also, we reported further evidence suggesting that emotional empathy difficulties were related to difficulties with understanding one's own emotions rather than with autism itself. Autism Res 2021, 14: 911-920. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and autistic traits in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

It is unclear whether transgender and gender-diverse individuals have elevated rates of autism diagnosis or traits related to autism compared to cisgender individuals in large non-clinic-based cohorts. To investigate this, we use five independently recruited cross-sectional datasets consisting of 641,860 individuals who completed information on gender, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses including autism, and measures of traits related to autism (self-report measures of autistic traits, empathy, systemizing, and sensory sensitivity). Compared to cisgender individuals, transgender and gender-diverse individuals have, on average, higher rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses. For both autistic and non-autistic individuals, transgender and gender-diverse individuals score, on average, higher on self-report measures of autistic traits, systemizing, and sensory sensitivity, and, on average, lower on self-report measures of empathy. The results may have clinical implications for improving access to mental health care and tailoring adequate support for transgender and gender-diverse individuals.

Clinical and risk relevance of intimacy and loneliness in a treated sample of men who have offended sexually

ABSTRACT The present study examined intimacy and loneliness, their etiological significance in sexual offending, viability as a treatment target, and their correlates with relevant psychological constructs and outcomes in a treated sample of 348 men convicted for sexual offenses. Factor analyses of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale and Miller Social Intimacy Scale identified latent dimensions of social connectedness and isolation that underpinned loneliness, and dimensions of validation and emotional intimacy that underpinned social intimacy. In turn, these latent dimensions were correlated with self-report measures of empathy, cognitive distortions, anxiety, and depression – positive self-reported changes in intimacy and loneliness were associated with self-reported decreases in cognitive distortions, depressive symptoms and social anxiety, and improved levels of empathy. Scores on latent dimensions of intimacy and loneliness, however, were not predictive of recidivism. Clinical and research implications are discussed regarding the assessment and evaluation of change on psychological risk factors in treated men who have offended sexually.