A bidimensional measure of empathy: Empathic Experience Scale

Abstract

Empathy is a key notion in the study of sociality. A phenomenological perspective on empathy as intersubjective understanding offers a common ground for multiple dimensions. Corresponding to the dichotomy between perceptual and cognitive levels, two constructs can be distinguished: vicariously experiencing and intuitively understanding others’ emotions. We developed and validated a new questionnaire for the assessment of individual differences in empathy. In a first study (N = 921), we created a questionnaire measuring empathy consisting of a pool of 75 items. Exploratory factor analysis suggested to retain two factors (“Intuitive Understanding” and “Vicarious Experience”), whereas a 30-item version of the questionnaire had satisfactory psychometric properties. In a second study (N = 504), we administered the 30-items questionnaire and several concurrent/divergent measures. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a two-factor structure best represented its latent factor structure. The results show that our questionnaire could be considered a reliable and valid measure of empathy with internal consistencies of 0.93 and 0.95 for Vicarious Experience and Intuitive Intuitive Understanding, respectively. Whereas our questionnaire mostly showed the expected convergence with existing scales of empathy, the correlations also suggest that it adds valuable new information to the assessment of empathy. The two-factor structure suggests that the perceptual (vicarious) experience and the basic (non-effortful) cognitive awareness of others’ emotions can be assessed as distinct constructs. This bidimensional structure that distinguishes between the perceptual experience and the basic cognitive awareness of others’ emotional states connects theoretical, empirical, and clinical data from psychology and neuroscience.

Interpersonal reactivity index adaptation among expectant seroconcordant couples with HIV in Zambézia Province, Mozambique

“…Our exploratory factor analysis, consideration of the distinct cognitive and affective domains of empathy, and dyadic CFA suggested that a refined, shortened IRI scale is an acceptable measure of empathy in this population of adult partners living with HIV in Zambézia Province, Mozambique. Instead of the original four factor structure, exploratory factor analyses suggested, and the CFA with dyadic invariance testing confirmed, two empathy subscales: an affective subscale (with items assessing personal distress and empathetic concern) and a cognitive scale (with items assessing perspective taking and fantasy), which aligns with more recently developed empathy scales and recent data that describe the neurological processes underlying empathy [25][26][27][28][29]. The obtained subscales were moderately correlated with each other and had comparable intra-scale reliabilities among women and men.…”

“…In the absence of a theoretical framework to explain mixing of cognitive and affective items, we selected the two-factor solution (distinct cognitive and affective empathy factors) to minimize these discrepancies. This aligns with more recently developed empathy scales and the number of factors on the IRI for couples scale, which allows for improved interpretability of the two-factor solution instead of the three-or four-factor solutions, which had subscale mixing that limited interpretability [25,28]. Across ten imputed datasets, factor correlations ranged from 0.56 to 0.59.…”

“…After re-examining the question translations for this analysis, we removed questions number 4 and 9 from the pool of items subjected to analyses, due to discrepancies after translation that changed the meaning of the questions (Supplementary Table 1 ). We performed maximum-likelihood exploratory factor analyses on the polychoric correlation matrices of two, three, and four-factor solutions consistent with the affective and cognitive attributes of empathy and IRI for couples scale (two factor-model suggested by extant theory) [ 19 , 25 – 29 ], the results of a parallel analysis on the imputed datasets (three factor-model suggested by parallel analyses) [ 42 , 43 ], and previous versions of the IRI (four factors in the initial validation) [ 11 ]. We used an oblique promax rotation and selected items for a particular factor if the loading was greater than 0.40 and unique to one factor (i.e., the question did not load greater than 0.40 for another factor; if so, it was discarded).…”

“…The fantasy and perspective taking scales constitute the cognitive component of empathy, while the empathic concern and personal distress scales constitute the affective component of empathy [11]. More recent research, albeit conducted in North America, further supports that distinct cognitive and affective empathy domains undergird the IRI scale [25][26][27][28][29]. This includes the development of two-factor empathy scales [25,28] and imaging and molecular research that suggest distinct, but interrelated, cognitive and affective neural circuitry [27,29].…”

Evidencias de validez, fiabilidad e invarianza factorial de una escala breve de empatía para niños peruanos

“…De acuerdo con Duan y Hill (1996), la empatía puede ser vista desde tres perspectivas teóricas: (a) un rasgo de la personalidad o habilidad, (b) una secuencia de experiencias y (c) una situación específica de estados cognitivos-afectivos, que es la más influyente (Blair, 2005;Innamorati, Ebisch, Gallese y Saggino, 2019;Sugarman, Nemirrof y Greenson, 2001;Vaish, Carpenter y Tomasello, 2009), dado que existen diversos estudios en los que la estruc-tura cognitivo-afectiva forma parte de algunos test (Vachon et al, 2014). Así, lo afectivo involucra respuestas emocionales respecto a la situación con un otro (Cohen y Strayer, 1996;Decety, 2011;Eisenberg y Fabes, 1990;Eisenberg, Fabes y Spinrad, 2006;Zaki, 2014) y lo cognitivo hace referencia a la comprensión emocional de otra persona, a través de asociaciones simples (Cox et al, 2011;Hoffman, 1977;Schnell, Bluschke, Konradt y Walter, 2011).…”