The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire: Scale Development and Initial Validation of a Factor-Analytic Solution to Multiple Empathy Measures

Abstract

To formulate a parsimonious tool to assess empathy, we used factor analysis on a combination of self-report measures to examine consensus and developed a brief self-report measure of this common factor. The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) represents empathy as a primarily emotional process. In 3 studies, the TEQ demonstrated strong convergent validity, correlating positively with behavioral measures of social decoding, self-report measures of empathy, and negatively with a measure of Autism symptomatology. Moreover, it exhibited good internal consistency and high test–retest reliability. The TEQ is a brief, reliable, and valid instrument for the assessment of empathy.

Acknowledgments

R. N. Spreng and M. C. McKinnon contributed equally to this work. We thank Ewa Munro and Pheth Sengdy for assistance in compiling the questionnaire measures and Colin De Young for assistance with the MAP test. This study was supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MGP–62963) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD42385–01) grants to B. Levine.

Notes

*Both authors contributed equally.