An emotion-differentiated perspective on empathy with the emotion specific empathy questionnaire

Frontiers in Psychology

Sally Olderbak¹ 

关键词: affective empathy;    cognitive empathy;    emotion;    psychometric analysis;    measurement model;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00653

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Empathy refers to the thoughts and feelings of one individual in response to the observed (emotional) experiences of another individual. Empathy, however, can occur toward persons experiencing a variety of emotions, raising the question of whether or not empathy can be emotion specific. This paper discusses theoretical and empirical support for the emotion specificity of empathy. We present a new measure, the Emotion Specific Empathy questionnaire, which assesses affective and cognitive empathy for the six basic emotions. This paper presents the measure's psychometric qualities and demonstrates, through a series of models, the discriminant validity between emotion specific empathies suggesting empathy is emotion specific. Results and implications are discussed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY