Objectives. Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often suffer from impairments in social functioning. This study investigates differences in empathy, compassion, and Theory of Mind (ToM) in individuals with OCD as a possible cause for social functioning deficits.Design. Sixty-four individuals diagnosed with OCD and 62 healthy individuals completed a naturalistic behavioural task (EmpaToM) and a self-report measure (Interpersonal Reactivity Index, IRI).
Methods. Three preregistered repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs).Results. People with OCD exhibited higher empathy levelsnamely increased sharing of others' sufferingin the EmpaToM task and reported more distress (IRI) compared with healthy individuals. Furthermore, no differences in compassion (EmpaToM) between both groups emerged, although people with OCD reported more concern for others (IRI) compared with healthy individuals. Concerning the ToM, no group differences were detected, neither in the behavioural task, nor self-report.
Conclusion.By investigating OCD with diverse scientific practices we shed light on the higher levels of empathy exhibited by individuals with OCD, which are relevant for clinical practice and our understanding of OCD symptomatology.
Practitioner Points• People with obsessive-compulsive disorder show higher levels of empathy, that is the increased sharing of others' suffering, compared with healthy individuals in both a traditional self-report and a naturalistic task.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.