Citation

Malcolm-Smith S, Pileggi LA, Lewis R. Acta Neuropsyciatr. 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/neu.2024.19

PMID

38659217

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Empathy is a key factor to examine in development, because of its predictive associations with both aggression and successful prosocial behavior. However, established measures of empathy for Low-to-Middle Income Countries, including South Africa, are lacking. In children, parent-report measures are key. However, a local study examining empathy and aggression (Malcolm-Smith et al., 2015) found poor psychometric performance for a widely used parent-report measure of dispositional empathy, the Griffith Empathy Measure (GEM). We thus investigated which of two questionnaires measuring dispositional cognitive and affective empathy perform better in this context.

METHOD: We contrasted internal consistency reliability of a simplified version of the GEM (SGEM; n = 160) and a parent-report version of the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE; n = 440) in a low-mid socio-economic status sample. Convergence between the measures and factor structure were also assessed.

RESULTS: The parent-report version of the QCAE performed well as a measure of child dispositional cognitive and affective empathy, with good reliability (overall α=.90 vs. SGEM α=.63), and confirmatory factor analysis supporting the two-factor structure. The SGEM's reliability and failure to correlate with QCAE indicated poor psychometric performance.

CONCLUSION: This is the first psychometric evaluation of the QCAE as a parent-report measure, and our results indicate that it should prove useful for future assessments of dispositional empathy in children across a variety of contexts.

Language: en

Keywords

affective empathy; cognitive empathy; LMIC; parent-report; psychometrics