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Measuring Empathy

Measuring Empathy. Presentation at VICTEC technical workshop 17.9.2003, IVA, Kloster Irrsee Dipl.-Psych. Carsten Zoll Institut für Theoretische Psychologie Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg, Germany. Overview. Psychological Empathy Research – Basic Concepts Psychological Empathy Measures

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Measuring Empathy

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  1. Measuring Empathy Presentation at VICTEC technical workshop 17.9.2003, IVA, Kloster Irrsee Dipl.-Psych. Carsten Zoll Institut für Theoretische Psychologie Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg, Germany

  2. Overview • Psychological Empathy Research – Basic Concepts • Psychological Empathy Measures • Self-Description (Questionnaires) • Somatic and Psychophysiological Measures • Empathy as an ability (picture-stories, face recognition) • Behavioural Measures • Evaluation of Empathy in VICTEC • Empathic processes during interaction with Demonstrator

  3. 1. Psychological Empathy Research • Basic Definition from Preston (2001) • Distinctions • Affective Empathy • Cognitive Empathy • Situation mediated Empathy • Expression mediated Empathy • Ideomotoric Empathy

  4. Psychological Empathy Research – Definition of Preston (2001) Empathy is “any process where the attended perception of the object’s state generates a state in the subject that is more applicable to the object’s state or situation than to the subject’s own prior state or situation” Subject = “Observer” Object = “Target”

  5. Distinctions – Empathic Outcome • Affective Empathy • Observer feels something due to the perception of the Target • Cognitive Empathy • Observer knows about the inner state of the target

  6. Distinctions – Empathic Process • Situation mediated Empathy • Observer concludes inner state of the Target from the situation the Target is dealing with • Expression mediated Empathy • Observer concludes inner state of Target from the emotional expression of the Target • Facial expression • Gesture, Posture • Paraverbal Cues • Psychophysiological Cues (e.g. flush)

  7. Distinctions – Ideomotoric Empathy • Based on James’ (1890) ideomotoric principle: Each Imagination of a movement inheres the tendency to perform this movement • Further Development by Prinz (1987): Not only Imagination, but also visual perception of a movement can trigger the tendency to perform the same movement  Tendency to perform Target’s movement  Oberserver’s inner state changes in the direction of the target’s inner state  New type of Empathy

  8. Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games (Zoll, Enz & Schaub, ongoing research)– Design

  9. Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games - Opponents Humans Box

  10. Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games - Opponents Robots Cartoon

  11. Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games (Zoll, Enz & Schaub, ongoing research)– Design

  12. Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games - Results • Ideomotoric Empathy and Success: Positive Correlation • No other correlations! • Opponent choice for second Game: No subject chose the Human opponents • Interview • More subjects have scrupels to shoot on the human opponents • Most subjects think it makes a different if one shoots at cartoon or realistic opponents

  13. 2. Psychological Empathy Measures • Self-Description (Dispositional Empathy) • Questionnaires • Somatic and Psychophysiological Measures • Empathy as an ability • Picture-stories • Emotional Face Recognition • Behavioural Measures of Empathy

  14. Psychological Empathy Measures -Questionnaires • Principle: Subjects state whether certain statements are appropriate for them • Few existing empathy Q’naires for children • Problems: • only one type of empathy • No questionnaires on ideomotoric, situation and expression mediated empathy  Self-Development

  15. Development of Empathy Questionnaire – Scales (5) and items (39)

  16. Development of Empathy Questionnaire – Pilot Study • 3 Language Versions • Pilots in 3 countries • Germany: 234 subjects • Age 8-13, Mean 9,62 • 109 boys / 125 girls • Portugal: 21 subjects • UK: 31 subjects

  17. Development of Empathy Questionnaire – Pilot Study German Results Overall Empathy

  18. Psychological Empathy Measurement – Somatic and Psychophysiological Measures Protagonist (Target) Physiological Indices Skin conductance Heart rate Palm sweating Skin temperature Vasoconstriction Electromyographic procedures • Presentation of protagonist in emotion-evoking story • Measurement of observer’s emotion via • Somatic indices • Physiological indices • 3. Empathy scored for adequate observer’s emotion Somatic indices Facial Gestural Postural Paraverbal Observer (Subject)

  19. Psychological Empathy Measurement – Empathy as an Ability Emotional Face recognition Which emotion is the person on the photo currently experiencing?  Very small part of empathy

  20. Psychological Empathy Measurement – Empathy as an Ability Picture-stories Principle: Subjects watch picture-story and are asked questions

  21. Psychological Empathy Measures – Picture-story • What is happening in the story? • How bad is what the 2 girls do? • At the following list of emotions, please check the ones which might be experienced by the victim/bully/yourself! • Anger • Sadness • Fear • Happyness • …

  22. Psychological Empathy Measures – Picture-story Pilot Study • N = 90, age 8-13 • “How bad is what the 2 girls do?”  correlation with • Overall Empathy (r=.35**) • Affective Empathy (r=.39**) • Cognitive Empathy (r=.17*) • Situation Mediated Empathy (r=.31**) • Expression Mediated Empathy (r=.35**) • Ideomotoric Empathy (r=.13 n.s.) • List of Emotions: Similarity of emotions assigned to victim and self correlates with dispositional empathy

  23. Empathy is concluded from observable behaviour, e.g. Kobayashi: Painting aquarelle Expression of Emotion /Prosocial Behaviour Bischof-Köhler: Eating dessert Prosocial Behaviour Problem: Relation between Behaviour and Empathy Behavioural Measures

  24. 3. Evaluation of Empathy in VICTEC

  25. Evaluation of Empathy while Playing the VICTEC Demonstrator • Does Empathy change after working with the Demonstrator? • Does Bullying change after working with the Demonstrator? • Does Empathy mediate the effect of the Demonstrator on Bullying? • Does Empathy correlate with behavioural measures during interaction with the Demonstrator? • Empathy and Satisfaction: Who likes the Demonstrator best: Empathics or Non-Empathics? Main Research Questions

  26. Empathy and Bullying • Unclear Relationship • Positive Effect: • Low negative correlation between empathy and aggressive behaviour (Miller & Eisenberg, 1988)  Affective Empathy? • Negative Effect: • Bullies are often described as socially skilled “cool planners” (Sutton & Smith, 1999)  Cognitive Empathy? Hypothesis: • Affective Empathy negative correlation with Bullying • Cognitive Empathy positive/no correlation with Bullying

  27. Evaluation of Empathy during interaction with the Demonstrator Evaluation Plan 4 school classes in each participtating country

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