TY  - JOUR
A1  - Breil, Christina
A1  - Kanske, Philipp
A1  - Pittig, Roxana
A1  - Böckler, Anne
T1  - A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind in adolescents: Introducing the EmpaToM-Y
JF  - Behavior Research Methods
N2  - Empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) are two core components of social understanding. The EmpaToM is a validated social video task that allows for independent manipulation and assessment of the two capacities. First applications revealed that empathy and ToM are dissociable constructs on a neuronal as well as on a behavioral level. As the EmpaToM has been designed for the assessment of social understanding in adults, it has a high degree of complexity and comprises topics that are inadequate for minors. For this reason, we designed a new version of the EmpaToM that is especially suited to measure empathy and ToM in youths. In experiment 1, we successfully validated the EmpaToM-Y on the original EmpaToM in an adult sample (N = 61), revealing a similar pattern of results across tasks and strong correlations of all constructs. As intended, the performance measure for ToM and the control condition of the EmpaToM-Y showed reduced difficulty. In experiment 2, we tested the feasibility of the EmpaToM-Y in a group of teenagers (N = 36). Results indicate a reliable empathy induction and higher demands of ToM questions for adolescents. We provide a promising task for future research targeting inter-individual variability of socio-cognitive and socio-affective capacities as well as their precursors and outcomes in healthy minors and clinical populations.
KW  - empathy
KW  - Theory of Mind
KW  - social cognition
KW  - social understanding
KW  - mentalizing
KW  - asolescence
KW  - development
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-302877
VL  - 53
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schiele, Miriam A.
A1  - Reinhard, Julia
A1  - Reif, Andreas
A1  - Domschke, Katharina
A1  - Romanos, Marcel
A1  - Deckert, Jürgen
A1  - Pauli, Paul
T1  - Developmental aspects of fear: Comparing the acquisition and generalization of conditioned fear in children and adults
JF  - Developmental Psychobiology
N2  - Most research on human fear conditioning and its generalization has focused on adults whereas only little is known about these processes in children. Direct comparisons between child and adult populations are needed to determine developmental risk markers of fear and anxiety. We compared 267 children and 285 adults in a differential fear conditioning paradigm and generalization test. Skin conductance responses (SCR) and ratings of valence and arousal were obtained to indicate fear learning. Both groups displayed robust and similar differential conditioning on subjective and physiological levels. However, children showed heightened fear generalization compared to adults as indexed by higher arousal ratings and SCR to the generalization stimuli. Results indicate overgeneralization of conditioned fear as a developmental correlate of fear learning. The developmental change from a shallow to a steeper generalization gradient is likely related to the maturation of brain structures that modulate efficient discrimination between danger and (ambiguous) safety cues.
KW  - fear conditioning
KW  - fear generalization
KW  - development
KW  - skin conductance
KW  - maturation
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189488
VL  - 58
IS  - 4
ER  -