Self-report measures, facial response, and personality differences (BEES) in cooperative vs. non cooperative situations: contribution of the autonomic system to the sense of empathy

The present study integrated three different measures of empathic behavior in a social context: verbal self-report measures (empathic response, emotional involvement, emotional significance, and valence), autonomic response (skin conductance - SCR -, and heart rate - HR), and personal response to empathic scale (BEES). Participants were presented with different interpersonal scene types (cooperation, non-cooperation, conflict, indifference). Different empathic sensitivity to these interpersonal situations was verified, since self-rating on empathy, emotional involvement and valence varied as a function of interpersonal context. Secondly, self-report measures of empathy and autonomic measures were found to be related: SCR and HR increased in response to conflictual and non-cooperative situations, whereas they did not vary in response to non-cooperative and neutral situations. Third, high and low BEES subjects showed different empathic behaviour: high empathic subjects were more responsive (on both self-report and autonomic response) to empathy-related situations than low empathic subjects. The convergence and divergence of the multidimensional measures was discussed.