Validering van de ‘Empathie in Relaties’(EiR) vragenlijst: de relatie tussen empathie en psychopathie

Abstract

The Empathie in Relaties (EiR) questionnaire is a newly developed ‘’state-like’’ questionnaire, taking the situational en interpersonal aspects of empathy into account. The current study focused on validating the EiR questionnaire, by looking at the relationship between empathy and psychopathy. The study involved 92 girls and 62 boys aged between 12 and 23 (M = 15.34, SD = 2.96). The participants were recruited from VMBO- and mbo-schools. Using a moderation regression analysis, it was examined whether the three variables of affective empathy (pain, happiness and sadness) were predictors of the ICU scores, adding gender as a moderator. The results show that empathic pain, empathic sadness and empathic happiness were significant predictors of the ICU scores. With a stepwise regression analysis it became clear that empathic happiness and empathic sadness were the strongest contributors. Empathic pain was not included in the model. It also appeared that gender was not seen as a moderator. Since this study focused on the affective variables of the EiR, it is recommended to also investigate the validity of the other variables of the EiR. It is concluded that the three variables of affective empathy within the EiR are valid.