Empathy

This dataset captures the relational behaviour of 1973 French-speaking students from several universities or schools for higher education in the following fields: engineering (31%), medicine (18%), nursing school (16%), economic sciences (15%), physiotherapy, (4%), psychology (11%), law school (4%) and dietetics (1%). The subjects were 17 to 25 years old (M = 19.6 years, SD = 1.6 years), 57% were females and 43% were males. 

The feature set is composed of 28 items meant to assess the four following components: fantasy, perspective taking, empathic concern and personal distress. In the questionnaire, the items are shuffled; reversed items (items 3, 4, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19) are present. Items are scored from 0 to 4, where “0” means “Doesn’t describe me very well” and “4” means “Describes me very well”; reverse-scoring is calculated afterwards. The questionnaires were anonymized. The reanalysis of the database in this retrospective study was approved by the ethical committee of the Erasmus Hospital. (Briganti et al., 2018)

Task: The dataset can be used to study causal discovery methods.

Summary: 

Size of dataset: 1973 x 18

Task: Causal Discovery Problem

Data Type: Categorical Data

Dataset Scope: Standalone Dataset

Ground Truth: Unknown Graph

Temporal Structure: Static Data

License: CC BY 4.0 (see https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/b8d5n5h3gc/1)

Missing Values: Existing Missing Values

Missingness Statement: Even though the full dataset was composed of 1973 participants, only 1270 answered the full questionnaire. In Briganti et al. (2018), missing data are handled using pairwise complete observations in estimating a Gaussian Graphical Model, meaning that all available information from every subject was used.

Features:

Feature
Feature Label
Domain
Item meaning from Davis 1980

001
1FS
Green
I daydream and fantasize, with some regularity, about things that might happen to me.

002
2EC
Purple
I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.

003
3PT_R
Yellow
I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the “other guy’s” point of view.

004
4EC_R
Purple
Sometimes I don’t feel very sorry for other people when they are having problems.

005
5FS
Green
I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel.

006
6PD
Red
In emergency situations, I feel apprehensive and ill-at-ease.

007
7FS_R
Green
I am usually objective when I watch a movie or play, and I don’t often get completely caught up in it.(Reversed)

008
8PT
Yellow
I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision.

009
9EC
Purple
When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them.

010
10PD
Red
I sometimes feel helpless when I am in the middle of a very emotional situation.

011
11PT
Yellow
sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective

012
12FS_R
Green
Becoming extremely involved in a good book or movie is somewhat rare for me. (Reversed)

013
13PD_R
Red
When I see someone get hurt, I tend to remain calm. (Reversed)

014
14EC_R
Purple
Other people’s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal. (Reversed)

015
15PT_R
Yellow
If I’m sure I’m right about something, I don’t waste much time listening to other people’s arguments. (Reversed)

016
16FS
Green
After seeing a play or movie, I have felt as though I were one of the characters.

017
17PD
Red
Being in a tense emotional situation scares me.

018
18EC_R
Purple
When I see someone being treated unfairly, I sometimes don’t feel very much pity for them. (Reversed)

019
19PD_R
Red
I am usually pretty effective in dealing with emergencies. (Reversed)

020
20FS
Green
I am often quite touched by things that I see happen.

021
21PT
Yellow
I believe that there are two sides to every question and try to look at them both.

022
22EC
Purple
I would describe myself as a pretty soft-hearted person.

023
23FS
Green
When I watch a good movie, I can very easily put myself in the place of a leading character.

024
24PD
Red
I tend to lose control during emergencies.

025
25PT
Yellow
When I’m upset at someone, I usually try to “put myself in his shoes” for a while.

026
26FS
Green
When I am reading an interesting story or novel, I imagine how I would feel if the events in the story were happening to me.

027
27PD
Red
When I see someone who badly needs help in an emergency, I go to pieces.

028
28PT
Yellow
Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place

Files:

data.csv: dataset