Are we really measuring empathy? Proposal for a new measurement framework

Michel Pierre Coll*, Essi Viding, Markus Rütgen, Giorgia Silani, Claus Lamm, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

66 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Empathy – currently defined as the sharing of another's affective state – has been the focus of much psychological and neuroscientific research in the last decade, much of which has been focused on ascertaining the empathic ability of individuals with various clinical conditions. However, most of this work tends to overlook the fact that empathy is the result of a complex process requiring a number of intermediate processing steps. It is therefore the case that describing an individual or group as ‘lacking empathy’ lacks specificity. We argue for an alternative measurement framework, in which we explain variance in empathic response in terms of individual differences in the ability to identify another's emotional state (‘emotion identification’), and the degree to which identification of another's state causes a corresponding state in the self (‘affect sharing’). We describe how existing empathy paradigms need to be modified in order to fit within this measurement framework, and illustrate the utility of this approach with reference to examples from both cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)132-139
Number of pages8
JournalNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
Volume83
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
M.P. Coll is funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Santé . Geoffrey Bird is funded by an award from the Baily Thomas Charitable Trust. Essi Viding is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder. Claus Lamm is funded from a grant by the Austrian Science Fund (grant number P29150). We wish to thank Georgeana Bird for helpful discussion.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017

Keywords

  • Affect sharing
  • Definition
  • Emotion identification
  • Empathy
  • Model
  • Neuroscience
  • Theory

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Behavioral Neuroscience

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