Detailansicht
Empathiefähigkeit bei Patienten mit Affektiven Störungen
Katharina Knubben
Art der Arbeit
Diplomarbeit
Universität
Universität Wien
Fakultät
Fakultät für Psychologie
Betreuer*in
Birgit Derntl
DOI
10.25365/thesis.16042
URN
urn:nbn:at:at-ubw:1-30186.68535.708059-9
Link zu u:search
(Print-Exemplar eventuell in Bibliothek verfügbar)
Abstracts
Abstract
(Deutsch)
Empathy is assumed to be a multidimensional construct that implicates affective as well as cognitive aspects of social functioning. Patients with affective disorders show impairments of social interaction that could potentially be linked to deficits in empathy.
The aim of the following study was to examine empathic abilities in patients with bipolar affective disorder and patients with unipolar depressive disorder. Performance of patients in three paradigms measuring emotion recognition, emotional perspective taking and affective responsiveness was compared to a group of healthy controls, matched for age, gender and education. The influence of symptom severity and cognitive skills on empathic abilities was measured using symptom rating scales and neuropsychological tests. Furthermore self-reported data on social competence and empathic abilities were collected to evaluate the validity of the three paradigms. Data analysis revealed no general empathy deficit in both groups of affective disorders compared to controls. However, patients with bipolar affective disorder showed a reduced ability to generate adequate affective responses to emotional situations. Furthermore, analysing reaction times, significantly slower emotion processing was found in depressed patients in affective domains of empathy, whereas cognitive perspective taking was unaffected. Gender differences were only found in the ability of affective responsiveness, where women outperformed men. Negative correlations between manic symptoms and performance in perspective taking could be observed. Premorbid general intelligence was found to correlate positively with performance in affective responsiveness as well as executive functions showed negative interrelations with all three empathy components. Self-report data showed little coherence with empathy performance demonstrating limitations of self-report scales. Significant lower self-reported perspective taking and empathic concern as well as higher self-reported personal distress were found in patients compared to healthy controls. Also analysis of validity did not succeed with self-report scales. To attain accurate estimation of validity a more objective measuring such as rating by others would be necessary.
The results of the present study indicate diminished affective responsiveness as well as impairments in emotion processing in patients with affective disorders. Both competencies are presumed to be key abilities in social interaction processes. Further investigation of all three core components of empathy with larger samples have to be done to clarify the interaction of dysfunctional emotion processing and empathy in affective disorders.
Schlagwörter
Schlagwörter
(Deutsch)
Empathieb Depression
Autor*innen
Katharina Knubben
Haupttitel (Deutsch)
Empathiefähigkeit bei Patienten mit Affektiven Störungen
Publikationsjahr
2011
Umfangsangabe
151 S.
Sprache
Deutsch
Beurteiler*in
Birgit Derntl
Klassifikationen
77 Psychologie > 77.46 Emotion ,
77 Psychologie > 77.70 Klinische Psychologie
AC Nummer
AC08784638
Utheses ID
14391
Studienkennzahl
UA | 298 | | |