Measuring dispositional empathy in South African children.
Acta Neuropsychiatr
; : 1-8, 2024 Apr 25.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38659217
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
Empathy is a key factor to examine in development, because of its predictive associations with both aggression and successful prosocial behaviour. However, established measures of empathy for Low-to-Middle Income Countries, including South Africa, are lacking. In children, parent-report measures are key. However, a local study examining empathy and aggression (Malcolm-Smith et al., 2015) found poor psychometric performance for a widely used parent-report measure of dispositional empathy, the Griffith Empathy Measure (GEM). We thus investigated which of two questionnaires measuring dispositional cognitive and affective empathy perform better in this context.METHOD:
We contrasted internal consistency reliability of a simplified version of the GEM (SGEM; n = 160) and a parent-report version of the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE; n = 440) in a low-mid socio-economic status sample. Convergence between the measures and factor structure were also assessed.RESULTS:
The parent-report version of the QCAE performed well as a measure of child dispositional cognitive and affective empathy, with good reliability (overall α = 0.90 vs. SGEM α = .63), and confirmatory factor analysis supporting the two-factor structure. The SGEM's reliability and failure to correlate with QCAE indicated poor psychometric performance.CONCLUSION:
This is the first psychometric evaluation of the QCAE as a parent-report measure, and our results indicate that it should prove useful for future assessments of dispositional empathy in children across a variety of contexts.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Acta Neuropsychiatr
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Sudáfrica
Pais de publicación:
Reino Unido