Bryant's Empathy Index for children and adolescents: psychometric properties in the Spanish language.
The present study investigated the following issues: (1) the structure of Bryant's Empathy Index for children and adolescents in a Spanish sample of 408 boys and 424 girls (M age=14.4 yr.), and (2) sex differences, including effect sizes and internal consistency of the scale. A principal components factor analysis with oblimin rotation showed that 20 of the index's 22 items load on three robust factors, related to Feelings of Sadness, Understanding Feelings, and Tearful Reaction with regard to the emotions of others. The 3-factor structure obtained an adequate fit to the data in the confirmatory factor analysis. Coefficients alpha ranged between .72 and .78. The 3 factors accounted for 42% of variance. As expected, girls scored higher than boys. It was concluded that the Spanish version of Bryant's Empathy Index has an acceptable reliability and construct validity, making it useful for research.
Department of Personality, Faculty of Psychology, National University of Distance Education, Madrid, Spain. vbarrio@psi.uned.es
Victoria
V
del Barrio
Anton
A
Aluja
Luis F
LF
García
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013030:Spain