Modelling%20Empathy:%20The%20EU-Project%20VICTEC%20(Virtual%20Information%20And%20Communication%20Technology%20With%20Empathic%20Characters)

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Modelling Empathy The EU-Project VICTEC (Virtual
Information And Communication Technology With
Empathic Characters)

• Harald Schaub (harald.schaub_at_ppp.uni-bamberg.de),
  Carsten Zoll (carsten.zoll_at_ppp.uni-bamberg.de),
  Sibylle Enz (sibylle.enz_at_ppp.uni-bamberg.de)
• Institut für Theoretische Psychologie,
  Universität Bamberg, Markusplatz 3, 96045
  Bamberg, Germany
• Ruth Aylett (r.s.aylett_at_salford.ac.uk)
• The Centre for Virtual Environments, University
  of Salford, Manchester M5 4WT, England

The VICTEC Project The EU sponsored project
VICTEC aims to create a software (the
Demonstrator) that helps students aged 8 to 12
to cope with aggressive behaviour in school
contexts (bullying). Key feature of the
Demonstrator is the implementation of empathic
agents acting in a virtual school building where
they take the role of teachers and students
involved in bullying scenarios. The child users
interaction with the Demonstrator enables them to
simulate their behaviour in real bullying
situations in order to learn more about how to
cope with aggressive acts against them and to
reach their goals without using violence. The
VICTEC project aims at creating empathy between
the child user and the virtual agent to improve
social immersion and gain better learning
effects. Bullying According to literature
bullying is a repeated action that occurs
regularly over time. Two different types of
bullying can be distinguished direct and
relational bullying. Direct bullying can be
distinguished further between physical bullying
(hitting, kicking, taking belongings) and verbal
bullying (name calling, cruel teasing, taunting,
threatening). Relational bullying focuses on the
social network of the victim and can be achieved
for example by social exclusion, rumour spreading
or deliberate withdrawal of friendship.
Empathy Empathy is a psychological concept that
describes the ability of one person (observer)
to achieve information on the inner state of
another person (target). Most contemporary
empathy researchers agree that two different
aspects of empathy have to be distinguished the
cognitive and the affective aspect. Thus, one
speaks of cognitive empathy (also
perspective-taking), when the outcome of an
empathic process is that the observer tries to
understand how the target feels in a given
situation. Affective empathy refers to processes
with an affective outcome The observer feels
something due to the perception of a target.
Running Model The running model aims to simulate
empathy processes for both cognitive and
affective empathy with an identical structure. It
assumes that factors on side of the target, on
side of the observer and the similarity between
the two influence empathic processes. Empathy is
influenced by the competencies of the observer,
some organism parameters (activation, resolution
level and selection treshold) and his motivation
for affiliation (the need for social experiences)
and certainty (the need to be able to predict the
environment of the organism). If the target shows
a clear emotional expression, acts clearly with
high intensity and pursues goals he is aware of,
empathic processes are facilitated. Furthermore,
research has shown that similarity between target
and observer might promote empathy (e.g. Davis,
1994).
Evaluation of the running Model The quality of
the model is proofed by a comparison of model
variables relations with empirical results.
Cognitive Empathy
Need for Affiliation Franzoi, Davis Young
(1985) report a positive correlation between
cognitive empathy and satisfaction with current
relationships. The latter is an indicator for a
low need for affiliation. The running Model r
-0,48
Similarity of Target and Observer Extroverted
behaviour Very weak negative to no correlations
are reported for the relation between similarity
of target and observer and aggressive behaviour
(which can be interpreted as a subset of
extroverted behaviour of observer) Davis
(1994) The running Model r 0.19
Similarity of Target and Observer Prosocial
behaviour Positive correlations are reported for
the relation between similarity of target and
observer and prosocial behaviour (here
observers care for target) Eisenberg Miller
(1987) The running Model r 0.93
Franzoi, S. L., Davis, M. H. Young, R. D.
(1985). The effects of private self-consciousness
and perspective taking on satisfaction in close
relationships. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 48, 15841594.
Davis, M. H. (1994). Empathy A social
psychological approach. Dubuque Brown and
Benchmark Publishers.
Eisenberg, N. Miller, P. A. (1987). Empathy and
prosocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 101,
91-119.