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. 2009 Jan;91(1):62-71.
doi: 10.1080/00223890802484381.

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire: scale development and initial validation of a factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures

R Nathan Spreng  1 , Margaret C McKinnon, Raymond A Mar, Brian Levine
Affiliations

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire: scale development and initial validation of a factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures

R Nathan Spreng et al. J Pers Assess. 2009 Jan.

Abstract

To formulate a parsimonious tool to assess empathy, we used factor analysis on a combination of self-report measures to examine consensus and developed a brief self-report measure of this common factor. The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) represents empathy as a primarily emotional process. In 3 studies, the TEQ demonstrated strong convergent validity, correlating positively with behavioral measures of social decoding, self-report measures of empathy, and negatively with a measure of Autism symptomatology. Moreover, it exhibited good internal consistency and high test-retest reliability. The TEQ is a brief, reliable, and valid instrument for the assessment of empathy.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Scree plot of the eigenvalues for Study 2 EFA and randomly permuted raw data
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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