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no / This research explores the possibility that a person's (perceiver's) prospects of making a correct inference of another person's (target's) inner states depends on the personal characteristics of the target, potentially relating to how readable they are. Twenty-seven targets completed the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and were classified as having low, average or high EQ. They were unobtrusively videoed while thinking of an event of happiness, gratitude, anger and sadness. After observing targets thinking of such a past event, fifty-two perceivers (participants) in Study 1 were asked to infer what the target was thinking, and fifty perceivers in Study 2 were asked to rate the target's expression – positive or negative. Results suggested that (1) perceivers' accuracy in detecting targets' thoughts depended on which EQ group the target belonged to, and (2) target readability is not a proxy measure for level of target expressiveness. In other words, something about EQ status renders targets more or less easy to read in a way that is not simply explained by expressive people being more readable. We conclude with discussion of the importance of the target's trait as well as situation they experience in determining how accurately a perceiver might infer their inner states.

Bakgrund: Empati är grunden i personcentrerad vård. I sjuksköterskans kärnkompetenser och kompetensbeskrivning går att läsa att sjuksköterskor skall bemöta patienter och anhöriga med respekt och empati. Där av behöver sjuksköterskans erfarenheter av empati, samt hur empati påverkar yrkesrollen, undersökas vidare. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att beskriva sjuksköterskors erfarenhet av empati och empatisk fatigue. Metod: En litteraturstudie med induktiv ansats valdes för att analysera 11 artiklar som ingick i resultatet. Resultat: Resultatet av studien mynnade ut i fyra huvudteman vilka var: förståelse för patienter grundar sig i att känna empati, förutsättningar som verkar möjliggörande eller hindrande för empati i omvårdnad, relation som nyckelfaktor för empatisk vård och vikten av emotionell återhämtning vid empatisk fatigue. Det framkom att sjuksköterskor hade svårt att definiera begreppet empati. Sjuksköterskornas erfarenheter visade också på faktorer som fungerar möjliggörande eller hindrande för empati. Den empatiska vården är beroende av att sjuksköterskan tillåts skapa en relation till patienter och anhöriga, men när balansen äventyras riskerar sjuksköterskan att drabbas av empatisk fatigue. Slutsats: Det skulle gagna vården att ytterligare omvårdnadsforskning bedrivs för att undersöka empatins roll i relation till sjuksköterskans yrke och den personcentrerade vården. Det behövs också ytterligare definiering av begreppet empati för att säkerställa bättre förståelse samt användning av empatisk vård. / Background: Empathy is the foundation of person-centred care. In the nurses' core competencies and competence description it can be read that nurses must treat patients and their relatives with respect and empathy. Therefore, the nurses’ experience of empathy, as well as how empathy affects the professional role, needs to be further researched. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses' experiences of empathy and empathic fatigue. Method: A literature study with an inductive approach was chosen to analyse 11 articles, that were included in the results. Result: From the analysis four main themes revealed as follows: understanding patients is based on feeling empathy, conditions that seem to enable or hinder empathy in nursing, relationship as a key factor for empathic care and the importance of emotional recovery from empathic fatigue. The result revealed that nurses had a hard time defining the term empathy. The nurses' experiences also revealed enablers or barriers for empathy. The empathic care is dependent on the nurses being allowed to create a relationship with patients and relatives, but when the balance is compromised, the nurse can be affected by empathic fatigue. Conclusion: It would benefit healthcare that further nursing research is conducted to investigate the role of empathy in relation to the nurse’s profession and the person-centred care. There is also a need to further define of the concept of empathy to ensure better understanding and use of empathic care.

