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Empathy in conduct-disordered and comparison youth
Developmental Psychology
Format: Journal Article
Publication Date: Nov 30, 1995
Pages: 988 - 998
Sources ID: 72516
Visibility: Public (group default)
Abstract: (Show)
Empathy was measured by an interview assessing emotions and cognitions in response to videotaped vignettes of persons in affective events and by empathy self-report questionnaires. As hypothesized, empathy was lower among conduct-disordered (CD) than comparison youth and was related inversely to antisocial and aggressive attitudes for all youth tested. Affectively, CD youth (nā€‚=ā€‚30) reported fewer concordant emotional responses to vignette persons than did a comparison peer group (nā€‚=ā€‚32). Cognitively, CD youth reported fewer correct identifications of vignette persons' emotions, lower mean levels of cognitive attributions for their own responsive emotions, and lower scores on empathy-related cognitive scales. Significant gender differences occurred, with girls scoring higher than boys on empathy questionnaires. Findings are discussed in terms of previous empathy and aggression research, and directions for future study are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)