The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy

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• 作者：Leila Bensalah ; Nicolas Stefaniak ; Arnaud Carre…
• 关键词：Empathy ; Emotion ; Emotion regulation ; Child ; Basic Empathy Scale (BES)
• 刊名：Behavior Research Methods
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：48
• 期：4
• 页码：1410-1420
• 全文大小：451 KB
• 刊物主题：Cognitive Psychology;
• 出版者：Springer US
• ISSN：1554-3528
• 卷排序：48

文摘

We adapted the adult French version of the Basic Empathy Scale to French children aged 6–11 years, in order to probe the factorial structure underlying empathy. A total of 410 children (189 girls and 221 boys) were instructed to fill out the resulting Basic Empathy Scale in Children (BES-C). Results showed that, as in adulthood, the three-factor model of empathy (i.e., emotional contagion, cognitive empathy, and emotional disconnection) was more relevant than the one- and two-factor ones. This means that as early as 6 years of age, children’s responses should reflect the same organization of the three components of empathy as those of adults. In line with the literature, cognitive empathy increased and emotional disconnection decreased in middle childhood, while emotional contagion remained stable. Moreover, girls exhibited greater emotional contagion than boys, with the reverse pattern being observed for emotional disconnection. No sex difference was found regarding cognitive empathy.