1,807
Views
64
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

The Empathy Quotient: A cross-cultural comparison of the Italian version

, , , , &
Pages 50-70 | Received 19 Jun 2009, Published online: 24 Aug 2010

References

  • Adolphs , R. 2009 . The social brain: Neural basis of social knowledge . Annual Reviews of Psychology , 60 : 693 – 716 .
  • Auyeung , B. , Wheelwright , S. , Allison , C. , Atkinson , M. , Samarawickrema , N. and Baron-Cohen , S. 2009 . The children's Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient: Sex differences in typical development and in autism spectrum conditions . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 39 : 1509 – 1521 .
  • Bagby , R. M. , Taylor , G. J. and Parker , J. D. 1994 . The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale–II. Convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity . Journal of Psychosomatics Research , 38 : 33 – 40 .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. 2003 . The essential difference: Men, women and the extreme male brain , London : Penguin .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. 2004 . Questione di cervello: La differenza essenziale tra donne e uomini , Milano, , Italy : Mondadori .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. 2009 . Autism: The empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory . Annals of the New York Acadrmy of Sciences , 1156 : 68 – 80 .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. and Wheelwright , S. 2004 . The Empathy Quotient: An investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences . Journal of Autism Developmental Disorders , 34 : 163 – 175 .
  • Bentler , P. M. 1977 . Factor simplicity index and transformations . Psychometrika , 59 : 567 – 579 .
  • Berthoz , S. , Wessa , M. , Kedia , G. , Wicker , B. and Julie Grèzes , J. 2008 . Cross-cultural validation of the Empathy Quotient in a French-speaking sample . Canadian Journal of Psychiatry , 53 : 469 – 477 .
  • Bigelow , N. O. , Paradiso , S. , Adolphs , R. , Moser , D. J. , Arndt , S. Heberlein , A. 2006 . Perception of socially relevant stimuli in schizophrenia . Schizophrenia Research , 83 : 257 – 267 .
  • Blair , R. J. R. 2005 . Responding to the emotions of others: Dissociating forms of empathy through the study of typical and psychiatric populations . Consciousness and Cognition , 14 : 698 – 718 .
  • Bland , J. M. and Altman , D. G. 1997 . Statistics notes: Cronbach's alpha . British Medical Journal , 314 : 572
  • Bonino , S. , Lo Coco , A. and Tani , F. 1998 . Empatia: I processi di condivisione delle emozioni , Firenze, , Italy : Giunti .
  • Bora , E. , Gökçen , S. and Veznedaroglu , B. 2008 . Empathic abilities in people with schizophrenia . Psychiatry Research , 160 : 23 – 29 .
  • Bozikas , V. P. , Tonia , T. , Fokas , K. , Karavatos , A. and Kosmidis , M. H. 2006 . Impaired emotion processing in remitted patients with bipolar disorder . Journal of Affective Disorders , 91 : 53 – 56 .
  • Bressi , C. , Taylor , G. , Parker , J. , Bressi , S. , Brambilla , V. Aguglia , E. 1996 . Cross validation of the factor structure of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale: An Italian multicenter study . Journal of Psychosomatic Research , 41 : 551 – 559 .
  • Brothers , L. 1989 . A biological perspective on empathy . American Journal of Psychiatry , 146 : 10 – 19 .
  • Brotman , M. A. , Skup , M. , Rich , B. A. , Blair , K. S. , Pine , D. S. , Blair , J. R. and Leibenluft , E. 2008 . Risk for bipolar disorder is associated with face-processing deficits across emotions . Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , 47 : 1455 – 1461 .
  • Browne , M. W. and Cudeck , R. 1993 . “ Alternative ways of assessing model fit ” . In Testing structural equation models , Edited by: Bollen , K. A. and Long , J. S. 136 – 161 . Newbury Park, CA : Sage .
  • Cattell , R. B. and Baggaley , A. R. 1960 . The salient variable similarity index for factor matching . British Journal of Statistical Psychology , 13 : 33 – 46 .
  • Chakrabarti , B. , Bullmore , E. and Baron-Cohen , S. 2006 . Empathizing with basic emotions: Common and discrete neural substrates . Social Neuroscience , 1 : 364 – 384 .
  • Cheng , Y. , Chou , K. H. , Decety , J. , Chen , I. Y. , Hung , D. , Tzeng , O. J. and Lin , C. P. 2009 . Sex differences in the neuroanatomy of human mirror-neuron system: A voxel-based morphometric investigation . Neuroscience , 158 : 713 – 720 .