Research supports varied patterns of emotion-modulated startle (EMS) reactivity among depressed individuals. The purpose of this study was to examine whether these varied patterns can be explained by depression, empathic tendencies, and emotional stimuli. The EMS paradigm is a well-validated measure of emotion-modulated reactivity in which the magnitude of startle reflexes in reaction to acoustic stimuli are recorded while participants view pleasant, neutral, and negative images (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990). Young adults (N = 120; Mage = 19.54, SD = 1.41; 75% female) completed self-report rating scales of depression symptoms and cognitive and affective empathic tendencies and the EMS paradigm. Individuals with low depression, regardless of their cognitive (hp2 = .44 and .47) and affective empathic tendencies (hp2 = .49 and .36), and individuals with high depression and high cognitive and affective empathic tendencies (hp2 = .23, .46, respectively) exhibited the typical linear EMS reactivity pattern of increasing startle reflex magnitude from pleasant to neutral to unpleasant images. In contrast, individuals with high depression along with low cognitive and affective empathic tendencies exhibited blunted EMS reactivity patterns (hp2 = .000, .04, respectively). These findings indicate blunted EMS reactivity patterns only in depressed individuals who have low cognitive and affective empathic tendencies and are likely disengaged from emotional stimuli, thus suggesting variability among depressed individuals in motivational states that prime or inhibit the startle reflex.

This study investigated empathic accuracy in adolescent romantic relationships. The project examined the relationships between psychological characteristics and relationship outcomes (i.e., satisfaction and aggression) to determine if the relationships were mediated by empathic accuracy. Participants were 92 heterosexual couples aged 14-18 years old who lived in rural areas in Utah and Arizona. Couple members completed surveys assessing attitudes and behaviors in their relationships and a video-recall procedure in which partners rated their own and their partner's behaviors during problem-solving discussion. Empathic accuracy was generally not related to psychological characteristics or outcomes. It became apparent that there were limitations with the methodology used to measure empathic accuracy. Due to the very strong correlations between participants' ratings of themselves and their ratings of their partners, ratings of self and partner were collapsed for each interaction variable to capture interpretations/biases employed by the participants in evaluating aspects of their interactions. The global video-recall ratings were then analyzed to determine if they mediated the relationships between psychological characteristics and outcomes. Rejection sensitivity emerged as an important psychological characteristic, and interpretations of conflict and sarcasm mediated the relationship between rejection sensitivity and outcomes of aggression and satisfaction.

<p>W. Ickes, L. Stinson, V, Bisonette och S. Garcia (1990) standard stimulus paradigm är en metod för att mäta avläsning av en individs tankar och känslor. För att undersöka tjejer och killars empatiska avläsningsförmåga testades gymnasieelever med Ickes metod. Nittioåtta elever fick se en film som stannades av undersökningsledarna vid tio tillfällen. Deltagarna skulle vid varje stopp försöka läsa av kvinnan i filmens tankar och känslor och skriva ner dessa. Resultaten visade att tjejer är bättre än killar på att läsa av andra. Betyg i svenska och samhällskunskap, men inte matematik hade positivt samband med empati. Studien visade också att individer som gråter ofta har bra avläsningsförmåga. Tjejer med bra betyg och nära till gråt verkar ha de bästa intellektuella och emotionella verktygen för empatisk avläsning.</p>

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W. Ickes, L. Stinson, V, Bisonette och S. Garcia (1990) standard stimulus paradigm är en metod för att mäta avläsning av en individs tankar och känslor. För att undersöka tjejer och killars empatiska avläsningsförmåga testades gymnasieelever med Ickes metod. Nittioåtta elever fick se en film som stannades av undersökningsledarna vid tio tillfällen. Deltagarna skulle vid varje stopp försöka läsa av kvinnan i filmens tankar och känslor och skriva ner dessa. Resultaten visade att tjejer är bättre än killar på att läsa av andra. Betyg i svenska och samhällskunskap, men inte matematik hade positivt samband med empati. Studien visade också att individer som gråter ofta har bra avläsningsförmåga. Tjejer med bra betyg och nära till gråt verkar ha de bästa intellektuella och emotionella verktygen för empatisk avläsning.

