Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Aug 8.
doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06491-3. Online ahead of print.

Empathy and Autism: Establishing the Structure and Different Manifestations of Empathy in Autistic Individuals Using the Perth Empathy Scale

Jack D Brett  1 , David A Preece  2   3 , Rodrigo Becerra  2 , Andrew Whitehouse  4   5 , Murray T Maybery  2
Affiliations

Empathy and Autism: Establishing the Structure and Different Manifestations of Empathy in Autistic Individuals Using the Perth Empathy Scale

Jack D Brett et al. J Autism Dev Disord. .

Abstract

Purpose: There is a common mischaracterisation that autistic individuals have reduced or absent empathy. Measurement issues may have influenced existing findings on the relationships between autism and empathy, and the structure of the empathy construct in autism remains unclear.

Methods: The present study sought to address these gaps by examining the structure and psychometric properties of the Perth Empathy Scale (PES) in autistic individuals (N = 239) compared to non-autistic individuals (N = 690).

Results: Our moderated non-linear factor analysis revealed that the multidimensional empathy construct manifested similarly in autistic and non-autistic individuals, with the PES displaying good validity and reliability. Moreover, the results revealed that autistic individuals reported reduced cognitive empathy and reduced affective empathy for positive and negative emotions. However, there was greater heterogeneity of empathic tendencies in the autistic sample, indicating that these mean differences may not be generalisable for all autistic individuals.

Conclusion: The present study highlights that the PES is suitable for assessing empathy across autistic and non-autistic individuals. This work with the PES also provides greater nuance to our understanding of empathy and autism, and based on these findings, we propose the empathy heterogeneity hypothesis of autism as a new way of describing empathy in autism.

Keywords: Adults; Autism spectrum disorders; Empathy; Measurement; Moderated non-linear factor analysis; Social cognition and social behavior.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Andreychik, M. R., & Migliaccio, N. (2015). Empathizing with others’ pain versus empathizing with others’ joy: Examining the separability of positive and negative empathy and their relation to different types of social behaviors and social emotions. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 37(5), 274–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2015.1071256 . - DOI
    1. Arnold, S. R., Higgins, J. M., Weise, J., Desai, A., Pellicano, E., & Trollor, J. N. (2023a). Confirming the nature of autistic burnout. Autism, 27(7), 1906–1918. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221147410 . - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aronld, S. R., Higgins, J. M., Weise, J., Desai, A., Pellicano, E., & Trollor, J. N. (2023b). Towards, the measurement of autistic burnout. Autism, 27(7), 1933–1948. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221147401 . - DOI
    1. Bailey, P., Brady, B., Ebner, N., & Ruffman, T. (2020). Effects of age on emotion regulation emotional empathy and prosocial behavior. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby084
    1. Bang, P., & Igelström, K. (2023). Modality-specific associations between sensory differences and autistic traits. Autism, 27(7), 2158–2172. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231154349 . - DOI - PubMed - PMC

LinkOut - more resources