Zych, Izabela, Farrington, David P., Nasaescu, Elena, Jolliffe, Darrick ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4590-6343 and Twardowska-Staszek, Estera (2020) Psychometric properties of the basic empathy scale in Polish children and adolescents. Current Psychology, 41 (4). pp. 1957-1966. ISSN 1046-1310 (Print), 1936-4733 (Online) (doi:10.1007/s12144-020-00670-y)

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Abstract

The Basic Empathy Scale is widely used to measure cognitive and affective empathy in different age groups. Although empathy is studied throughout the world, research on this important psychological construct in Eastern Europe populations need to be increased. In order to accomplish this, validated instruments to measure empathy are needed in this geographic area. This study was conducted to analyze the psychometric properties of the Basic Empathy Scale in Poland. The sample included 1,052 children and adolescents aged 9 to 16, enrolled in Primary and Middle schools. This was a cross-sectional study conducted with a survey that was filled in by the participants during their regular classroom hours. Confirmatory Factor Analyses were conducted, together with concurrent validity analyses and comparisons between younger and older participants and between girls and boys. A final 12-item version of the Basic Empathy Scale was obtained with factors of affective empathy and cognitive empathy. The Polish version of the scale showed good psychometric properties. Girls scored higher on affective, cognitive and total empathy than boys. Younger male participants scored higher on affective, cognitive and total empathy than older male participants. This validated measure of empathy in Polish children and adolescents can be used to study the relations of empathy with antisocial and prosocial behaviors, to include Poland in cross-country comparisons and to evaluate programs focused on enhancing empathy in Poland.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	affective empathy, cognitive empathy, psychometric properties, children, adolescents
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > Crime, Law & (In)Security Research Group (CLS) Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Law & Criminology (LAC)
Last Modified:	20 May 2022 13:11
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/27076

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