title: The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Reims, Reims, France. leila.bensalah@univ-reims.fr.
authors.forename: Leila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bensalah
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Reims, Reims, France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Stefaniak
authors.affiliation: Université de Savoie Mont Blanc, LIPPC2S, EA4145, Chambéry, F-73000, France.|Mental Health and Public Health, Inserm, U1178, Paris, F-75014, France.|Université Paris Descartes, Paris, F-75014, France.|Université Paris Sud, Paris, F-75014, France.
authors.forename: Arnaud
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Carre
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Reims, Reims, France.
authors.forename: Chrystel
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Besche-Richard
mesh_terms: D000067290:Behavior Rating Scale / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012727:Sex Characteristics
keywords: Basic Empathy Scale (BES); Child; Emotion; Emotion regulation; Empathy