C. Cliffordson: Parents Judgments and Students Self-Judgments of EmpathyEJPA 17 (1), 2001 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers

Parents Judgments andStudents Self-Judgments

of EmpathyThe Structure of Empathy and Agreement of Judgments

Based on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)*

Christina CliffordsonDepartment of Education, University of Gteborg, and Trollhttan/Uddevalla University, Sweden

Keywords: Empathy, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, IRI, self/other judgment, structural equation modeling

European Journal of Psychological Assessment, Vol. 17, Issue 1, pp. 3647

Summary: A sample of 221 adolescents and their parents were asked to complete the Interpersonal ReactivityIndex (IRI; Davis, 1980), which is comprised of four subscales: empathic concern, perspective taking, fantasy,and personal distress; and a global-item measure containing four items, one for each subscale. The factorialstructure that emerged in a previous study (Cliffordson, 2000) involving the students was tested on ratingsprovided by their parents. The results from the IRI scale were also compared to results from the global-itemmeasure. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the structure of empathy and the agreement ofself/other judgments. The results support the conclusions from the previous study that the concept of empathycan be considered to be identical to empathic concern, which also explains a great deal of perspective takingand fantasy. The agreement between the students and their parents judgments was substantial, and there areseveral reasons to believe that the interjudge agreement obtained is accurate.

The Structure of Empathy

Empathy is an important concept in areas of personalityresearch and research regarding interpersonal behavior.However, there remains considerable confusion con-cerning the definition and measurement of empathy. Themain conflict concerns the distinction between empathyas a cognitive and as an emotional phenomenon. Anotherdiscussion concerns the dimensionality of the construct,that is, whether it should be seen as a unidimensionalconstruct or whether a multidimensional approach instudying empathy is needed. The most widely used mea-sures of empathy vary both regarding the nature of theconstruct and its internal structure (cf. Interpersonal Re-activity Index (IRI); Davis, 1980; The Hogan EmpathyScale (HES); Hogan, 1969; Mehrabian and Epstein

Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy (QMEE);Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972).

While the QMEE was developed as a measure of emo-tional empathy, reflecting the tendency to respond emo-tionally to the experiences of others, the HES may beconsidered as a more cognitive measure developed fromthe definition that empathy is . . . the intellectual orimaginative apprehension of anothers condition or stateof mind without actually experiencing that persons feel-ings (Hogan, 1969, p. 308). In contrast to these twoviewpoints, Davis argues (1980, 1983, 1996) that, ratherthan treating empathy as a single unipolar concept, em-pathy may best be considered a set of constructs. Davisdeveloped a self-report measure, the IRI scale (1980),based on a multidimensional approach. The instrumentaims at providing measures of dispositional tendencies

EJPA 17 (1), 2001 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers

* The original data upon which this paper is based are available at http://www.hhpub.com/journals/ejpa

in four areas, labeled perspective taking (PT), empathicconcern (EC), fantasy (FS), and personal distress (PD).The set of constructs is related in that they all concernresponsivity to others but are also clearly discriminablefrom each other: The EC scale aims to assess the affective outcomes,

the tendency to experience other-oriented feelings andthe response to distress in others with the reactive re-sponse of sympathy and compassion.

The PT scale aims to measure the process of role tak-ing, the tendency to adopt the psychological points ofview of others.

The PD scale also demonstrates an affective outcome,and is designed to tap ones own feelings of personalunease and discomfort in reaction to the emotions ofothers.

Finally, the FS scale aims to measure the tendency totranspose oneself into feelings and actions of fictitiouscharacters.

Davis (1983) assessed the validity of the IRI scale byinvestigating its relationships with measures of socialfunctioning, self-esteem, emotionality, and sensitivity toothers, as well as with previously developed unidimen-sional empathy measures. The pattern of relationshipspredicted by Davis was confirmed. The investigation ofthe relationships showed that three of the subscales weresignificantly and positively related (FS PT = .10, EC PT and EC FS = .33, respectively). The correlationsbetween each of the IRI subscales and the extant empa-thy measures (QMEE and HES) displayed significantpositive relations, except for the relation between PD andHES. As was expected, the HES achieved the greatestdegree of correlation with the cognitive PT scale (.40),and the QMEE achieved the greatest degree of correla-tion with the emotional EC scale (.60) and the FS scale(.52). A similar pattern of intercorrelations of the IRIsubscales, and relations between the subscales and theempathy measures, has been discovered by Johnson,Cheek, and Smither (1983), Wise and Cramer (1988),and Riggio, Tucker, and Coffaro (1989). Thus, the mea-sures mentioned above cover different aspects of the glo-bal concept of empathy and, with the exception of the PDsubscale, they all are positively related. When differentmeasures show intercorrelations, there are reasons to ex-pect that they reflect the same hypothetical construct(Snow, Corno, & Jackson III, 1996).

