Assessing Cognitive and Affective Empathy Through the Interpersonal Reactivity Index

Abstract

One aspect of higher order social cognition is empathy, a psychological construct comprising a cognitive (recognizing emotions) and an affective (responding to emotions) component. The complex nature of empathy complicates the accurate measurement of these components. The most widely used measure of empathy is the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). However, the factor structure of the IRI as it is predominantly used in the psychological literature differs from Davis's original four-factor model in that it arbitrarily combines the subscales to form two factors: cognitive and affective empathy. This two-factor model of the IRI, although popular, has yet to be examined for psychometric support. In the current study, we examine, for the first time, the validity of this alternative model. A confirmatory factor analysis showed poor model fit for this two-factor structure. Additional analyses offered support for the original four-factor model, as well as a hierarchical model for the scale. In line with previous findings, females scored higher on the IRI than males. Our findings indicate that the IRI, as it is currently used in the literature, does not accurately measure cognitive and affective empathy and highlight the advantages of using the original four-factor structure of the scale for empathy assessments.

Assessing emotional aspects of midwives’ intrapartum care: Development of the emotional availability and responsiveness in intrapartum care scale

“…The moderate correlation between the IRI empathic concern and personal distress subscales suggests that empathy does not fully embrace emotional availability and responsiveness in perinatal care. The absence of a strong association also resonates with critique on the IRI empathic concern and personal distress subscales' ability to capture emotional aspects (Chrysikou and Thompson, 2016). Results of the current study suggest that although there is conceptual overlap, empathy and emotional aspects of care are not the same.…”

Dispositional Mindfulness and Personal Distress as Predictors of Counseling Self‐Efficacy

“…The IRI (Davis, 1980) is a 28‐item self‐report scale measuring individuals’ global concept of empathy across four domains: perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress. Since its development, the IRI has remained one of the most widely used psychometric tools for measuring the construct of empathy (Chrysikou & Thompson, 2016). The IRI was selected for this study because of its multidimensional design and ability to measure distinct aspects and consequences of empathy.…”

Error monitoring and empathy: Explorations within a neurophysiological context

“…In contrast, studies involving neurophysiological measures of ACC activation (Bellebaum et al, ; Thoma et al, ) found no significant associations with affective empathy measures. Research has also shown that using combinations or separate subscales of the IRI may not reliably represent cognitive and affective empathy (Chrysikou & Thompson, ). The results of this investigation suggest that future research should consider the use of questionnaires in relation to the measurement of cognitive and affective framework of multidimensional empathy.…”

“…For example, some researchers have omitted fantasy and personal distress subscales, as they were suggested to not be valid measures of empathy (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004;Reniers et al, 2011). Furthermore, others have attributed the inconsistencies in findings due to variations in use and interpretation of the IRI subscales (Chrysikou & Thompson, 2015).…”