Understanding the social world around us is important to function in today’s society. Gaining understanding can be achieved through cognitive empathy. In the current study, the main question ‘Is...Show moreUnderstanding the social world around us is important to function in today’s society. Gaining understanding can be achieved through cognitive empathy. In the current study, the main question ‘Is the effect of acute stress on the level of cognitive empathy in female students moderated by experienced childhood trauma?’ has been examined in 119 female students between 18 and 25 years old (M = 21.19, SD = 1.66). The relationship between acute stress, cognitive empathy and experienced childhood trauma has been examined with three sub-questions that focus on 1. the effect of acute stress on cognitive empathy, 2. the effect of subjective acute stress on the level of cognitive empathy and 3. Is the effect of acute stress on cognitive empathy moderated by experienced childhood trauma? These questions have been answered with an experimental study with a between-subjects design and a sequentially assigned stress or no stress manipulation provided by the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum et al., 1993). Before and during the manipulation acute stress has been measured with the Visual Analogue Scale (Freyd, 1923). Cognitive empathy has been measured with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Thombs et al., 2009) was used for measuring experienced childhood trauma. The current study shows no significant results for the main question and its sub-questions. This contributes to other studies who used the RMET to measure cognitive empathy and didn’t find any significant results, meaning they should use a different instrument in future research. In addition, it is important to re-examine the main research question using physiological measures of acute stress. This study contributes to the scientific knowledge of this moderation effect, but more research is needed to get a better understanding and help for people who experienced childhood trauma.Show less
