TY - JOUR

T1 - A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind in adolescents

T2 - Introducing the EmpaToM-Y

AU - Breil, Christina

AU - Kanske, Philipp

AU - Pittig, Roxana

AU - Böckler, Anne

N1 - 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.

PY - 2021/12

Y1 - 2021/12

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Adolescence

KW - Development

KW - Empathy

KW - Mentalizing

KW - Social cognition

KW - Social understanding

KW - Theory of mind

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105864558&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3758/s13428-021-01589-3

DO - 10.3758/s13428-021-01589-3

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85105864558

VL - 53

SP - 2487

EP - 2501

JO - Behavior research methods

JF - Behavior research methods

SN - 1554-351X

IS - 6

ER -