Strengths and Weaknesses of Two Empathy Measures: A Comparison of the Measurement Precision, Construct Validity, and Incremental Validity of Two Multidimensional Indices.

Assessment
Brett A MurphyScott O Lilienfeld

Abstract

The quality of empathy research, and clinical assessment, hinges on the validity and proper interpretation of the measures used to assess the construct. This study investigates, in an online sample of 401 adult community participants, the construct validity of the Affective and Cognitive Measure of Empathy (ACME) relative to that of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the most widely used multidimensional empathy research measure. We investigated the factor structures of both measures, as well as their measurement precision across varying trait levels. We also examined them both in relation to convergent and discriminant criteria, including broadband personality dimensions, general emotionality, personality disorder features, and interpersonal malignancy. Our findings suggest that the ACME possesses incremental validity beyond the IRI for most constructs related to interpersonal malignancy. Our results further indicate that the IRI Personal Distress scale is severely deficient in construct validity, raising serious concerns regarding past findings that have included it when computing total empathy scores. Finally, our results indicate that both questionnaires display poor measurement precision at high trait levels, emphas...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jun 7, 2019·Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders·Punit ShahLois Player
Sep 2, 2020·The Journal of Social Psychology·Judith A HallFred Duong
Nov 7, 2019·BMC Psychiatry·Seishu NakagawaRyuta Kawashima
Nov 28, 2019·Personality and Social Psychology Review : an Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·William H B McAuliffeMichael E McCullough
Sep 28, 2021·Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy·Ulrike MaaßFlorian Weck

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Software Mentioned

R
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Mplus
ACME
- Turk
HEXACO
Google Scholar
ESEM

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