  • Chlopan , B. E. , McCain , M. L. , Carbonell , J. L. and Hagen , R. L. 1985 . Empathy: Review of available measures . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 48 : 635 – 653 .
  • Cialdini , R. B. , Schaller , M. , Houlihan , D. , Arps , K. , Fultz , J. and Beaman , A. L. 1987 . Empathy-based helping: Is it selflessly or selfishly motivated? . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 52 : 749 – 758 .
  • Cronbach , L. J. 1951 . Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests . Psychometrika , 16 : 297 – 334 .
  • Crowne , D. and Marlowe , D. 1960 . A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology . Journal of Consulting Psychology , 24 : 1397 – 1403 .
  • Davis , M. H. 1980 . A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy . Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology , 10 : 85
  • Davis , M. H. 1983 . Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 44 : 113 – 126 .
  • Decety , J. and Moriguchi , Y. 2007 . The empathic brain and its dysfunction in psychiatric populations: Implications for intervention across different clinical conditions . BioPsychoSocial Medicine , 1 : 22
  • De Vignemont , F. and Singer , T. 2006 . The empathic brain: How, when and why? . Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 10 : 435 – 441 .
  • Eckblad , M. and Chapman , L. J. 1986 . Development and validation of a scale for hypomanic personality . Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 95 : 214 – 222 .
  • Eisenberg , N. , Fabes , R. A. , Murphy , B. , Karbon , M. , Maszk , P. Smith , M. 1994 . The relations of emotionality and regulation to dispositional and situational empathy-related responding . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 66 : 776 – 797 .
  • Eisenberg , N. and Lennon , R. 1983 . Sex differences in empathy and related capacities . Psychological Bulletin , 94 : 100 – 131 .
  • El Kaliouby , R. , Picard , R. and Baron-Cohen , S. 2006 . Affective computing and autism . Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , 1093 : 228 – 248 .
  • Eysenck , S. B. G. , Pearson , P. R. , Easting , G. and Allsopp , J. F. 1985 . Age norms for impulsiveness, venturesomeness and empathy in adults . Personality and Individual Differences , 6 : 613 – 619 .
  • Faul , F. , Erdfelder , E. , Lang , A. G. and Buchner , A. 2007 . G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences . Behavioral Research Methods , 39 : 175 – 191 .
  • Gallese , V. , Eagle , M. N. and Migone , P. 2007 . Intentional attunement: Mirror neurons and the neural underpinnings of interpersonal relations . Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association , 55 : 131 – 176 .
  • Gallese , V. , Keysers , C. and Rizzolatti , G. 2004 . A unifying view of the basis of social cognition . Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 8 : 396 – 403 .
  • Gallese , V. , Rochat , M. , Cossu , G. and Sinigaglia , C. 2009 . Motor cognition and its role in the phylogeny and ontogeny of action understanding . Developmental Psychology , 45 : 103 – 113 .
  • Galobardes , B. , Shaw , M. , Lawlor , D. A. , Lynch , J. W. and Smith , G. D. 2006 . Indicators of socioeconomic position (part 1) . Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health , 60 : 7 – 12 .
  • Gross , J. J. 1999 . Emotion regulation: Past, present, future . Cognition and Emotion , 13 : 551 – 573 .
  • Guttman , H. A. and Laporte , L. 2000 . Empathy in families of women with borderline personality disorder, anorexia nervosa and a control group . Family Process , 39 : 345 – 358 .
  • Guttman , H. A. and Laporte , L. 2002 . Alexithymia, empathy and psychological symptoms in a family context . Comprehensive Psychiatry , 43 : 448 – 455 .
  • Harari , H. , Shamay-Tsoory , S. G. , Ravid , M. and Levkovitz , Y. 2010 . Double dissociation between cognitive and affective empathy in borderline personality disorder . Psychiatry Research , 175 : 277 – 279 .
  • Hou , C. , Miller , B. L. , Cummings , J. L. , Goldberg , M. , Mychack , P. , Bottino , V. and Benson , D. F. 2000 . Autistic savants . Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology and Behavioral Neurology , 13 : 29 – 38 .
  • Hu , L. and Bentler , P. M. 1999 . Cutoff criteria for fit indices in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives . Structural Equation Modeling , 6 : 1 – 55 .
  • Iacoboni , M. 2009 . Imitation, empathy, and mirror neurons . Annuals Reviews of Psychology , 60 : 653 – 670 .
