A relationship between subjective and objective measures of empathy N Vaughan, G Paramei |
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Department of Psychology, Liverpool Hope University, United Kingdom
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| Empathy involves cognitive and affective prosocial response [Mehrabian and Epstein, 1972, Journal of Personality, 40, 525-543]. We investigated the relationship between self-reported empathy (Empathy Quotient (EQ) Questionnaire [Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34, 163-185]); accuracy of recognition of emotions (20) in face and voice (Cambridge Face-Voice Battery Test [Golan et al., 2006, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36, 169-183]) and galvanic skin response (GSR) to each affective stimulus. Participants (N=34, 17 males) were aged 23.59 ± 6.77. The EQ was found to be correlated with emotion recognition accuracy in both face (r=0.379, p=0.027) and voice (r=0.402, p=0.018) but none were correlated with the GSR. Gender differences were found in addition: compared to males, females scored significantly higher on EQ, 117.2 ± 11.2 vs. 127.4 ± 13.3 [t(32)=-2.412, p=0.022], in the visual task, 34.6 ± 5.1 vs. 40.6 ± 3.3 [t(32)=-2.699, p=0.011] and revealed greater GSR relative increment, 6.85μS ± 1.02 vs. 8.36μS ± 1.43, [t(38)=-3.837, p=0.000] respectively. Results support our hypothesis that persons reporting higher levels of empathy are better at recognising emotions, both in visual and auditory expression modes. Subjective measures of emotion recognition are, however, not related to the accompanying affective GSR. |
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