title: An emotion-differentiated perspective on empathy with the emotion specific empathy questionnaire.
abstract: 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.
authors: Differentielle Psychologie und Psychologische Diagnostik, Institut für Psychologie und Pädagogik, Universität Ulm Ulm, Germany.
authors: Sally
authors: S
authors: Olderbak
authors: Sozialpsychologie, Institut für Psychologie und Pädagogik, Universität Ulm Ulm, Germany ; Knowledge Media Research Center Tübingen, Germany.
authors: Claudia
authors: C
authors: Sassenrath
authors: Sozialpsychologie, Institut für Psychologie und Pädagogik, Universität Ulm Ulm, Germany.
authors: Johannes
authors: J
authors: Keller
authors: Differentielle Psychologie und Psychologische Diagnostik, Institut für Psychologie und Pädagogik, Universität Ulm Ulm, Germany.
authors: Oliver
authors: O
authors: Wilhelm
keywords: affective empathy; cognitive empathy; emotion; measurement model; psychometric analysis