Development of a Swedish Version of the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy

Chato Rasoal, Tomas Jungert, Stephan Hau, Gerhard Andersson

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DOI: 10.4236/psych.2011.26087                

Abstract

The development and establishment of a Swedish translation of the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy (SEE) was investigated in a sample of 788 participants. The SEE is a self-report instrument and is used to measure empathy directed toward people from ethnic cultural groups who are different from the respondent’s own ethnocultural group. Principal components factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) provided evidence for a four-factor structure. The factors were Acceptance of Cultural Differences, Communicative Ethnocultural Empathy, Ethnocultural Empathic Awareness, and Intellectual Ethnocultural Empathy. The factors were moderately intercorrelated, and additional correlational analyses showed convergent validity in high correlations between the four factors and the two subscales Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Possible applications of this scale in a healthcare context are discussed.

Keywords

Ethnocultural Empathy, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Empathy, Explorative Factor Analysis

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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