A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind in adolescents: Introducing the EmpaToM-Y
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
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.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2487-2501 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Behavior research methods |
Volume | 53 |
Issue number | 6 |
Publication status | Published - 4 May 2021 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
PubMedCentral | PMC8613142 |
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Scopus | 85105864558 |
Keywords
Keywords
- Adolescence, Development, Empathy, Mentalizing, Social cognition, Social understanding, Theory of Mind