Faux Pas test: what is it and what is it for?

The human being is a gregarious and sociable being. From family clans and tribes to the increasingly globalized society in which we live today, throughout history we have built and trying to improve different types of organizational systems that allow us to be in contact with others, maintaining an increasing number of relations.

But the contact and the correct understanding of social interactions can be more complex than it seems, and in some In these cases there may be difficulties in getting in the place of the other or in correctly interpreting what is happening.

In this sense, there are different proposals and instruments that allow evaluating the degree of competence and understanding social, in order to detect possible deficits in this regard and contribute to training or treating difficulties that may exist. One of the instruments that allow this evaluation is the Faux Pas Test, about which we are going to talk throughout this article..

The Faux-Pas test: overview

The Faux-Pas test is a highly known psychological assessment instrument, which

allows assessing the degree of adaptation and social understanding through the interpretation of social situations.

The test in question has a total of twenty short stories in which some type of social interaction takes place, in ten of which there is some type of inappropriate, inconsiderate or clumsy act on the part of one of the characters towards another or others. It has reduced versions and different adaptations, including one in Spanish: the Gaffin Test.

It is an instrument that allows assessing the capacity for understanding, empathy and the existence of a theory of mind in the subjects evaluated. The latter refers to the ability to understand the mental state of another and attribute the ability to think and have intentions and emotions different from our own.

Developed in 1999 by Baron-Cohen, the Faux-Pas test Its original purpose was to assess the ability to understand social situations and differentiate between performance in this task among minors (between seven and eleven years old) with Asperger syndrome and normotypic minors. However, over the years, its target audience has expanded, with versions available for children and adults, and being used to assess the capacity for social understanding in different problematic.

Thus, in addition to its use to assess social competence in people with autism or Asperger syndrome, It has been used in a population with conduct disorders, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder and even psychopathy, among others. It is also used in people with injuries to the frontal lobe and especially in the orbitofrontal, and also in some cases of dementia.

Test administration

The administration of the Faux Pas test is relatively simple. Each of the stories that are part of the test are presented to the subject one by one, reading them to him and giving him a copy so that he can read it and see them himself.

After each story is read, the subject is asked if anyone in it has done or said something inappropriate. In case of negative answer, two control questions are asked to assess the level of understanding of what happened in the story.

If the answer is positive, we proceed to ask who has done something inappropriate, why or what should have been taken into account, what should have done or said, if the protagonist of the story has realized why his act was inappropriate and how the person.

Each of these questions seeks to assess whether the person to whom the test is applied has the capacity to understand the fact that a action is inappropriate or considered clumsy at a certain time (third question), if you can assess the intentionality of the speaker (fourth question), interpret their beliefs and knowledge (fifth question) and if they are able to be empathetic and understand their emotions (sixth question). After these questions, it will end by asking the same control questions as in the previous case (in this case, the seventh and eighth).

How to score?

The correction of this test requires analyzing each of the responses that the subject has given. The first of the questions will score according to whether the answer given is correct or incorrect, regardless of whether we are facing a story in which inappropriate acts or gaffes occur or if we are facing a story control.

The second, in which it is asked as to who commits the blunder, will be considered correct any answer that identifies the person in question, without remembering the name itself being necessary.

A different case occurs in this question in the case of the control stories, since not answering will be scored positively while answer will be penalized (after all, in the control stories no one is committing any inappropriate act or paw).

To assess each of the abilities assessed in this test, all the scores of the question that correspond to said ability will be added together to later divide it by the sum of the products of the correct answers to the control questions in the stories with inappropriate content and the product of the correct answers to the control questions in the stories control.

The maximum score is 30, and the lower the score, the more difficulty in the different areas analyzed.. However, it is not advisable to focus on a final score, but rather to assess each area separately.

Bibliographic references:

• Baron-Cohen, S., O'Riordan, M., Stone, V., Jones, R. & Plaisted, K (1999). Recognition of Faux Pas by normally developing children and children with Asperger Syndrome or High-functioning autism. Journal or, Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29 (5), 407-418.

• Fernández-Modamio, M., Arrieta-Rodríguez, M., Bengochea Seco, R., Santacoloma-Cabero, I., Gómez de Tojeiro-Roce, J., García-Polavieja, B., González-Fraile, E., Martín-Carrasco, M., Griffin, K. and Gil, D. (2018). Faux-Pas Test: A proposal of a Standardized Short Version. Clinical Schizophrenia & Related Psychoses.

• Guinea Hidalgo, Q., Tirapu Ustárroz, J. and Pollán Rufo, M. (2007). Theory of mind in schizophrenia. Behavior Analysis and Modification, 33 (148).

• Stone, V.E., Baron-Cohen, S. and Knight, R.T. (1998). Frontal lobe contributions to theory of mind. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 640-656.

• Stone, V.E. and Baron-Cohen, S. (1998). Faux Pas Recognition Test (Adult Version).