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 Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 160–165

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Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

The basic empathy scale: A French validation of a measure of empathy in youth

Fanny D’Ambrosio *, Marie Olivier, Davina Didon, Chrystel Besche
University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, UFR Lettres et Sciences Humaines, CLEA 57, Rue Pierre Taittinger, F-51096 Reims Cedex, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The aim of our study was to validate a French version of the basic empathy scale (BES Jolliffe and
Received 2 April 2008 Farrington (2006)) which measures both cognitive and affective empathy with a sample of 446
Received in revised form 15 September adolescents. The confirmatory factorial analysis showed that the French scale has the same factorial
2008
structure as in the original version with two-factors (cognitive and affective empathy). The BES exhibited
Accepted 26 September 2008
Available online 11 November 2008
satisfactory internal, test–retest and discriminant validity. Moreover, the females’ superiority in empathy
was replicated. So, the BES is one of the first empathy scales to be made available in French and possesses
good psychometric qualities.
Keywords:
Empathy
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Adolescence
Basic Empathy Scale
Sex difference

1. Introduction behaviour on others (Fernandez & Marshall, 2003; Jolliffe &

Farrington, 2004). So, empathy is a central concept in the context
1.1. Definition of social interactions.

‘‘Empathy” is a multidimensional concept and has several defini-

tions. There is a relative consensus for two of its main dimensions
(Lawrence, Shaw, Baker, Baron-Cohen, & David, 2004): cognitive
empathy (the intellectual apprehension of another’s mental state,
currently associated with the theory of mind, ToM) and affective
empathy (possession of an appropriate emotional response when
confronted with the mental state attributed to another person).
Empathy is essential to our comprehension of social behaviour
(Decety, 2002), to our regulation of our own social behaviour
(Findlay, Girardi, & Coplan, 2006; Laible, Carlo, & Roesch, 2004)
and to the acquisition of morality (Berthoz, Grèzes, Armony,
Passingham, & Dolan, 2006; Hoffman, 2000). There is also a link
between cognitive and total empathy and alexithymia (Davies,
Stankov, & Roberts, 1998; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006) with the
Toronto–Alexithymia scale – 20, (TAS-20; Bagby, Parker, and
Taylor (1994)). Consequently, someone who finds it difficult to
express/identify his/her own feelings is likely to have similar dif-
ficulties when confronted with another person’s emotions. This
may, therefore, also have an influence on the ability to empathize
(Guttman & Laporte, 2002). Moreover, recent studies have shown
that a lack of empathy could be a factor leading to aggressive
behaviour (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004; Mehrabian, 1997) and
reducing the subject’s ability to perceive the effect of their own
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 26 91 37 13; fax: +33 3 26 91 37 19.
E-mail address: fanny.dambrosio@etudiant.univ-reims.fr (F. D’Ambrosio).
1.2. Empathy measures
Consequently, several scales have been developed to measure
empathy in Anglo–Saxon countries, based on one or several of its
dimensions: the balanced emotional empathy scale (BEES
Mehrabian (2000)) (emotional empathy); the interpersonal reac-
tivity index (IRI Davis (1980)) (‘‘perspective-taking”, ‘‘fantasy”,
‘‘empathic-concern” and ‘‘personal distress” which could be sum-
marized into both cognitive and affective empathy); the empathic
quotient (EQ Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004)) (both cogni-
tive and affective empathy, and social skills). The IRI (Davis,
1980) is considered as the best measure of empathy developed
(Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004; Muncer & Ling, 2006) but
the fantasy and personal distress subscales of the IRI were regu-
larly criticized (Beven, O’Brien-Malone, & Hall, 2004; Lawrence
et al., 2004). As for France Völlm et al. (2006), created an empathy
task, which interestingly differ from others as they used ToM and
emotional empathy stimuli in one visual task (thus avoiding the
difficulties inferred by a paper assessment). However, all these
scales were not specifics to adolescents while Jolliffe and Farring-
ton (2004, 2006) thought that in youth, a deficit of empathy is
really important to detect as there are strong relationships be-
tween low empathy and violent behaviour and it may play a cru-
cial role in mid-adolescence, a period that has importance for
adulthood (Lynam, Caspi, Moffitt, Loeber, & Stouthamer-Loeber,
2007).

