Measuring Empathy: teacher key

Kindness, grade 9 edition, written for 9th grade. How researchers measure empathy and test giving, from toddlers and rats to bats, elephants and dogs, and what studies of spreading kindness leave unclear.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. How many items does the Interpersonal Reactivity Index have?
   • 60
   • 28 (answer)
   • 4
2. What limit do empathy measures often have?
   • They need a brain scan
   • They take a year
   • They ask people to report on their own ability (answer)
3. What typically happens to giving over rounds of repeated public goods games?
   • It declines but rarely drops to zero (answer)
   • It always doubles
   • It stops at once
4. In the brain-scan study, when was activity larger?
   • When they paid taxes
   • When people gave money voluntarily (answer)
   • When they slept
5. How did Christakis describe a social network?
   • Like a bank
   • Like a map
   • Like a matching grant (answer)
6. Why is it unclear how the ripples affect real networks?
   • Both cooperative and selfish acts spread (answer)
   • Nobody gave anything
   • The test was never run

Words

• empathy: sharing feelings
• insula: brain region
• oxytocin: a hormone
• altruism: selfless concern
• submissive: yielding