The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy

Abstract

We adapted the adult French version of the Basic Empathy Scale to French children aged 6-11 years, in order to probe the factorial structure underlying empathy. A total of 410 children (189 girls and 221 boys) were instructed to fill out the resulting Basic Empathy Scale in Children (BES-C). Results showed that, as in adulthood, the three-factor model of empathy (i.e., emotional contagion, cognitive empathy, and emotional disconnection) was more relevant than the oneand two-factor ones. This means that as early as 6 years of age, children's responses should reflect the same organization of the three components of empathy as those of adults. In line with the literature, cognitive empathy increased and emotional disconnection decreased in middle childhood, while emotional contagion remained stable. Moreover, girls exhibited greater emotional contagion than boys, with the reverse pattern being observed for emotional disconnection. No sex difference was found regarding cognitive empathy.

The Capricious Nature of Theory of Mind: Does Mental State Understanding Depend on the Characteristics of the Target?

“…The Basic Empathy Scale for Children (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006) was used to measure children's empathy. We omitted six items with loadings < .40 in a previous study (Bensalah, Stefaniak, Carre, & Besche-Richard, 2016), making 14 items in this study (e.g., "When someone feels sad, I can understand them"). Items were rated on a 5-point scale 1 (entirely disagree) and 5 (entirely agree), with the empathy score composed by adding the scores for each item (Cronbach's a = .69).…”

Construct Validity and Reliability of a New Spanish Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Early Adolescents

“…According to Bensalah et al (2016) to date, four questionnaires have been used to assess empathy in middle childhood (Bryant, 1982; Litvack-Miller et al, 1997; Garton and Gringart, 2005; Reid et al, 2013). Garton and Gringart's (2005) questionnaire studies the role of empathy in collaborative problem solving in school education.…”

“…This scale assesses empathy in 7–11 year-olds that have to answer to emotional stories. It considers three factors: an affective component, a cognitive component referring to the justifications that children produce to explain their emotional inference, and a behavioral component that concerns adaptive behaviors in relation to the emotional scenario (Bensalah et al, 2016). Additionally, the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (Pouw et al, 2013) operationalizes the affective aspects of empathy.…”

“…Finally, Bensalah et al (2016) have adapted for French children aged 6–11 years, the adult French version of the Basic Empathy Scale (Carré et al, 2013) of a 20-item scale developed by Jolliffe and Farrington (2006) for adolescents. Bensalah et al postulate a three-factor model of empathy: emotional contagion, cognitive empathy, and emotional disconnection.…”

“…Children's progress in emotional understanding is due to improvements both in making inferences about others' mental states and in attentional, memory, and inhibitory control abilities. Emotion regulation skills develop throughout childhood and adolescence, gradually allowing children to control emotion, affect, motivation, and urges (Bensalah et al, 2016). The mastery of emotional regulation occurs gradually across an extended period of childhood (e.g., Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner, 2011).…”