Relationship violence is a serious social problem. Given the prevalence and detrimental effects of relationship violence, much research has been undertaken to investigate the various risk factors that may be associated with this type of violence. In the present research, I examined the interrelationships among several correlates of violence (including rejection sensitivity, cognitive biases, decoding deficits and attachment style) in order to understand what differentiates physically abusive from non-abusive individuals. Hence, the current program of studies examined aggressive behaviours between partners with a focus on risk factors for violent behaviour in men and women and in particular on the role of rejection sensitivity in physically aggressive behaviour. In order to examine these constructs, the thesis includes six chapters. Following a review of the literature, a rationale was provided for the creation of an amended measure of rejection sensitivity as Downey and Feldman’s (1996) Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire was not suitable for the purposes of the current thesis. Hence, a series of validation studies were conducted in Chapter 2 to test and develop a revised measure of rejection sensitivity that would be applicable to a wider range of intimate relationships (dating, cohabiting and married) and contexts. The study reported in Chapter 3, investigated the role of rejection sensitivity, hostile attributions and attachment patterns in the etiology of intimate partner violence. This study provided preliminary support for insecure attachment and negative attributions as the link between expectations of rejection and intimate partner violence, with a stronger link for male-perpetrated violence compared to female-perpetrated violence. Consistent with the marital violence literature, when mediator and moderator relationships existed, these occurred predominantly in married relationships (as opposed to dating or defacto relationships). The studies reported in Chapters 4 and 5 built on the foundations of Chapter 3 by incorporating two constructs, the ‘overattribution bias’ and empathic accuracy into the investigation of the associations between rejection sensitivity and violence. Specifically, the study reported in Chapter 4 examined the decoding deficits and inferential biases of maritally-violent and maritally-violent rejection-sensitive men when interpreting their own partner’s messages whilst engaging in a laboratory-based decoding task. Overall, results showed that maritally-violent partner rejection-sensitive men were less accurate than were maritally non-violent partner rejection-sensitive men when interpreting their wives’ positive messages and more accurate when interpreting their wives’ negative messages. Likewise, maritally-violent rejection-sensitive men displayed an inferential bias to perceive their wives’ messages as being more negative, critical and rejecting in intent than did maritally non-violent rejection-sensitive men. In addition, maritally-violent men as a group were less accurate for their own partner’s positive and neutral messages than were maritally non-violent men and more accurate for their own wives’ negative messages than were maritally non-violent men. Finally, maritally-violent men tended to attribute their wives’ messages as being significantly more negative, critical and rejecting in intent than did maritally non-violent men. Overall, the data suggested that both rejection sensitivity and marital violence were key factors that were associated with married men’s decoding problems and biased interpretation of their own wives’ messages. In extending the previous findings, the study reported in Chapter 5 examined the decoding accuracy and inferential biases of both maritally-violent and maritally-violent rejection-sensitive men and women in relation to female strangers’ messages. There were no differences between maritally-violent rejection-sensitive women and maritally non-violent rejection-sensitive women on decoding deficits and inferential biases for female strangers. However, there was a trend for maritally-violent women to be more negatively biased than were maritally non-violent women when interpreting female strangers’ messages. Additionally, in contrast to the findings of Chapter 4, the data pointed to independent relationships among rejection sensitivity, violence and married men’s decoding deficits and biases for female strangers’ messages. In particular, there were no differences in decoding deficits or inferential biases between maritally violent rejection-sensitive and maritally non-violent rejection-sensitive men when decoding female strangers’ messages. Instead, the data revealed that maritally-violent men were poor decoders of female strangers’ positive messages compared to maritally non-violent men and maritally-violent women. In relation to negative messages, maritally-violent men were more accurate for female strangers’ negative messages than were maritally non-violent men. Maritally violent men had the highest decoding accuracy for negative messages. Maritally-violent men also tended to attribute female strangers’ messages as being significantly more negative, critical and rejecting in intent than did maritally non-violent men and maritally-violent women. Finally, the results showed that maritally-violent rejection-sensitive men’s decoding deficits and biases were relationship specific whereas maritally-violent men’s decoding deficits and cognitive biases were global deficits that extended to women other than the men’s wives. Implications of the findings were discussed, as well as the strengths and limitations of the study. The discussion concludes with implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research.