0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.09.020
 F. D’Ambrosio et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 160–165
1.3. The basic empathy scale
So, Jolliffe and Farrington have developed the basic empathy
scale (BES, 2006) a brief, accessible and easy-to-score self-report
questionnaire with an English sample of 720 adolescents (aged
approximately 15 years). For the authors, one of the main defects
of the earlier measures of empathy (e.g. Hogan empathy scale
Hogan (1969); questionnaire measure of emotional empathy,
QMEE Mehrabian and Epstein (1972)) is that they only focus on
one aspect of empathy. Although, we need to take account of both
cognitive and affective empathy: certain individuals (e.g. paedo-
philes) may exhibit normal cognitive empathy but have a poor le-
vel of affective empathy (Nichols & Molinder, 1996, cited in Covell
& Scalora, 2002; Rice, Chaplin, Harris, & Coutts, 1994). So, the BES
assesses affective and cognitive empathy among 20-items (verified
by a confirmatory analysis).
Jolliffe and Farrington (2006), like others (Baron-Cohen, Richler,
Bisarya, Gurunathan, & Wheelwright, 2003; Baron-Cohen &
Wheelwright, 2004; Davis, 1980; Lawrence et al., 2004; Mehrabian,
2000), observed that girls have a better level of empathy, particu-
larly in affective empathy, without observing a link between the
scales of empathy and social desirability (a valid measure has to
measure participant’s real empathy rather than how empathic a
person wishes to be perceived). It remains unclear; however,
whether females are really more empathic than males (i.e. the re-
sult of differences in socialization and social roles associated with
females) or if is a result of the method of assessing empathy (i.e. a
result of biased responding in self-reports). Even though some
behavioural data (Han, Fan, & Mao, 2008; Schulte-Rüther,
Markowitsch, Shah, Fink, & Piefke, 2008) suggest that females
and males rely on different strategies (brain networks and electro-
physiological amplitudes) when assessing their own emotions in
response to other people and this could explain why females have
better scores on empathy.
Unfortunately, in France there was no validated scale to measure
empathy and, in particular, in adolescents. So, the validation of a
French empathy scale could be an important contribution to the
clinical evaluation of empathy in French adolescents: the BES could
be one of the first empathy scales to be made available in French. To
evaluate the validity of the BES, we translated the BES into French
and here we report on the BES’s psychometric properties, as well
as on the correspondence between four empathy questionnaires
and measures of the ability to communicate emotional state.
1.4. Hypothesis
First, the French scale should have the same factorial structure
as the original scale (with 2 correlated factors: cognitive and affec-
tive empathy). Secondly, girls should score significantly higher
than boys on the BES and most particularly in affective empathy.
There should be also a significant positive correlation between
the levels of cognitive and affective empathy measured by the
BES (but also measured by the others scales: we expected a signif-
icant and positive correlation between the BEES and the BES and
also between the non-verbal test (‘‘empathy” items and ‘‘ToM”
items) and the BES). Indeed both reflect an aspect of global empa-
thy and involve reactions to the emotions of others. Moreover
Jolliffe and Farrington (2006), found that there was a negative
and significant correlation between BES and the global scale of
the TAS-20 (Bagby et al., 1994). So, we should observe the same re-
sult and more especially between cognitive empathy and the
TAS-20. Furthermore, like Jolliffe and Farrington (2006) results,
the BES should not be significantly related to social desirability.
Finally, the BES should meet the criteria of test-retest reliability
(a significant and a strong positive correlation between the scores
during the test and at the retest phase).
161
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Four hundred and forty six adolescents of the same age as those
studied by Jolliffe and Farrington (2006) participated in the test
(250 girls, 196 boys; mean age 14.8 years, SD = 1.14) and attended
various state secondary schools in a number of French towns. The
retest phase was attended by 153 of the 446 original adolescents
(100 girls, 53 boys; mean age 14.8 years, SD = 1.28). All the partic-
ipants were native French speakers and participated voluntarily
after both the students and their parents gave informed consent.
No one declined to participate.
2.2. Materials and procedure
The test session was administered collectively to groups of
