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- Title
Trait Autism is a Better Predictor of Empathy than Alexithymia.
- Authors
Shah, Punit; Livingston, Lucy A.; Callan, Mitchell J.; Player, Lois
- Abstract
It has been proposed that atypical empathy in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is due to co-occurring alexithymia. However, difficulties measuring empathy and statistical issues in previous research raise questions about the role of alexithymia in empathic processing in ASD. Addressing these issues, we compared the associations of trait alexithymia and autism with empathy in large samples from the general population. Multiple regression analyses showed that both trait autism and alexithymia were uniquely associated with atypical empathy, but dominance analysis found that trait autism, compared to alexithymia, was a more important predictor of atypical cognitive, affective, and overall empathy. Together, these findings indicate that atypical empathy in ASD is not simply due to co-occurring alexithymia.
- Subjects
AFFECT (Psychology); ALEXITHYMIA; AUTISM; COGNITIVE testing; EMPATHY; PSYCHOLOGY of People with disabilities; COMORBIDITY; MULTIPLE regression analysis
- Publication
Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 2019, Vol 49, Issue 10, p3956
- ISSN
0162-3257
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10803-019-04080-3