LEVEL OF EMPATHY AND SEVERITY OF PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS IN MEDICAL, LAW AND PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS

Abstract

The aim of this study was to show the differences between groups of medical, law and psychology students in terms of empathy and psychopathy, as well as to show whether there are relationships between these variables in the studied groups. The study involved 70 female and 50 male students, constituting three equal groups of 40 people each, studying Medicine, Law and Psychology respectively. Two standardized tools were used in the study: the Index of Interpersonal Reactivity (IRI) by M.H Davis and the Polish adaptation of I. Pilch and her team's Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM), the original version of which was developed by Patrick, Fowles and Krueger, as well as a specially designed sociodemographic questionnaire. The study showed an inverse relationship between empathy and psychopathy and that there were differences in both empathy and psychopathy levels between different groups of students. Law students had lower levels of empathy in two di mensions according to the IRI than medical and psychology students. When analyzing the severity of some psychopathic traits and the overall psychopathy score according to TriPM, it was found that law students had the highest levels in the overall psychopathy score and meanness, but no statistically significant differences were observed in other TriPM variables between the groups studied. Law students had the lowest empathy scores of the groups studied, and medical students had slightly lower empathy scores than psychology students. It was also shown that law students had the highest overall psychopathy score of the three groups studied. Negative correlational relationships between empathy and psychopathy were observed in medical and law students – indicating that higher levels of empathy are associated with lower levels of psychopathy.