title: [The relationship of empathic-affective responses toward others' positive affect with prosocial behaviors and aggressive behaviors].
abstract: The purposes of this study were to develop and validate the Empathic-Affective Response Scale, and to examine the relationship of empathic-affective responses with prosocial behaviors and aggressive behaviors. Undergraduate students (N = 443) participated in a questionnaire study. The results of factor analysis indicated that empathic-affective responses involved three factors: (a) sharing and good feeling toward others' positive affect, (b) sharing of negative affect and (c) sympathy toward others' negative affect. Correlations with other empathy-related scales and internal consistency suggested that this scale has satisfactory validity and reliability. Cluster analysis revealed that participants were clustered into four groups: high-empathic group, low-empathic group, insufficient positive affective response group and insufficient negative affective response group. Additional analysis showed the frequency of prosocial behaviors in high-empathic group was highest in all groups. On the other hand, the frequency of aggressive behaviors in both insufficient positive affective response group and low-empathic group were higher than others' groups. The results indicated that empathic-affective responses toward positive affect are also very important to predict prosocial behaviors and aggressive behaviors.
authors: Institute of Psychology, University of Tsukuba, Tennodai, Tsukuba 305-8572, Japan. ssakurai@human.tsukuba.ac.jp
authors: Shigeo
authors: S
authors: Sakurai
authors: Daichi
authors: D
authors: Hayama
authors: Takashi
authors: T
authors: Suzuki
authors: Tomoe
authors: T
authors: Kurazumi
authors: Toshihiko
authors: T
authors: Hagiwara
authors: Miyuki
authors: M
authors: Suzuki
authors: Akiko
authors: A
authors: Ohuchi
authors: Oikawa
authors: O
authors: Chizuko
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult