Affective and cognitive empathy in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder
Open accessAbstract
The broad construct of empathy incorporates both cognitive and affective dimensions. Recent evidence suggests that the subjects with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) show a significant impairment in empathic ability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cognitive and affective components of empathy in adolescents with ASD compared to controls. Fifteen adolescents with ASD and 15 controls underwent paper and pencil measures and a computerized Multifaceted Empathy Test. All measures were divided into mentalizing and experience sharing abilities. Adolescents with ASD compared to controls showed deficits in all mentalizing measures: they were incapable of interpreting and understanding the mental and emotional states of other people. Instead, in the sharing experience measures, the adolescents with ASD were able to empathize with the emotional experience of other people when they express emotions with positive valence, but were not able to do so when the emotional valence is negative. These results were confirmed by the computerized task. In conclusion, our results suggest that adolescents with ASD show a difficulty in cognitive empathy, whereas the deficit in affective empathy is specific for the negative emotional valence.
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Some research shows altered affective empathy in ASD, but cognitive empathy can usually be present in cognitively able individuals, possibly with altered processing speed due to local processing style.
“Some research shows altered affective empathy (e.g., Mazza et al., 2014), but, especially in cognitively able individuals, cognitive empathy can usually be present, although there may be an altered processing speed (i.e. due to a local rather than a global processing style, information is processed somewhat slower, but in more detail; Bölte et al., 2007).”
From Innovations of the ICD-11 in the Field of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Psychological Approach (2022) · cites this paper as Mazza et al., 2014
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References 54 · Cited by 225
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR 4th Edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press
- Baron-Cohen S. (2011). Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty. London: Penguin/Allen Lane
- Authors
- Mazza, M., Pino, M. C., Mariano, M., Tempesta, D., Ferrara, M., De Berardis, D., Masedu, F., & Valenti, M.
- Affiliations
- University of L'Aquila (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Mazza, Monica
- Venue
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2014-10-07
- Volume
- 8
- Pages
- 791-791
- ISSN
- 1662-5161 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4187579
- OpenAlex
- W2005057780
- Cited by
- 225
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 5.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archivio Istituzionale della Ricerca - Università degli Studi dell Aquila (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, empathy, cognitive empathy, affective empathy, adolescents, mentalization, experience sharing, emotional valence
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