  • Jolliffe , D. and Farrington , D. P. 2004 . Empathy and offending: A systematic review and meta-analysis . Aggressive and Violent Behavor , 9 : 441 – 476 .
  • Kalliopuska , M. 1989 . Empathy, self-esteem and creativity among junior ballet dancers . Perceptual and Motor Skills , 69 : 1227 – 1234 .
  • Kraemer , H. C. and Kupfer , D. J. 2006 . Size of treatment effects and their importance to clinical research and practice . Biological Psychiatry , 59 : 990 – 996 .
  • Kwapil , T. R. , Miller , M. B. , Zinser , M. C. , Chapman , L. J. , Chapman , J. and Eckblad , M. 2000 . A longituidnal study of high scores on the hypomanic personality scale . Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 109 : 222 – 226 .
  • Lane , R. D. , Merikangas , K. R. , Schwartz , G. E. , Huang , S. S. and Prusoff , B. A. 1990 . Inverse relationship between defensiveness and lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorder . American Journal of Psychiatry , 147 : 573 – 578 .
  • Langdon , R. , Coltheart , M. and Ward , P. B. 2006 . Empathetic perspective-taking is impaired in schizophrenia: Evidence from a study of emotion attribution and theory of mind . Cognititive Neuropsychiatry , 11 : 133 – 155 .
  • Larøi , F. , Marczewski , P. and van der Linden , M. 2004 . Further evidence of the multi-dimensionality of hallucinatory predisposition: Factor structure of a modified version of the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale in a normal sample . European Psychiatry , 19 : 15 – 20 .
  • Launay , G. and Slade , P. 1981 . The measurement of hallucinatory predisposition in male and female prisoners . Personality and Individual Differences , 2 : 221 – 234 .
  • Lawrence , E. J. , Shaw , P. , Baker , D. , Baron-Cohen , S. and David , A. S. 2004 . Measuring empathy: Reliability and validity of the Empathy Quotient . Psychological Medicine , 34 : 911 – 919 .
  • Lehmann , E. L. 1975 . Nonparametrics: Statistical methods based on ranks , San Francisco : Holden-Day .
  • Lombardo , M. V. , Barnes , J. L. , Wheelwright , S. J. and Baron-Cohen , S. 2007 . Self-referential cognition and empathy in autism . PLoS ONE , 2 : e883
  • Lorenzo-Seva , U. and Ferrando , P. J. 2006 . FACTOR: A computer program to fit the exploratory factor analysis model . Behavior Research Methods Instruments and Computers , 38 : 88 – 91 .
  • MacCallum , R. C. and Austin , J. T. 2000 . Applications of Structural Equation Modeling in psychological research . Annual Review of Psychology , 51 : 201 – 226 .
  • Marsh , H. W. , Muthén , B. , Asparouhov , T. , Lüdtke , O. , Robitzsch , A. , Morin , A. J. S. and Trautwein , U. 2009 . Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling, integrating CFA and EFA: Application to students’ evaluations of University teaching . Structural Equation Modeling , 16 : 439 – 476 .
  • Martinotti , G. , Di Nicola , M. , Tedeschi , D. , Cundari , S. and Janiri , L. 2009 . Empathy ability is impaired in alcohol-dependent patients . American Journal on Addictions , 18 : 157 – 161 .
  • Miotto , P. , de Coppi , M. , Frezza , M. , Rossi , M. and Preti , A. 2002 . Social desirability and eating disorders: A community study of an Italian school-aged sample . Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica , 105 : 372 – 377 .
  • Miotto , P. and Preti , A. 2008 . Suicide ideation and social desirability among school-aged young people . Journal of Adolescence , 31 : 519 – 533 .
  • Mislevy , R. J. Bock , R. D. 1990 . BILOG 3: Item analysis and test scoring with binary logistic models . Mooresville, IN : Scientific Software .
  • Montag , C. , Heinz , A. , Kunz , D. and Gallinat , J. 2007 . Self-reported empathic abilities in schizophrenia . Schizophrenia Research , 92 : 85 – 89 .
  • Moriguchi , Y. , Decety , J. , Ohnishi , T. , Maeda , M. , Mori , T. Nemoto , K. 2007 . Empathy and judging other's pain: An fMRI study of alexithymia . Cerebral Cortex , 17 : 2223 – 2234 .
  • Muncer , S. J. and Ling , J. 2006 . Psychometric analysis of Empathy Quotient (EQ) scale . Personality and Individual Differences , 40 : 1111 – 1119 .
