The relations between cognitive/emotional empathy and both prosocial and aggressive behaviors: The development of a cognitive and emotional empathy scale for adults

摘要

This research examines the reliability and validity of a Cognitive and Emotional Empathy Scale for Adults (CEES-A) and the relationships between empathy and both prosocial and aggressive behavior. The participants were 469 university students. The results of factor analysis reveal six factors. Cognitive empathy consists of two factors: "sensitivity to the emotions of others (sens)" and "perspective-taking (pt)". Emotional empathy consists of four factors: "sharing the positive emotions of others (sp)", "sharing the negative emotions of others (sn)", "good feelings toward the positive emotions of others (gf)" and "sympathy for the negative emotions of others (sym)". The results of path analysis indicate that sens, sp, and sn have positive relationships with prosocial behaviors. Moreover, sp has a negative relationship with aggressive behaviors. Finally, we discuss the prospects for future research on empathy.