The measurement of empathy in preschool children

Abstract

Empathic ability, emerging in the first few years of life, provides a foundation for the development of prosocial behaviour and healthy peer relationships in childhood and for later social-emotional adaptation in adulthood.  Research has been limited due to difficulties in the operationalisation and measurement of the empathy construct.  No formal psychometric instruments exist to assess empathy in children four years of age or younger. The first paper provides a framework for the development of a new psychometric tool to assess empathy in the preschool period.  The paper explores the acquisition of empathy in the first few years of life in normative and clinical child samples.  Current methods used to assess empathy in this age group are also reviewed with suggestions for future psychometric development.

The second paper investigates a new self-report instrument: The Southampton Test of Empathy in preschoolers (STEP).  The test incorporates four distinct but conceptually related tasks, each assessing the child’s ability to understand and share in the emotional experience of a child protagonist.  Experiment 1 describes the theoretical conception and construction of the scale.  Experiment 2 explores the initial psychometric properties of internal consistency reliability and construct validity in a sample of UK preschoolers.  The results show good internal consistency, concurrent validity with parent-rated empathy, and convergent validity with teacher-rated prosocial behaviour. Results are discussed in terms of recommendations for replication and further research.

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