Correlational and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) of commonly used empathy questionnaires: New insights

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire: Reliability and Validity in a Nationwide Sample of Greek Teachers

“…In the other one, a study on Korean graduate students (Han 2016), the researchers claimed that according to the confirmatory factor analysis there lacked a goodness of fit in the single factor model, while according to the exploratory factor analysis the single factor was suggested. In our study, the internal consistency reliability of the TEQ was satisfactory at α = 0.72, comparable to the one reported by the manufacturers (Spreng et al 2009) and by other researchers (Baldner and McGinley 2014;Robinson and Wright 2013;Celik et al 2013;Totan et al 2012;Baltes , and Miu 2014;Youssef et al 2014). Taking into account that TEQ is scored on a scale from 0 to 4, the mean score 3.2 (SD = 0.4) found in our study suggests that our sample reported rather high levels of empathy or, in any case, higher than the mean score reported in the original questionnaire (Spreng et al 2009).…”

“…Empathy has been researched extensively for many decades and holds a continued interest in a variety of different fields, even though there are diverse conceptualizations and, consequently, definitions (Baldner and McGinley 2014). The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (Spreng et al 2009) translated version's reliability and construct validity, in Greek teachers.…”

“…The TEQ has been used in studies conducted in a number of different countries, such as Canada (Cusi et al 2011;Lamothe et al 2014;Parlar et al 2014), United Kingdom (Brewer and Kerslake 2015;Robinson and Wright 2013), USA (Baldner and McGinley 2014), France (Lelorain et al 2013), Turkey (Celik et al 2013;Totan et al 2012), Romania (Miu and Balteş 2012;Baltes , and Miu 2014) and Trinidad and Tobago (Youssef et al 2014). It has proven to be a reliable measure of empathy for different age groups with satisfactory psychometric properties: adolescents (Brewer and Kerslake 2015), university students (Baldner and McGinley 2014;Celik et al 2013;Totan et al 2012;Youssef et al 2014) and adults (Cusi et al 2011;Lamothe et al 2014;Parlar et al 2014;Robinson and Wright 2013;Lelorain et al 2013).…”

“…It has proven to be a reliable measure of empathy for different age groups with satisfactory psychometric properties: adolescents (Brewer and Kerslake 2015), university students (Baldner and McGinley 2014;Celik et al 2013;Totan et al 2012;Youssef et al 2014) and adults (Cusi et al 2011;Lamothe et al 2014;Parlar et al 2014;Robinson and Wright 2013;Lelorain et al 2013). The TEQ has also been used in clinical populations assessing the empathetic responding of adults with major depressive disorder (Cusi et al 2011) and post-traumatic stress disorder (Parlar et al 2014), and in individuals who experienced crisis episodes (Robinson and Wright 2013).…”

“…Davis's Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (Davis 1983) also included more factors and consisted of 4 subscales: Perspective Taking, Fantasy, Empathetic Concern and Personal Distress. The first two subscales mirror the emotional and cognitive dimensions of empathy, while the two latter are not included in Baldner's, Conrad's, and McGinley's conceptualization of empathy (Baldner and McGinley 2014).…”