Revisiting Empathy in Asperger Syndrome

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My results were interesting in that they are so different from others have recounted:

Fantasy: 8; Perspective-taking: 0; Empathic Concern: 8; Personal Distress: 28

bump

I took all the scores people posted here and on the earlier thread, calculated averages, and tested them for significance using the Rogers et al. standard deviations. As far as I can tell, none of our means are significantly different from normal. bwahahahaha!

I might be arrested for my use of colour, though.
Here's the data tabulated:
http://www3.telus.net/anemonecerridwen/autismdavis.htm

Your scores: Fantasy: 17; Persective-taking: 2; Empathic Concern: 19; Personal Distress: 15

Doesn't really tell me anything I hadn't kinda figured.
But is interesting to put some numbers around it.
Might try taking it in a month or so and see if anything changes.

Anemone,

For it to have any validity, you'd have to use subjects who can supply evidence of a diagnosis (the more individuals the better), and it'd be good to draw from people without such from the same social group (people without an ASD who so happen to post here); with no documented mental illness/disorder, though this latter one would be hard, so you can just compare it to the standard scores that come with the test.

By "our means" do you mean just the combined WP male and female ones (with diagnosed and suspected also combined) for each factor? Or does the no significant differences result apply for all groups, including the WP male with diagnosis group?

Fantasy: 15; Persective-taking: 11; Empathic Concern: 14; Personal Distress: 14

I often find that I say or do something and it may be taken to be uncaring when I really didn't REALIZE (theory of mind) that it would be taken that way. It truly bothers me immensely once I realize that I've said or done something that could be taken the 'wrong' way. And not because it reflects poory on me. But rather, because I hate that I've caused distress to someone else. Or because I failed to do something that could have been wonderful for someone else. Before I realized I was likely on the spectrum and worked with "lower-functioning" or younger individuals, I realized moreso than other colleagues that that kid really just doesn't UNDERSTAND that they're being hurtful. That's vastly different from lacking a genuine empathy for others.

Danielismyname, people are generally honest, and I figure this sort of comparison is good enough for the internet. It's not as if I want to publish in a journal or anything. It's just curiosity. Besides, in order to be statistically significant, I think you need the difference in means to be more than 1.96 SDs, how much more depending on sample size. And the SDs are all pretty big. Basically it's just saying we range all over the place, as we do.

outlier: all the WP means, not just the summary means. Even the mean for men with formal diagnoses wasn't significant.

If people want to check, you can calculate the t-values yourselves. I was using [(control means - WP means)/control SD] (I used Rogers et al SDs for both Rogers et al means and Davis's means, since he didn't post SDs. If you're supposed to use a different formula, go ahead and crank it out and let us know. I'm going by memory as to how to do it. I mean, I think the trend is pretty obvious, so I'm not too worried.

Fantasy: 16
Perspective Taking: 16
Empathetic Concern: 23
Personal Distress: 13

fantasy: 22
persective taking: 10
empathic concern: 17
personal distress: 23

so what does that actually mean? that I have good or bad empathy?

I read about that too, that was shocking and I also had a very strong empathic reaction; funny thing was, though, my emotional reaction was delayed. When I first read about it, I had the typical intellectual reaction...then, as time went on, that incident kept coming back to haunt me, over and over again, until I felt simply terrible...I finally cried, and, eventually, wrote an e-mail of support to the boy´s mother. It´s a strange thing...Whereas, if I see something visually- like a documentary I saw of an AS girl who was being shunned by her classmates- I feel immediate empathy. I wonder if that has to do somewhat with ToM? That if I see something while it´s happening, and see the emotional reaction, that I feel the emotions immediately? When someone tells me about something sad, I usually have an "empathy in theory", i.e., something like an intellectual empathy. (Although, I have cried while reading books, maybe because the descriptions are especially poetic, or because I have essentially experienced life within the framework of that character).

I can´t speak for others, but I personally think this is s good idea. Communication and feedback are always appreciated.

Fantasy: 25
Perspective-taking: 6
Empathic concern: 12
Personal distress: 9

TBH I'm not sure if that indicates anything. I can usually relate well to characters in films and books (I think there were a few questions about that, more or less similar sounding) if the film is well directed and the book well written... but IRL, not so much (if at all).

there were also a few questions about reacting to seeing someone being treated unfairly or getting hurt... I happen to react emotionally in such situations because they remind me of what I personally felt when being treated unfairly/bullied. but seeing someone get hit by a bus, it would be more likely for me to curiously inspect the blood splatter...

I took the test. I didn´t post my answers because 1) I am undiagnosed, and 2) I´m not sure how accurately I can really answer the questions. I find those personality tests very hard; the questions are often so general that I have a hard time deciding how I react, as I react differently in different instances. (i.e., the answers are not black and white). But- Anenome- if you are interested in my scores, I will post them.

I had a particularly hard time answering the questions about books and movies. I have trouble finding characters that I can identify with, because most characters are so not-like-me; therefore, I tend to watch films objectively, often feeling objectively fascinated by the emotional stuff the character is going through, but not feeling it myself. But when I do relate to a rare character, boy do I feel it!

I have a very strong sense of justice, and I react strongly when I see (or hear about) someone being treated badly or unfairly. And I feel very uncomfortable in highly emotional situations.

Here are my scores
Fantasy: 26;
Perspective-taking: 16;
Empathic Concern: 28;
Personal Distress: 7

OK, I'm just checking this as I go along and am not overly familiar with it, so might make a mistake. I'm testing the means for the WP diagnosed male group (n1=20) and the combined Rogers control group (n2=21, 18% female), for the sample sizes and variances unequal (hence the difference in the denominator: standard error of difference between means). This is for perspective taking.

I chose level of significance to be 0.05.

T = (18.9 - 11.70)/sqrt[(4.3^2/n2) + (7.10^2/n1)]

= 18.9 - 11.70 /1.84

= 3.91

The number of degrees of freedom is over 30, so using a t-test table, our T value is greater than the table value (of about 2.03) at sig. level 0.05. Therefore, the means are statistically significantly different at that level.

I quickly plugged the means and SDs into a t-test calculator, and it gave a similar result, with T = 3.95 at the 95% confidence level. I could check these with a few stats routines, but don't have time.