Of the most commonly used empathy measures theIRI scale seems to be the most comprehensive one,which is why an analysis of the structure of the IRI scalemight give a valuable contribution to the understandingof the structure of empathy. In a previous study (Clifford-son, 2000) involving 221 adolescents, the structure ofempathy was investigated by examining the IRI scale

(Davis, 1980). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) wasperformed to assess the dimensionality of the scale, therelationships among the subscales, and to compare theresults from IRI with results from a self-report measureconsisting of four global items, one for each of the IRIsubscales (GI measure). An important guide to assessingthe appropriateness of items of an existing scale is thedefinition of the construct (Pedhazur & Pedhazur, 1991).The use of one global item for each of the four subscales,based on Davis (1980, 1983, 1996) definitions of theconstructs and descriptions of what each of the subscalesintends to measure, implies that the content of the foursubconstructs and the concept of empathy is concretizedby the subjects responding to the items. The validity ofthe dimensionality of the IRI scale was in that way inves-tigated by comparing the results as regards the content ofempathy, as arrived at by Davis, with those yielded bythe subjects who answered the GI measure.

The results from the Cliffordson (2000) study supportDavis (1980, 1983, 1996) in that the IRI subscales tapaspects of a global concept of empathy. The analysisshowed, however, in contrast to Davis four separate as-pects, a single general empathic dimension that wasclose or identical to EC and that also explains a great dealof PT and FS. These results agree with those obtained byWise and Cramer (1988). Another orthogonal personaldistress dimension was also found that was almost equalto PD. The content of PD, conceptualized by the respon-dents appears, however, to be different when comparedwith PD as concretized by Davis (1980). Thus, the valid-ity of PD and therefore also the personal distress dimen-sion, can be questioned. Because these results seem tocontradict previous research (Davis, 1980, 1983, 1996)on the structure of the IRI scale and the concept of em-pathy, and because the results are based on only onesample, there are reasons for further investigations.

One purpose of the present study is to investigate theinternal structure of empathy by examining the validityof the IRI scale adapted to the judgments of others. Thefactorial structure that emerged from the previous studyinvolving the students will be tested on judgments pro-vided by their parents. The results from the IRI scale willalso be compared with results from the GI measure.

Agreement of Judgments

A frequently used criterion for accuracy is interjudgeagreement, which is a matter of convergent validity(Funder, 1987; Funder & Colvin, 1988). Funder andColvin (1997) assert that it appears that self/other agree-ment in personality judgments is a fairly robust phenom-enon, and that the only reasons for lack of agreementappears to be when the acquaintanceship is weak, when

C. Cliffordson: Parents Judgments and Students Self-Judgments of Empathy 37

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unreliable rating scales are used, or when a strong self-presentational pressure is present.

Two different methods to assess self/other agreementin personality judgments are most frequently used (Fun-der & Colvin, 1997). One implies the analysis of meandifferences, while the other involves the analysis of cor-relations. In areas such as assessment of traits, it is im-plausible to assume that the conceptual variables aremeasured anywhere near perfectly (Maruyama, 1997).That is, judgments of traits like empathy always includeerror components. When measurement error is present,the results emerging from the methods described above,and particularly so the one based on correlations, becomebiased. Thus the results cannot be trusted to accuratelyreflect the agreement between the judgments of othersand self-judgments. The mean difference method, how-ever, is not necessarily burdened with the problem ofrandom errors of measurement, but with the problem ofvariance unique to the variable. However, when SEM isused, the analyses are based on correlations and meandifferences between latent variables, which reflect thecommon, reliable parts of the manifest variables (Gus-tafsson & Stahl, 1997).

