1 / 30

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

von
Download Presentation

Measuring Empathy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  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

More Related