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Category: Project

Description: Definitions of the term “empathy” have long been discussed. Recent evidence suggests that “empathy” and “concern” (also known as “compassion”) are psychologically and physiologically distinct. These distinctions directly affect the psychometric measures used to assess empathy. A new measure called the Empathy Index (EI) has been proposed that assesses empathy strictly in terms of emotional contagion. However, this measure has not been validated using Brazilian Portuguese language. Our objective was therefore to translate, culturally adapt, and examine the psychometric properties of the EI in a Brazilian population. We also examined the EI’s relationship with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). In Study 1 (N=483), we explored the relationship between EI and IRI through factor analysis. Empathy and concern loaded on different factors. The EI subscales showed adequate Cronbrach’s alphas and concern, but not empathy, predicted contributions during an economic game. In Study 2 (N=215), confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the factorial structure of EI and its relation with IRI. Therefore, we consider that the Brazilian version of the EI showed good evidence of both validity and reliability.