Another purpose of this study is to examine self/otheragreement in judgments of empathy by performing SEMin order to assess the agreement between students self-description of empathy, and the judgments provided bytheir parents.

There are reasons to believe that students self-de-scriptions are more favorable than descriptions providedby their parents. Several studies have shown that peoplemanifest more positive opinions of themselves than oth-ers have of them (cf. Kunda, 1987). However, the self-enhancement effect is much stronger when comparingself-ratings to ratings by strangers than when the com-parison is with ratings by close acquaintances (Funder &Colvin, 1988). In addition, the IRI scale taps disposi-tional tendencies, which are more or less observable byothers. Previous research (e. g., Funder, 1980) shows thatpeople give higher ratings to themselves on internal (in-visible) traits than do their acquaintances, whereas ac-quaintances tend to give higher ratings to people on ex-ternal (visible) traits.

MethodMeasures

The two empathy measures, the IRI scale (Davis, 1980)and the GI measure, were the same for the students andtheir parents, with the exception that the measures util-ized for the parents were adapted to their points of view.

In responding to the measures, the subjects were askedto indicate the degree to which the items described them-selves and their son/daughter, respectively, by choosingthe appropriate point on a five-point Likert scale.

The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)

The IRI scale (Davis, 1980) contains four seven-itemsubscales. A sample of items from the four subscalesadapted to the parents point of view was: I would describe my son/daughter as a pretty soft-

hearted person. (EC); My son/daughter believes that there are two sides to

every question and tries to look at them both. (PT); In emergency situations, my son/daughter feels ap-

prehensive and ill-at-ease. (PD); My son/daughter daydreams and fantasises, with

some regularity, about things that might happen tohim/her. (FS).

The properties of the measure reported by Cliffordson(2000) indicate that the Swedish version of the IRI scale(Kulich & Bengtsson, in preparation) is comparable to theoriginal version (Davis, 1980). The intercorrelations ofthe four scales were almost equal to the correspondingresults presented by Davis (1983). The alpha reliability ofthe four subscales adapted to judgments of others is ac-ceptable (EC = .77, PT = .77, FS = .80, and PD = .74) andsimilar to both the corresponding result from the previousstudy (ranging from .71 to .80) and the correspondingresult presented by Davis (ranging from .71 to .77).

The Global-Items Measure (GI)

The author, on the basis of the IRI scale, constructed thefour-item measure consisting of one item for each di-mension. The wordings of the items from the parentspoint of view were: My son/daughter finds it easy to experience feelings

of sympathy and compassion for unfortunate others.(EC);

My son/daughter finds it easy to see things from otherpeoples perspectives. (PT);

My son/daughter experiences distress and discom-fort in emergencies or when other people are in ex-treme distress. (PD);

My son/daughter is imaginative and finds it easy totranspose him/herself into fictional situations. (FS).

Subjects and Procedures

The subjects were 221 11th-grade students, at an uppersecondary school in a town in the western part of Swe-den, and their parents. The data collection took place in

38 C. Cliffordson: Parents Judgments and Students Self-Judgments of Empathy

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May 1998. After the students had been administered theGI measure and the IRI scale personally by the author,the parents were asked to judge their adolescents on par-allel measures. Instructions to the parents for respondingto the measures were given in writing (letter). Both stu-dents and parents were informed that participation wasvoluntary, and that a guarantee of anonymity was given.The students returned the completed measures.

Methods of Analysis

The number of internal missing values was negligible anddistributed over the items and the participants, with theexception of two parents, one who answered only one ofthe two measures and another who left as much as tenitems unanswered on the IRI scale. These two participantswere for this reason excluded from the analyses. The in-ternal missing value (30) was replaced with the mean foreach item. Finally, out of the 221 cases, each consistingof data from both the students and their parents, 137 caseshad complete data and 84 cases had missing data on allparentsvariables. The problem with the missing parentsscores was handled by utilizing the modeling procedurebased on theory and methodology for improving validityin studies with missing data, as described by Arbuckle(1996) and Muthn, Kaplan, and Hollis (1987). In thepresent study, the data consists of two subsamples: onesubsample with complete data from both students andtheir parents (n = 137), and another subsample with in-complete data or missing data on all of the parents vari-ables (n = 84). The basic principle of the modeling proce-dure is that the subsample with missing data is not neces-sarily from the same sample as the subsample withcomplete data. In this approach, the information in theavailable data is used to predict the missing values.

