The human being is a gregarious and sociable being . From the family clans and tribes to the increasingly globalised society in which we live today, throughout history we have been building and trying to improve different types of organisational systems that allow us to be in contact with our neighbours, maintaining an increasing number of relationships.

But contact and the correct understanding of social interactions can be more complex than it seems, and in some cases there can be difficulties in putting oneself in the other’s place or correctly interpreting what is happening.

In this sense, there are different proposals and instruments that allow to evaluate the degree of competence and social understanding, in order to detect possible deficits in this sense and to contribute to train or treat the difficulties that may exist. One of the instruments that allow for this assessment is the Faux Pas Test, about which we will talk throughout this article .

The Faux-Pas test: an overview

The Faux-Pas test is a well-known psychological evaluation instrument, which allows to assess 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 kind of social interaction takes place, in ten of which some kind of inappropriate, inconsiderate or clumsy act by one of the characters towards another or others takes place. It has reduced versions and different adaptations, including one in Spanish: el Test de las Meteduras de Pata.

It is an instrument that allows us to evaluate the capacity of 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 to attribute to them the capacity to think and have intentions and emotions different from our own.

Developed in 1999 by Baron-Cohen, the Faux-Pas test was originally intended to assess the ability of children with Asperger’s syndrome and normotypic children to understand social situations and differentiate between performance on that task (aged seven to eleven). However, as the years have gone by, its target public has been extended, and there are versions for children and adults, and it is used to assess the capacity of social understanding in different problems.

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

Test administration

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

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

If the answer is positive, the question is asked who has done something inappropriate, why or what they should have taken into account, what they should have done or said, whether the protagonist of the story has realized why their act was inappropriate and how the person should have felt.

Each of these questions seeks to assess whether the person to whom the test is applied has the capacity to understand the fact that an action is inappropriate or considered clumsy at a given moment (third question), whether he/she can assess the speaker’s intentionality (fourth question), interpret his/her beliefs and knowledge (fifth question) and whether he/she is capable of being empathetic and understanding his/her emotions (sixth question). After these questions, we will finish by asking the same control questions as in the previous case (in this case, the seventh and eighth questions).

How to score?

The correction of this test requires analysing each of the answers the subject has given . The first of the questions will be scored according to whether the answer given is correct or incorrect, regardless of whether we are dealing with a story in which inappropriate acts or blunders occur or a control story.

The second, in which the question is asked as to who is making the mistake, any answer that identifies the person in question will be considered correct, without the name itself having to be remembered.

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

To evaluate each of the skills assessed in this test, all the scores of the question corresponding to that skill will be added together and then divided 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 control stories.

The maximum score is 30, and the lower the score the more difficulty in the different areas analysed . 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 o, 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. Análisis y Modificación de Conducta, 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).