Empathy and Affective Perspective-Taking Skills in Parent-Identified Conduct-Disordered Boys

Abstract

We examined potential deficits in empathic responsivity and affective perspective taking in a sample of parent-identified conduct-disordered children. Subjects were 11 behavior problem and 12 nonproblem boys, 5 through 7 years of age. Dependent measures included the Bryant Empathic Tendency Index and the Parent-Child Affective Perspective-Taking Scale (a new measure of affective perspective taking that requires feeling identifications and emotion intensity ratings for child and parent story characters). We found no differences in empathic responsivity or emotion intensity between the behavior problem and nonproblem subjects. Behavior problem subjects experienced greater difficulty in understanding the emotions of parent figures, whereas nonproblem subjects had more difficulty in correctly identifying the child's emotions. However, overall differences in affective perspective-taking skills of behavior problem and nonproblem boys were not statistically significant. Subjects in both groups were significantly less able to differentiate angry from sad feelings when the story character was a child than when the emotions of a parent figure were considered. Implications of the results for research and clinical practice are discussed.