In order to investigate the structure of empathy, CFAmodels previously fitted to the data from the students(Cliffordson, 2000), were now fitted to correspondingdata from the parents. SEM models defining identicalmeasurement models for the students and their parents,including equality constraints for corresponding esti-mates over the measurement models, were specified andtested. In order to investigate the self/other agreementbetween students and parents, covariances for corre-sponding factors over the measurement models were ex-amined. The models were also tested with regard to meandifferences by comparing the means between the corre-sponding factors. These models were fitted to the covari-ance matrix for the part of the data that was complete forboth students and parents (n = 137).

The tools used for factor analyses were Lisrel(Jreskog & Srbom, 1996) and Amos (Arbuckle, 1997)with the STREAMS environment for specifying, esti-

mating, and evaluating the models (Gustafsson & Stahl,1998). As measures of model fit the 2 goodness-of-fittest and the root mean square error of approximation(RMSEA) were used. The RMSEA, which measures theamount of discrepancy between the model and data in thepopulation, taking the number of estimated parametersinto account, is strongly recommended as a tool in theevaluation of model fit (Bollen & Long, 1993).

Results

The descriptive statistics suggest that one item should beexcluded from the analyses because of an unacceptablyskewed distribution.

The means and standard deviations for the items areshown in Table 1. In five out of 32 items, the means weresignificantly higher for the students with complete datain comparison to the students with incomplete data. Thecomparisons, regarding the means, between parents andstudents showed that in 20 out of 32 items the differenceswere significant. Of those, some were higher for the stu-dents and others higher for the parents.

The Structure of Empathy

The Hypothesized Four-Factor Model

The first step was to investigate an hypothesized four-factor model with one latent variable for each of the foursubscales (Ec, Pt, Fs and Pd). The model includes co-variances between the four latent variables (Model A,Figure 1).

The fit indices for the model applied to the studentsdata (2 (344, N = 221) = 700.99, p < .00; RMSEA =.069) indicates that the model is reasonably good, but theresults also indicate that there is room for improvementof the model. When applied to the parentsdata the modelshows, however, a poorer fit (2 (318, N = 137) = 570.59,p < .00; RMSEA = .076). The hypothesized four-factormodel was used for further modeling.

The Eight- and Ten-Factor Models

In the previous study (Cliffordson, 2000), several alter-native models were tested. One model including correla-tions among some of the error variances of the manifestvariables fitted well. This is one way to improve the fitof a model. Another approach is to specify specific fac-tors for the correlated items. The model, which was usedfor further modeling, was a model with eight factors, onefor EC, one for PT and three factors each for PD and FS.This model fitted equally well. The relationships among

C. Cliffordson: Parents Judgments and Students Self-Judgments of Empathy 39

EJPA 17 (1), 2001 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers

the three Pd and the three Fs factors respectively were,however, comparatively strong (ranging from .44 to .75),which provide support for the existence of one commondimension for both the PD and the FS dimension. Twosecond-order factors were introduced in the eight-factormodel, each of which related to the three Pd and the threeFs factors respectively. This model fitted almost as wellas the eight-factor model. These results did not complete-ly confirm Davis (1983) assertion that the IRI subscalesmeasure four discernibly different dimensions, eventhough the main pattern of results was expected from theresults reported by Davis.

The Higher-Order Model with One Global Factor

The final and most appropriate model for the IRI scalewas a higher-order model (Model B) with one global

factor (Emp) related to the four factors, of which eachrepresents one of the four dimensions (Ec, Pt, Fs and Pd).

A model for both the students and their parents, in-cluding covariances for the corresponding factors (Emp,Pt&, Pd&, Fs&, Fs1&, Fs2&, Fs3&, Pd1&, Pd2& andPd3&) fits well (2 (1394, N = 137) = 2067.56, p < .00;RMSEA = .060). Standardized factor loadings of thefour factors on Emp display a perfect relationship be-tween Emp and Ec (1.0) for both students and parents,while the relationships between Emp and Pd are muchweaker and different between students (.03) and parents(.22). The relations between Emp and the other two fac-tors are, however, similar between the two samples andgreater (ranging from .47 to .63). Amore restrictive mod-el, with the Ec residual variances fixed to zero fittedequally as well as previous model ( 2 (2, N = 137) =

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the parents judgments and the students self-judgments.

