Measuring affective and cognitive empathy among Korean and Chinese adolescents: translating and validating the empathy scale

This study translates and validates the empathy scale of the How I Feel in Different Situations Questionnaire. Out of 1010 Korean (n = 558) and Chinese (n = 452) middle school students, 342 (Korean = 191 and Chinese = 151) and 668 students (Korean = 367 and Chinese = 301) participated in Studies 1 and 2, respectively. The exploratory factor analysis for Study 1 showed that the scale consisted of two factors, which included both affective and cognitive empathy in both the Korean and Chinese samples. The confirmatory factor analysis for Study 2 also confirmed the two-factor structure and the metric invariances across nationality (Korean, Chinese), gender (female, male), and grade (7th, 8th, 9th). Both affective and cognitive empathy were positively associated with pro-social behavior and perceived social preferences. The results indicate that the translated empathy scale was valid. Further, the same underlying constructs are being measured across nationality, gender, and grade. The distinguishing framework of the affective and cognitive empathy is applicable to Korean and Chinese samples. Understanding the students’ empathy measured by the translated scale will help to understand their pro-social behavior and perceived social preferences.