about 20 participants each. All questionnaires were in French.
2.3. The BES
They saw the French version of the BES (Jolliffe & Farrington,
2006). It was back-translated by a French senior lecturer in English
literature, and modifications were made in consultation with the
authors. The final version was approved by the two original trans-
lators and a native English speaker, fluent in French. This scale fea-
tures 20-items (appendix available from the authors): 9 for
cognitive empathy (items 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20), and 11
for affective empathy (items 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18). Re-
sponses were made on a five-point Likert scale ranging from
‘‘strongly disagree” to ‘‘strongly agree”. The scores could range
from 1 (deficit in empathy) to 100 (high level of empathy).
2.4. The TAS-20
The participants also completed the TAS-20 (Bagby et al.
(1994); French version by Loas et al. (2001)) in order to assess alex-
ithymia in this sample. The TAS is a 20-item self-report question-
naire in which adolescents are asked to respond to statements on
a five-point Likert scale (from ‘‘strongly disagree” to ‘‘strongly
agree”).
2.5. The BEES
We used the French version of the BEES (Mehrabian, 2000)1 be-
cause of the absence of any scale measuring empathy in France. This
is a 30-items measure of emotional empathy only. The subjects are
asked to respond to statements on a scale ranging from 4 (very
strong disagreement) to +4 (very strong agreement) depending on
the degree of empathy. The score is calculated on the basis of the re-
sponses to all of the 15 positively worded items and by subtracting
from this quantity the sum of the responses to all of the 15 nega-
tively worded items (M = 45, SD = 24, with a norm for males:
M = 29, SD = 28 and for females: M = 60, SD = 21).
2.6. The non-verbal test
Secondly, we used Völlm et al.’s non-verbal test (2006, see
Völlm et al. (2006) for example). This test is, in part, an adaptation
of Sarfati, Hardy-Baylé, Besche, and Widlöcher (1997) which was
developed for use in a neuro-imaging study. It assesses several
dimensions: affective empathy (n = 10), ToM (n = 10) and causality
1
Free translation, not validated, available from Stephanie Braun (sbraun@
ulb.ac.be), ULB – Erasme Hospital, Brussels, Belgium.
162 F. D’Ambrosio et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 160–165
(n = 20) and it does not consider verbal abilities (it is a visual test).
We, therefore, used it in order to obtain a countermeasure for
empathy, and particularly for cognitive empathy. It consists in
choosing one of two pictures which completes an initial uncom-
pleted sequence of three pictures. The test comprises 40 sequences
and the maximum score is 40 points (one point for each correct
response).
2.7. The lie scale
Finally, we used the lie scale of the Eysenck personality ques-
tionnaire-revised (Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985, cited in
Bouvard (1999)) which taps people’s tendency to respond to the
items in a socially desirable way. This scale features 21 items
and each desirable response counted for 1 point. A high score indi-
cates that the participant has a tendency to give a socially ap-
proved response rather than one, which corresponds to his/her
real personality.
Three weeks later, the adolescents participated in the retest
phase in which they had to respond to the BES again.
2.8. Statistical analysis
First, to evaluate the BES’s factor structure, we conducted a
confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modelling
(ÓSTATISTICA, Version 7) in the same way as Jolliffe and Farring-
ton (2006). We tested a two correlated factors model, using the
covariance matrix. This model was estimated using generalized
least square procedure and maximum likelihood method. Five
goodness-of-fit indices were used to evaluate the adequacy of
the model fit: the chi-squared test (v2), the Bentler comparative
fit index (CFI), the standardized root mean squared residual
(SRMSR), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA;
Steiger (1990)) and the goodness-of-fit index (GFI; Bentler and
Bonett (1980)) in order to compare with Jolliffe and Farrington’s
model (2006). Actually, fit indices exceeding 0.90 and RMSEA
and SRMSR below 0.10 are generally considered evidence of ade-
quate model fit (Fan, Thompson, & Wang, 1999). We used the stu-
dent T-test and the Fisher–Snedecor F-test in order to compare
results between boys and girls. Moreover, to evaluate relation-
ships between the self-report scores we used Bravais–Pearson
correlation coefficients. We also used this technique to compare
the test-retest scores.
3. Results