Item Mean SDComplete Data Incomplete Data Complete Data Incomplete DataParents Students Students Parents Students Students

Empathic Concern Global 4.40 4.04*1 3.83 .79 .93 .8914. Peoples misfortunes disturb me. 4.06 3.91 3.83 .92 .91 .9218. Feel pity, treated unfairly. 4.46 4.29*1 4.05*2 .68 .73 .9420. Touched by happenings. 3.75 3.76 3.60 .83 .81 .8422. Describe myself as soft-hearted. 4.74*3 4.25*1 4.07 .52 .68 .77

2. Feel concerned, less fortunate. 3.84 3.53*1 3.44 .96 .87 .954. Feel sorry, having problems. 3.87 3.54*1 3.62 1.06 1.08 .979. Feel protective, taken advantage. 4.10 4.07 4.00 .79 .74 .70

Fantasy Global 3.92 3.90 3.58*2 .99 .88 .8812. book/movie, get involved in. 3.34 3.77*1 3.69 1.17 1.19 1.2316. Play/movie, feel as characters. 2.50 2.83*1 2.52 1.07 1.23 1.24

1. Daydream and fantasize. 2.60 4.04*1 3.77 1.13 .93 1.1023. Movie, put myself in character. 3.09 3.39*1 3.01*2 1.08 1.04 1.1726. Story/novel, feel happening me. 3.25 3.62*1 3.37 .93 1.04 1.11

5. Novel, feel like characters. 3.53 3.90*1 3.63 1.06 .93 1.257. Movie/play, get caught up in it. 2.79 3.47*1 3.29 1.20 1.25 1.18

Personal Distress Global 3.93 3.95 3.61*2 .95 .96 .9910. Emotional situation, helpless. 3.18 3.38 3.13*2 1.00 .88 .8213. Someone get hurt, remain calm. 2.70 2.69 2.59 1.05 1.14 .9817. Tense situations scares me. 2.56 2.55 2.44 1.14 .95 1.0019. Dealing emergencies, effective. 2.32 2.53*1 2.51 .76 .77 .8724. Emergency, lose control. 2.00 2.31*1 2.35 .89 .86 .8827. Emergency, go to pieces. 2.56 3.16*1 2.92 1.05 1.09 1.06

6. Emergency, feel apprehensive. 3.31 3.31 3.10 1.15 1.09 1.13Perspective Taking Global 3.96 3.78*1 3.65 .89 .79 .81

11. Look from others perspective. 3.72 3.85 3.74 .77 .84 .8215. Listening to others argument. 2.94 3.39*1 3.31 1.21 1.19 1.2121. Look at two sides of a question. 3.64 3.73 3.58 .81 .93 1.0225. Put myself in his shoes 3.04 2.67*1 2.53 .87 1.09 1.0828. Feel in place of others. 3.59 3.31*1 3.28 .96 .98 1.01

3. See from others point of view. 3.65 3.42*1 3.51 1.05 .92 .938. See others side before decision. 3.80 3.76 3.60 .86 .94 .84

Note. Subsample with complete data, n = 137; subsample with incomplete data, n = 84. *1 = mean differences between the parents andthe students from the subsample with complete data are significant beyond the .05 level, *2 = mean differences between the studentsfrom the subsample with complete data and the students from the subsample with incomplete data are significant beyond the .05 level.(sig. are two-tailed). *3 = is excluded from further analyses.

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.27, p < .87), which indicates that the relation betweenEmp and Ec is unity for both the students and the par-ents data.

The same model including equality constraints for thecorresponding factor loadings and variances over the twomeasurement models was also tested. A test of equalityof the two measurement models is obtained if the fit ofthe model that imposes no constraint of equality is com-pared with the model that imposes full constraints overthe two models. This overall equality test shows that thedifference is significant ( 2 (67, N = 137) = 144.09, p