  • Müller , J. , Buhner , M. and Ellgring , H. 2003 . Is there a reliable factorial structure in the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale? A comparison of factor models in clinical and normal adult samples . Journal of Psychosomatic Research , 55 : 561 – 568 .
  • Nunnally , J. C. 1978 . Psychometric theory , 2nd ed. , New York : McGraw-Hill .
  • Oberman , L. M. and Ramachandran , V. S. 2007 . The simulating social mind: The role of the mirror neuron system and simulation in the social and communicative deficits of autism spectrum disorders . Psychological Bulletin , 133 : 310 – 327 .
  • Peters , E. , Joseph , S. , Day , S. and Garety , P. 2004 . Measuring delusional ideation: The 21-item Peters et al. Delusions Inventory (PDI) . Schizophrenia Bulletin , 30 : 1005 – 1022 .
  • Preti , A. , Bonventre , E. , Ledda , V. , Petretto , D. R. and Masala , C. 2007 . Hallucinatory experiences, delusional thought proneness and psychological distress in a nonclinical population . Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease , 195 : 484 – 491 .
  • Preti , A. , Rocchi , M. B. L. , Sisti , D. , Mura , T. , Manca , S. Siddi , S. 2007 . The psychometric discriminative properties of the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory: A receiver operating characteristic curve analysis . Comprehensive Psychiatry , 48 : 62 – 69 .
  • Ramanaiah , N. V. , Schill , T. and Leung , L. S. 1977 . A test of the hypothesis about the two dimensional nature of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale . Journal of Research in Personality , 11 : 251 – 259 .
  • Rocchi , M. B. L. , Sisti , D. , Manca , S. , Siddi , S. , Mura , T. and Preti , A. 2008 . Latent class analysis of delusion-proneness: Exploring the latent structure of the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory . Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease , 196 : 620 – 629 .
  • Sakamoto , S. , Kijima , N. , Tomoda , A. and Kambara , M. 1998 . Factor structures of the Zung self-rating depression scale (SDS) for undergraduates . Journal of Clinical Psychology , 54 : 477 – 487 .
  • Shamay-Tsoory , S. G. , Shur , S. , Barcai-Goodman , L. , Medlovich , S. , Harari , H. and Levkovitz , Y. 2007 . Dissociation of cognitive from affective components of theory of mind in schizophrenia . Psychiatry Research , 149 : 11 – 23 .
  • Steiger , J. H. Lind , A. 1980 . Statistically based tests for the number of common factors . Presented at the annual meeting of the Psychometric Society, Iowa City, IA .
  • Taylor , G. J. , Bagby , R. M. and Parker , J. D. 2003 . The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, IV. Reliability and factorial validity in different languages and cultures . Journal of Psychosomatic Research , 55 : 277 – 283 .
  • Taylor , G. J. , Bagby , R. M. , Ryan , D. P. , Parker , J. D. A. , Doody , K. F. and Keefe , P. 1988 . Criterion validity of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale . Psychosomatic Medicine , 50 : 500 – 509 .
  • Thompson , R. A. 1994 . Emotional regulation: A theme in search for definition . Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development , 59 : 25 – 52 .
  • Tucker , L. R. 1951 . A method for the synthesis of factor analysis studies (Personnel Research Section Rep. No. 984) . Washington : Department of the Army .
  • Velicer , W. F. , Peacock , A. C. and Jackson , D. N. 1982 . A comparison of component and factor patterns: A Monte Carlo approach . Multivariate Behavioral Research , 17 : 371 – 388 .
  • Von Horn , A. , Bäckman , L. , Davidsson , T. and Hansen , S. 2010 . Empathizing, systemizing and finger length ratio in a Swedish sample . Scandinavian Journal of Psychology , 51 : 31 – 37 .
  • Wakabayashi , A. , Baron-Cohen , S. , Uchiyama , T. , Yoshida , Y. , Kuroda , M. and Wheelwright , S. 2007 . Empathizing and systemizing in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions: Cross-cultural stability . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 37 : 1823 – 1832 .
  • Watkins , M. W. 2005 . Invariance [Computer software] State College, PA : Ed & Psych Associates .
  • Wheelwright , S. , Baron-Cohen , S. , Goldenfeld , N. , Delaney , J. , Fine , D. Smith , R. 2006 . Predicting autism spectrum quotient (AQ) from the systemizing quotient–revised (SQ-R) and empathy quotient (EQ) . Brain Research , 1079 : 47 – 56 .

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.