Erin's Empathy Survey

The study you have just completed was designed to measure how people understand the thoughts and/or feelings of others. This process is commonly referred to as empathising.

Recent research suggests that empathising may be undertaken using two distinct processes known as cognitive and emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy involves adopting the psychological perspective of another person, whereas emotional empathy involves vicariously sharing in the emotional experience of another person.

This study aims to investigate whether the way in which we empathise with others varies according to a person's biological sex and/or the social context.


Privacy Statement
As part of the requirements of the Honours in Psychology program, Erin O’Reilly is currently undertaking an empirical research project. Erin is working under the supervision of Dr Jeff Ward, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University. The research Erin is undertaking will contribute to her honours thesis, and potentially one or more journal articles. No response from any single person will be published. Only the analysis of data from groups of participants will be described in Erin O’Reilly’s thesis. All responses will remain confidential, as far as the law allows. Completed questionnaires will be stored securely at the Australian National University, and will at no stage be made accessible to any third party. The contribution of data to this research is entirely voluntary. There will be no penalty whatsoever if any person declines to participate in this study, and participants may withdraw from this study at any time up until the questionnaires are submitted.