3.1. The French version of the BES should have the same factorial
structure as the original scale
The results of the BES’s confirmatory factor analysis are pre-
sented in Fig. 1. The solution converged after nine iterations. De-
spite the (v2) being significant (v2(169) = 482.14, p < 0.01) and
the CFI being less than 0.90 (CFI = 0.78), the goodness-of-fit can
be considered as acceptable according to Byrne (2001) regarding
the SRMSR = 0.063, the RMSEA = 0.068, 90% CI = [0.061 0.075]
and the GFI = 0.90. So, the confirmatory factor analysis supports
the idea of a two-factor solution and we obtained exactly the same
results as Jolliffe and Farrington (2006). The two specified factors
accounted for 25.80% of the total variance (8.30% for the cognitive
empathy factor and 17.50% for the affective empathy factor instead
of 7.60% and 19.50%, respectively, in Jolliffe and Farrington (2006).
However, when Jolliffe and Farrington (2006) reduced their data,
they selected only the items which equalled or exceeded .40 on
one or the other factor. However, in our analysis, some of the items
diverged from this value (items 3 and 16 amounted to less than
0.30 on the cognitive empathy factor).
The internal consistency of the BES as measured by the Cron-
bach a coefficient was 0.80 (0.77 for affective empathy measured
on 11 items and 0.66 for cognitive empathy measured on 9 items).
The temporal stability coefficient (with correction for attenuation)
was 0.83.
3.2. Girls should score significantly higher than boys on empathy,
particularly on affective empathy
The participants’ scores on the TAS-20, BEES, non-verbal test
and BES, are presented in Table 1.
Internal consistencies (Cronbach a) for the data of the present
study were 0.67 for the TAS-20, 0.79 and 0.71 for the BEES (respec-
tively, for the 15 positive items and the 15 negative items), 0.51
and 0.42 for the non-verbal test (respectively, for the 10 items
for both empathy and cognitive subscales) and 0.67 for the lie
scale. However, according to Streiner (2003), it is generally recom-
mended that a value should be about 0.80: so, here, the correla-
tions between the BES and these scales should be considered
carefully.
The mean BEES scores were lower than those specified in
Mehrabian’s norms (2000) but our participants were adolescents
and not adults as in Mehrabian’s study (2000). The expected gen-
der effect was observed (t (443) = 7.90, p < 0.01, d = 0.75): girls
scored considerably higher than boys on emotional empathy as
measured by this scale (Table 1).
On the other hand, the mean scores in the non-verbal test
(empathy and ToM) were slightly lower than those obtained by
Völlm et al. (2006). No gender effect was observed for the ‘‘empa-
thy” or for the ‘‘ToM” subscales of the non-verbal test (Table 1).
The mean BES scores were greater than those found by Jolliffe
and Farrington (2006) (Table 1). The girls scored much higher than
the boys on the empathy scale (F (1, 444) = 83.19, p < 0.01,
g2 = 0.16) and the magnitude of the gender difference was greater
for the affective than the cognitive scale (F (1, 444) = 35.72,
p < 0.01, g2 = 0.07). Moreover, we observed that girls and boys
scored higher on affective empathy than on cognitive empathy (F
(1, 444) = 172.47, p < 0.01, g2 = 0.28) (when we focused on material
and not on human the g2 increase).
3.3. There should be a significant positive correlation between the
levels of cognitive and affective empathy
The Pearson correlations between the BEES and the cognitive,
affective and total scales of the BES and the other scales are pre-
sented in Table 2.
The affective and the cognitive scales of the BES were corre-
lated: r = 0.41 (p < 0.05) with r = 0.42 (p < 0.05) for the boys and
r = 0.27 (p < 0.05) for the girls (Table 2). This finding suggests that
there is a significant overlap between these two components of
empathy, particularly for the boys. However, it also suggests that
there is a difference between them and this difference is greater
in girls (p = 0.04).
The relatively high correlation between BES and BEES (Table 2)
indicates that each of these scales measures a part of the same con-
cept but they are not redundant (given that BEES is a measure of
emotional empathy). Indeed, the BEES is more highly correlated
with the affective scale than the cognitive scale of the BES
(p < 0.01) (and particularly for boys: 0.34 points of difference for
boys and 0.16 points for girls) and it is not due to a restriction of
range effect. Actually, several measures were made selecting 9
items from the affective scale (at random) and showed that these
nine items still had a significant different correlation. However,
 F. D’Ambrosio et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 160–165 163

