Distinct Empathy Profiles in Autism and Social Anxiety: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This study examined cognitive and affective empathy in individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC), social anxiety (SA), and those without these conditions. A total of 105 university students (mean age = 24.2 years) were divided into three groups: ASC (n = 34), SA (n = 38), and controls (n = 33). Participants completed the Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2), Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) to assess cognitive (fantasy, perspective taking) and affective (personal distress, empathic concern) empathy. State cognitive empathy was measured using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task (RMET). Results showed that the ASC group had lower empathic concern than the SA and control groups and lower perspective taking than controls. Both ASC and SA groups reported higher personal distress than controls. A novel personal distress-to-empathic concern ratio (PD/EC) effectively differentiated ASC from SA, with a proposed cutoff of 0.83, demonstrating good sensitivity and moderate specificity. RMET scores were within the norm for all groups, with no significant differences. These findings highlight distinct empathy profiles in autism and social anxiety and introduce a new metric for differentiation, with potential clinical and research applications in empathy assessment.