Marzia Di Girolamo, Luciano Giromini, Jessica Bosi, L. Warmelink, Ilaria La Scala, Caterina Loiacono, F. Miraglia, A. Zennaro
{"title":"The Role Played by Theory of Mind and Empathy in the Feigning of Psychopathology","authors":"Marzia Di Girolamo, Luciano Giromini, Jessica Bosi, L. Warmelink, Ilaria La Scala, Caterina Loiacono, F. Miraglia, A. Zennaro","doi":"10.1080/14999013.2021.2007432","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, we hypothesized that in order to feign mental illness, one would need to have empathy and be able to understand other’s mental states. To test this hypothesis, we asked 432 healthy volunteers to feign depression, PTSD or schizophrenia while completing a self-report test that measures the severity of the feigned condition’s symptoms and the Inventory of Problems − 29 (IOP-29). Additionally, all participants were administered a theory of mind (ToM) task and an empathy measure with the request to respond truthfully. Results from a series of linear regression models revealed that higher cognitive empathy is associated with increased symptom endorsement on self-report symptom questionnaires and higher ToM abilities are associated with less credible feigned profiles, especially in the case of feigned depression.","PeriodicalId":14052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Forensic Mental Health","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"6","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Forensic Mental Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14999013.2021.2007432","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 6
Abstract
Abstract In this article, we hypothesized that in order to feign mental illness, one would need to have empathy and be able to understand other’s mental states. To test this hypothesis, we asked 432 healthy volunteers to feign depression, PTSD or schizophrenia while completing a self-report test that measures the severity of the feigned condition’s symptoms and the Inventory of Problems − 29 (IOP-29). Additionally, all participants were administered a theory of mind (ToM) task and an empathy measure with the request to respond truthfully. Results from a series of linear regression models revealed that higher cognitive empathy is associated with increased symptom endorsement on self-report symptom questionnaires and higher ToM abilities are associated with less credible feigned profiles, especially in the case of feigned depression.