Item 3 Item 1

.27
Item 2
Item 6 (.43)
.57
.44
(.62)
(.45)
.68 Item 4
Item 9
.36 (.71)

(.54) .48
Item 5
Cognitive (.41)
.41
Item 10 .67
(.62) Empathy
(.60)
.37 Item 7
.65
(.53) .64
Item 12 (.64)
(.62)
.35
.59 Item 8
(.68) Affective (.64)

Item 14 .74
Empathy
.29
(.58)
Item 11
(.62) .31

(.45)
Item 16
.63
.36 Item 13
(.56) .60 (.45)
(.52) .41
Item 19
(.60) Item 15
.56

(.70)
Item 17
Item 20

Item 18

Fig. 1. Two-factor confirmatory analysis model of the 20 BES items for the overall sample.

Table 1
Participants’ (n = 446) scores on the self-report measures.

Gender Group total

Boys (n = 196) Girls (n = 250) (n = 446)
Min Max Mean SD Min Max Mean SD Min Max Mean SD
TAS-20 28 83 55.29 9.04 1 81 56.12 9.89 1 83 55.75 9.52
BEES 76 74 11.57 23.93 62 109 30.59 26.12 76 109 22.25 26.84
Non-verbal test ‘‘empathy” 3 10 7.97 1.74 3 10 8.22 1.51 3 10 8.11 1.62
Non-verbal test ‘‘ToM” 1 10 8.46 1.40 2 10 8.51 1.18 1 10 8.49 1.28
BES total 34 94 70.28 10.27 53 98 78.07 7.76 34 98 74.65 9.74
BES ‘‘emotional empathy” 13 52 36.22 6.89 24 55 41.90 5.71 13 55 39.41 6.85
BES ‘‘cognitive empathy” 15 45 34.07 5.22 22 45 36.17 3.94 15 45 35.25 4.66
164 F. D’Ambrosio et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 160–165

Table 2
Correlation of the BES with the other scales.

Boys (n = 195) Girls (n = 250) Total (n = 445)

BES BES BES BEES BES BES BES BEES BES BES BES BEES
cognitive affective total cognitive affective total cognitive affective total
BEES 0.22* 0.56* 0.49* / 0.27* 0.43* 0.45* / 0.30* 0.56* 0.54* /
Non-verbal test 0.23* 0.15 0.22* 0.06 0 0.07 0.05 0.09 0.14* 0.13* 0.16* 0.10*
‘‘empathy”
Non-verbal test ‘‘ToM” 0.14* 0 0.07 0 0 0.04 0.02 -0.08 0.08 0.02 0.05 0.03
Lie scale 0.09 0.02 0.03 0.07 0.07 0.04 0.06 0.12* 0.09 0.04 0.07 0.12*
TAS-20 0.21* 0.02 0.11 0.01 0.11 0.01 0.07 0.01 0.14* 0 0.06 0.01
*
p < 0.05.

