A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind in adolescents

Introducing the EmpaToM-Y

authored by: Christina Breil, Philipp Kanske, Roxana Pittig, Anne Böckler
Abstract: Empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) are two core components of social understanding. The EmpaToM is a validated social video task that allows for independent manipulation and assessment of the two capacities. First applications revealed that empathy and ToM are dissociable constructs on a neuronal as well as on a behavioral level. As the EmpaToM has been designed for the assessment of social understanding in adults, it has a high degree of complexity and comprises topics that are inadequate for minors. For this reason, we designed a new version of the EmpaToM that is especially suited to measure empathy and ToM in youths. In experiment 1, we successfully validated the EmpaToM-Y on the original EmpaToM in an adult sample (N = 61), revealing a similar pattern of results across tasks and strong correlations of all constructs. As intended, the performance measure for ToM and the control condition of the EmpaToM-Y showed reduced difficulty. In experiment 2, we tested the feasibility of the EmpaToM-Y in a group of teenagers (N = 36). Results indicate a reliable empathy induction and higher demands of ToM questions for adolescents. We provide a promising task for future research targeting inter-individual variability of socio-cognitive and socio-affective capacities as well as their precursors and outcomes in healthy minors and clinical populations.
Organisation(s): Institute of Psychology
External Organisation(s): Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science (MPI CBS)
Technische Universität Dresden
Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg
Type: Article
Journal: Behavior research methods
Volume: 53
Pages: 2487-2501
No. of pages: 15
ISSN: 1554-351X
Publication date: 12.2021
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), Psychology (miscellaneous), General Psychology
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01589-3 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{78fc750868f841ef86b22d66401a2d1d,
title = "A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind in adolescents: Introducing the EmpaToM-Y",
abstract = "Empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) are two core components of social understanding. The EmpaToM is a validated social video task that allows for independent manipulation and assessment of the two capacities. First applications revealed that empathy and ToM are dissociable constructs on a neuronal as well as on a behavioral level. As the EmpaToM has been designed for the assessment of social understanding in adults, it has a high degree of complexity and comprises topics that are inadequate for minors. For this reason, we designed a new version of the EmpaToM that is especially suited to measure empathy and ToM in youths. In experiment 1, we successfully validated the EmpaToM-Y on the original EmpaToM in an adult sample (N = 61), revealing a similar pattern of results across tasks and strong correlations of all constructs. As intended, the performance measure for ToM and the control condition of the EmpaToM-Y showed reduced difficulty. In experiment 2, we tested the feasibility of the EmpaToM-Y in a group of teenagers (N = 36). Results indicate a reliable empathy induction and higher demands of ToM questions for adolescents. We provide a promising task for future research targeting inter-individual variability of socio-cognitive and socio-affective capacities as well as their precursors and outcomes in healthy minors and clinical populations.",
keywords = "Adolescence, Development, Empathy, Mentalizing, Social cognition, Social understanding, Theory of mind",
author = "Christina Breil and Philipp Kanske and Roxana Pittig and Anne B{\"o}ckler",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation (grant number BO 4962/1-1). We thank Caroline Beyer for her help with data acquisition. ",
year = "2021",
month = dec,
doi = "10.3758/s13428-021-01589-3",
language = "English",
volume = "53",
pages = "2487--2501",
journal = "Behavior research methods",
issn = "1554-351X",
publisher = "Psychonomic Society Inc.",
number = "6",
}