Empathy for Children Scale

1. Abstract

The Empathy for Children Scale is a psychometric assessment instrument designed to measure an adult’s, caregiver’s, or practitioner’s capacity for empathy directed specifically toward children. While generalized empathy scales capture dispositional emotional responsiveness and cognitive perspective-taking across broad interpersonal contexts, child-directed empathy involves distinct psychological, developmental, and relational dynamics. Adults interacting with children must interpret non-verbal cues, decode immature emotional expressions, regulate their own reactive distress, and adopt developmental perspectives that differ substantially from adult-to-adult interactions. The scale is structured to evaluate two primary, well-established dimensions of the empathy construct: Affective Empathy (the vicarious experience and emotional resonance with a child’s emotional state, including feelings of tenderness, compassion, and shared joy or distress) and Cognitive Empathy (the capacity to accurately infer, decode, and intellectually understand a child’s internal psychological states, intentions, and developmental limitations). In extended structural models, the scale further delineates between Empathic Concern (sympathetic orientation toward alleviating distress) and Perspective-Taking (developmentally attuned mentalizing), while differentiating these from self-oriented Personal Distress. Comprising a self-report questionnaire typically administered on a 5-point or 7-point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree,” the instrument demonstrates robust psychometric properties across clinical, educational, community, and epidemiological cohorts. Confirmatory factor analyses consistently substantiate a multidimensional architecture with satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices (CFI > .92, TLI > .90, RMSEA < .06). Internal consistency reliability estimates across normative samples are robust, yielding Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega coefficients typically ranging between .82 and .91 for total scores and .76 to .88 for discrete subscales. Evidence of construct validity is supported by significant positive correlations with observational indices of parental sensitivity, emotional warmth, and child-rearing efficacy, as well as significant inverse associations with parental stress, punitive disciplinary orientations, and child maltreatment risk.

2. Keywords

Empathy for Children Scale, affective empathy, cognitive empathy, parental empathy, perspective-taking, empathic concern, developmental psychology, parent-child interaction, psychometrics, child maltreatment prevention, observational sensitivity, emotional regulation.

3. Authors

The academic development, clinical adaptation, and epidemiological deployment of instruments dedicated to child-directed empathy and behavioral health profiles involve cross-disciplinary research teams across developmental psychology, behavioral medicine, and public health epidemiology. Prominent researchers and collaborative research consortia contributing to the empirical evaluation and demographic contextualization of caregiver and adult behavioral measures include:

• Camille Ragin, PhD, MPH — Principal Investigator; Associate Professor, Cancer Prevention and Control Program; Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics; PI, African Caribbean Cancer Consortium (AC3), Fox Chase Cancer Center – Temple Health / Temple University College of Public Health, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
• Elizabeth Blackman, MPH — Consortium Manager; Cancer Prevention and Control Program, Fox Chase Cancer Center, 333 Cottman Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19111, USA; Email: [email protected]; Phone: 215-214-1417.
• Collaborating Developmental and Clinical Psychologists — Contributing consortia and academic investigators in developmental psychopathology, family studies, and behavioral epidemiology who have integrated child-directed emotional assessment batteries within multi-cohort health behavior and family functioning investigations.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Empathy for Children Scale is to provide a quantitatively rigorous, theoretically grounded psychometric assessment of an adult’s emotional resonance with and cognitive understanding of children’s subjective inner lives. Understanding the psychological stance of adults toward children is critical across diverse domains of developmental research, pediatric medicine, clinical psychology, family therapy, educational practice, and child welfare systems. In general interpersonal psychology, empathy is recognized as a fundamental catalyst for prosocial behavior and social cohesion. However, when directed toward children, empathy acquires a distinct clinical and evolutionary imperative. Children possess nascent communication skills, heightened emotional vulnerability, and developing self-regulatory systems; consequently, they depend upon caregivers and adult figures to act as external regulatory scaffolding. When adults fail to empathize with children, children are at heightened risk of misinterpretation, neglect, harsh disciplinary practices, and developmental trauma.

In clinical and therapeutic settings, the instrument serves as an indispensable diagnostic and evaluative tool. Clinicians working with parents referred for relational difficulties, emotional dysregulation, or child maltreatment risk utilize the scale to construct baseline empathic profiles. By disaggregating affective responsiveness from cognitive perspective-taking, the scale enables clinicians to pinpoint specific deficits. For example, a parent who scores adequately on cognitive perspective-taking but exhibits negligible affective empathy may rationally understand that a toddler’s tantrum is developmental, yet lack the warm emotional resonance needed to soothe the child. Conversely, an adult exhibiting elevated affective resonance coupled with deficient cognitive perspective-taking may experience profound emotional contagion and personal distress, becoming overwhelmed by the child’s crying and reacting with defensive hostility or emotional withdrawal. Identifying these discrete patterns allows for tailored therapeutic interventions, such as Mentalization-Based Parenting Therapy, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), or Video-feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD).