the BES shows stronger validity as it is not correlated with the lie
scale contrary to the BEES.
There were no (or only very small) correlations between the BES
and both ‘‘ToM” and ‘‘empathy” of the non-verbal test (particularly
for girls) (Table 2). However, we can suppose it is normal as the
scores in the non-verbal test (for both ‘‘ToM” and ‘‘empathy”)
showed a ceiling effect and that the internal consistency of the
non-verbal test was not really good.
3.4. There should be a significant negative correlation between the BES
and the TAS-20
The mean TAS-20 scores were slightly higher than those ob-
tained by Zimmermann, Quartier, Bernard, Salamin, and Maggiori
(2007) with an adolescent sample. No gender effect was found
(Table 1).
We found a significant negative correlation between the TAS-20
and the cognitive scale of the BES, but only for boys (r = 0.21,
p < 0.05) (Table 2).
3.5. The BES should not be significantly related to social desirability
The correlation between the BES and the lie scale of the Eysenck
personality questionnaire was not significant for either the boys or
the girls in our sample (Table 2). Moreover, our boys and girls
exhibited no significant difference on the measure of social desir-
ability (t(443) = 1.49, n.s.) (Table 1). Consequently, the girls’ higher
score on the BES cannot be the result of a bias in favour of social
desirability.
3.6. The BES should presented a good test-retest reliability
Finally, 153 adolescents completed the BES on two occasions,
and the test-retest reliability as measured by the coefficient of cor-
relation between the BES scores at time 1 and time 2 (separated by
a 3-week interval) was r = 0.66 (p < 0.05) with r = 0.70 (p < 0.05) for
the affective empathy and r = 0.54 (p < 0.05) for the cognitive
empathy. It is not as strong as we expected, particularly for cogni-
tive empathy, but it is acceptable.
4. Discussion
Our results were globally similar to those obtained by Jolliffe
and Farrington (2006). Actually, the BES exhibits a relatively high
level of cross-cultural stability, even if in France, boys seem to be
a little more empathic (on affective empathy, and, therefore, on
the BES in general) than their Anglo–Saxon counterparts. More-
over, we found a classic effect (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006): girls
scored higher than boys, particularly in affective empathy and it
did not result from a social desirability bias. It tends to be linked
to Han et al. (2008) and Schulte-Rüther et al. (2008) results: fe-
males and males rely on different strategies when assessing their
own emotions in response to others but less for the identification
of another’s emotion. There is a significant correlation between
affective and cognitive empathy. The correlation between the BEES
and BES further illustrates the BES’s concurrent validity and sug-
gests that these scales measure affective empathy in almost the
same way (as BEES is a measure of emotional empathy). It indi-
cates also that these measures are not redundant with the smaller
correlation with cognitive empathy. Furthermore, the absence or
small size of the correlations between the non-verbal task and
the BES in no way reflected the nature of the cognitive scale or
the affective scale of the BES. Indeed, the poor internal consistency
of the non-verbal test, the difference in the material used (non-ver-
bal/verbal) might have influenced the observed results. Jolliffe and
Farrington (2006) found a negative relationship between cognitive,
total empathy and alexithymia in both boys and girls. We failed to
replicate this result, except for boys (there was a negative link be-
tween the difficulty in expressing and understanding one’s emo-
tions and cognitive empathy). This may reflect the gender
difference in offending or anti-social behaviour observed (Broidy,
Cauffman, Espelage, Mazerolle, & Piquero, 2004; Guttman &
Laporte, 2002).
Consequently, the French version of the BES exhibits acceptable
internal consistency and test-retest reliability as well as concur-
rent and convergent validity. However, the poor internal consisten-
cies observed in the various scales used to correlate with the BES
limit the implications of our study (concerning particularly the ab-
sence of correlation between ToM and cognitive empathy except-
ing for boys, the measure of social desirability and alexithymia).
So, we suggest further investigation of the psychometric qualities
of the BES using other scales (with stronger internal consistency).
Future research could use behavioural scales in order to limit bias
of social desirability, neuro-imagery in order to observe and ex-
plain the different strategies used by boys and girls during empa-
thy tasks. We could also use the BES, which integrates both
cognitive and affective empathy, for clinical application in popula-
tions presenting a lack of empathy as violent sexual and non-sex-
ual offenders for example (Covell & Scalora, 2002; Jolliffe &
Farrington, 2004). Indeed, we could further investigate the distinc-
tion between the lack of empathy in ‘‘normal” and sexual offenders
in adolescence and adulthood.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Aurore Carlier, Nathalie Goguet, Elodie
Ismert, Anne-Laure Lepissier, Sophie Griffini, and the students at
the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne for their participa-
tion in the collection of the data.
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