The Measurement of Positive Valence Forms of Empathy and Their Relation to Anhedonia and Other Depressive Symptomatology

Abstract

Construct validity of a brief self-report measure of "positive-valence empathy" (the tendency to exude positive emotion as a means to stimulate positive affect in others, and/or to vicariously share in another's positive emotion; Light et al., 2009) was attained utilizing a sample of 282 healthy adults. Positive-valence empathy may have unique predictive ability for differentiating depression versus depression with anhedonia. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed a two-factor structure for the final 15-item Light-Moran Positive Empathy Scale (PES), with an 8-item "Empathic Happiness" subscale (e.g., "I find that other people's happiness easily rubs off on me") and a 7-item "Empathic Cheerfulness" subscale (e.g., "I enjoy making others feel good"). "Empathic Happiness" was a significantly better predictor of overall depressive symptomatology (Beck et al., 1996) than anhedonia (Snaith et al., 1995). The Light-Moran PES-15 may have real-world impact and predictive utility for well-being.

Keywords: Beck Depression Inventory-II; anhedonia; empathic concern; hedonic capacity; positive-valence empathy.

FIGURE 1

(A) Empathic cheerfulness [R² = 15%, F(2,279) = 24.28, p < 0.001] and (B) empathic happiness [R² = 12%, F(2,279) = 19.59, p < 0.001] were about equally predictive of anhedonia score (measured via the SHAPS).

FIGURE 2

Greater empathic happiness score uniquely predicts lower depression (as measured by the BDI-II) better than anhedonia (as measured by the SHAPS) or empathic cheerfulness even with Social Desirability included in the model as a covariate (R² = 16%, p < 0.001).