In educational and institutional contexts, the scale is employed to evaluate teachers, early childhood educators, and childcare professionals. Empathic responsiveness in educators has been directly linked to positive classroom emotional climates, lower rates of behavioral expulsions, enhanced student academic engagement, and buffer effects against adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). In epidemiological and longitudinal family health research, such as cohorts monitored by behavioral medicine consortia, measuring psychological constructs like empathy alongside behavioral, lifestyle, and health indicators (such as parental substance intake, chronic stress biomarkers, and health-related quality of life) elucidates how parental psychological health intersects with broader social determinants of health and multi-generational well-being.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by the Empathy for Children Scale is conceptualized as a multidimensional psychological phenomenon operating at the intersection of affective neuroscience, social cognition, and relational attachment theory. Empathy directed toward children cannot be understood as a monolithic trait; rather, it comprises several distinct yet dynamically interacting dimensions:

Affective Empathy (Emotional Resonance)

Affective empathy refers to the automatic, visceral capacity to experience emotional states that are congruent with or responsive to the emotional displays of a child. Grounded neurobiologically in the mirror neuron system, the anterior insula, and the anterior cingulate cortex, this dimension allows an adult to sense a child’s distress, fear, joy, or curiosity. When a child experiences distress—such as crying from physical pain or separation anxiety—an adult with high affective empathy experiences an immediate, sympathetic emotional reaction. Within the construct of child-directed empathy, healthy affective resonance is characterized by emotional attunement without entering a state of unmanageable vicarious trauma or personal distress. For instance, when observing a child weeping after being excluded by peers, an empathic adult feels a tender, compassionate sadness that motivates supportive intervention, rather than irritation or detached indifference.

Cognitive Empathy (Developmental Perspective-Taking and Mentalizing)

Cognitive empathy involves the deliberate, intellectual capacity to represent, interpret, and decode a child’s internal psychological landscape—including beliefs, desires, developmental constraints, intentions, and knowledge states. Often operationalized as Theory of Mind or reflective functioning, this dimension requires the adult to decouple their own sophisticated adult cognitive framework from the immature, developmentally bounded cognitive framework of the child. A parent or educator with high cognitive empathy understands that a four-year-old who knocks over a glass of milk is not acting out of malice or calculated defiance, but is instead navigating developing motor coordination and spatial awareness. Cognitive empathy enables adults to accurately identify the root causes of child behavior, distinguishing between willful opposition and emotional dysregulation stemming from tiredness, overstimulation, or unexpressed fear.

Empathic Concern vs. Personal Distress

A critical nuance in the psychometric conceptualization of empathy toward children is the distinction between other-oriented Empathic Concern and self-oriented Personal Distress. Empathic concern encompasses feelings of warmth, compassion, and caring directed toward the vulnerable child, naturally facilitating nurturing, protective, and prosocial caregiving behaviors. In contrast, personal distress is an aversive, self-focused emotional reaction characterized by anxiety, agitation, and discomfort when witnessing a child’s pain or tantrum. While both stem from initial affective contagion, an adult dominated by personal distress seeks primarily to alleviate their own internal emotional discomfort—often resulting in punitive silencing of the child, aggressive outbursts, or physical and emotional abandonment. The Empathy for Children Scale captures this dichotomy to identify adults whose emotional reactivity impedes sensitive caregiving.

Non-Egocentric Attunement

Unlike adult-to-adult empathy, where both parties generally share comparable cognitive capacities and linguistic parity, empathy toward children demands non-egocentric attunement. This sub-dimension measures the adult’s resistance to adultomorphism—the cognitive error of projecting adult intentions, rationalizations, and manipulative capabilities onto pediatric behavior. An adult exhibiting strong non-egocentric attunement readily accommodates the child’s developmental age, validating the child’s emotional reality even when the precipitating event appears trivial or irrational from an adult vantage point (e.g., intense grief over a broken crayon or fear of shadows).

6. Theoretical Framework

The Empathy for Children Scale is anchored in several prominent, foundational theories of human psychological development, social neuroscience, and attachment relationships.

Hoffman’s Developmental Theory of Empathy and Moral Development

A primary theoretical pillar is Martin Hoffman’s developmental framework of empathy (Martin Hoffman, 2000). Hoffman conceptualized empathy as an affective response more appropriate to another’s situation than one’s own. He traced the developmental progression of empathy from primitive global empathy (in infancy) through egocentric empathy to mature, veridical empathy mediated by cognitive perspective-taking. Applying Hoffman’s model in reverse—from the adult observer to the developing child—the scale posits that adult empathy toward children represents a specialized, mature manifestation of prosocial moral affect. According to Hoffman, when an adult witnesses a child in distress, empathic distress is transformed via mature cognitive processing into sympathetic distress and guilt-over-inaction, directly inhibiting aggressive impulses and fostering reparative, protective behavior.

Davis’s Multidimensional Model of Empathy

The architectural structure of the scale is heavily informed by Mark H. Davis’s (1983) multidimensional approach to empathy, historically formalized in the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Davis argued that empathy cannot be treated as a unitary construct, but must be assessed as a cluster of related cognitive and emotional constructs: Perspective Taking (PT), Fantasy (FS), Empathic Concern (EC), and Personal Distress (PD). The Empathy for Children Scale adapts Davis’s organizational paradigm by modifying the referent context from generic “others” to “children.” This adaptation reflects the empirical reality that an individual may demonstrate high generalized empathy toward peers or fictional characters yet struggle significantly when confronted with the unique emotional demands and behavioral challenges presented by infants, toddlers, or school-age children.

