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

Overview 1. Psychological Empathy Research – Basic Concepts 2. Psychological Empathy Measures 1. Self-Description (Questionnaires) 2. Somatic and Psychophysiological Measures 3. Empathy as an ability (picture-stories, face recognition) 4. Behavioural Measures 3. Evaluation of Empathy in VICTEC Empathic processes during interaction with Demonstrator

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

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”

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

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)

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

Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games (Zoll, Enz & Schaub, ongoing research) – Design Initial Diagnosis Personality Questionnaires: Empathy, Neo-FFI, Aggression, a.o. Ego-Shooter Game I Subjects randomly assigned to 1 of 4 possible opponents Ego-Shooter Game IIFree Choice of opponent Interview Questions on Experiment, Empathy…

Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games - Opponents HumansBox

Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games - Opponents CartoonRobots

Experiment: Empathy in Ego-Shooter Games (Zoll, Enz & Schaub, ongoing research) – Design Initial Diagnosis Personality Questionnaires: Empathy, Neo-FFI, Aggression, a.o. Ego-Shooter Game I Subjects randomly assigned to 1 of 4 possible opponents Ego-Shooter Game IIFree Choice of opponent Interview Questions on Experiment, Empathy…

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

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

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

Development of Empathy Questionnaire – Scales (5) and items (39) Affective Empathy It makes me sad to see a girl who can’t find anyone to play with Cognitive Empathy When I see a boy who is feeling upset, I think about why he might be feeling like that Situation mediated Empathy Kids who have no friends probably don’t want any (inv.) Expression mediated Empathy I can tell by the look on my parents’ faces whether it’s a good time to ask them for something Ideomotoric EmpathyI am very quick at reacting

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

Development of Empathy Questionnaire – Pilot Study German Results Overall Empathy

Psychological Empathy Measurement – Somatic and Psychophysiological Measures 1.Presentation of protagonist in emotion- evoking story 2.Measurement of observer’s emotion via Somatic indices Physiological indices 3. Empathy scored for adequate observer’s emotion Observer (Subject) Protagonist (Target) Somatic indices Facial Gestural Postural Paraverbal Physiological Indices Skin conductance Heart rate Palm sweating Skin temperature Vasoconstriction Electromyographic procedures

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

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

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 …

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

Behavioural Measures  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

3. Evaluation of Empathy in VICTEC

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

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

Evaluation of Empathy during interaction with the Demonstrator Pretest  Bullying-Questionnaire  Empathy-Questionnaire  Picture-story  Teacher Rating of student Bullying Application Demonstrator  Students work with Demonstrator  Videographing PosttestSee Pretest Evaluation Plan 4 school classes in each participtating country