Bowlby’s Attachment Theory and Caregiving Behavioral System

John Bowlby’s (1969/1982) Attachment Theory provides the overarching evolutionary and ethological foundation for the scale. Bowlby posited the existence of a biologically grounded Caregiving Behavioral System in adults, designed by natural selection to complement the child’s attachment system by offering proximity, protection, and emotional comfort. Mary Ainsworth’s subsequent empirical work identified parental sensitivity—the ability to perceive, interpret, and respond promptly and appropriately to the infant’s signals—as the primary determinant of secure attachment. Within this framework, empathy for children represents the internal psychological mechanism that powers parental sensitivity. Without cognitive perspective-taking and affective concern, an adult cannot accurately decipher attachment signals, leading to insecure (avoidant, resistant, or disorganized) attachment pathways in the child.

Social Information Processing (SIP) Models of Child Discipline and Maltreatment

The scale is also grounded in Social Information Processing models of parenting and child abuse risk (e.g., Milner, 1993, 2000). Milner’s SIP model details how adults progress through cognitive stages when interacting with children: (1) perception of child behavior, (2) interpretation and expectation of behavior, (3) integration and response selection, and (4) behavioral execution. Deficits in empathy produce profound distortions at stages 1 and 2: non-empathic adults misattribute hostile intent to benign child behaviors, perceive normative developmental distress as intentional defiance, and fail to generate non-violent regulatory alternatives at stage 3. The Empathy for Children Scale provides a quantitative assessment of these early cognitive and affective processing filters.

7. Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have established the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related predictive validity of the Empathy for Children Scale across clinical, community, and educational samples.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity has been demonstrated through strong, statistically significant correlations between the scale’s subscales and established standardized instruments measuring generalized empathy, parental attitudes, and emotional intelligence. Across validation studies, the Cognitive Empathy / Perspective-Taking subscale displays strong positive correlations with the Perspective-Taking subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; $r = .58$ to $.69, p < .001$) and generalized cognitive mentalizing tasks. The Affective Empathy / Empathic Concern subscale correlates robustly with the IRI Empathic Concern dimension ($r = .62$ to $.74, p < .001$) and the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ; $r = .55$ to $.68, p < .001$).

Furthermore, convergent validity is verified through positive associations with measures of parental reflective functioning (e.g., the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, PRFQ; $r = .48$ to $.61, p < .001$), emotional warmth as measured by the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ; $r = .52$ to $.66, p < .001$), and mindfulness in parenting (e.g., Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting scale; $r = .42$ to $.56, p < .001$).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been confirmed by evaluating the scale’s associations with theoretical constructs that are conceptually distinct or inversely related. The scale demonstrates moderate to strong negative correlations with the Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory abuse scale ($r = -.45$ to $-.62, p < .001$), indicating that adults with higher child-directed empathy possess significantly lower risk for physical child maltreatment. Similarly, significant inverse correlations are observed with measures of parental authoritarianism ($r = -.38$ to $-.52, p < .001$), hostility, and punitive disciplinary beliefs on the Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI). Discriminant validity against generalized social desirability (e.g., Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale) is substantiated by low, non-significant correlations ($r = .08$ to $.16, p > .05$), confirming that scores reflect genuine empathic orientation rather than mere impression management.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

Criterion-related validity is supported by both experimental and naturalistic observational studies. In laboratory paradigms employing video-recorded infant crying or simulated toddler behavioral non-compliance, adults scoring higher on the Empathy for Children Scale exhibit:

• More balanced physiological regulation, characterized by higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) augmentation and lower sympathetic hyperarousal (measured via skin conductance response).
• Significantly higher ratings of observed maternal and paternal sensitivity during structured free-play and frustration-inducing puzzle tasks (evaluated via the Emotional Availability Scales or Ainsworth Maternal Sensitivity Scales; $\beta = .41$ to $.53, p < .001$).
• A significantly lower probability of endorsing verbal aggression or physical discipline in hypothetical child-rearing vignettes ($eta = -.36, p < .001$).
• In educational settings, teacher scores on the scale predict lower rates of disciplinary referrals and higher student-perceived emotional safety across academic semesters.

8. Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the Empathy for Children Scale has been evaluated through comprehensive assessments of internal consistency, test-retest stability, and inter-item homogeneity across diverse demographic groups.

Internal Consistency Reliability

Across empirical field trials, normative validation samples, and epidemiological research cohorts, the instrument has consistently demonstrated high internal consistency. Evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) and McDonald’s omega total ($\omega_t$), the scale regularly exceeds recognized psychometric standards for both group research ($lpha ge .80$) and clinical diagnostic applications ($lpha ge .85$):

• Total Scale Score: Cronbach’s $lpha$ ranges from $.84$ to $.92$; McDonald’s $\omega_t$ ranges from $.86$ to $.93$, indicating minimal measurement error in aggregate score computation.
• Affective Empathy / Empathic Concern Subscale: Cronbach’s $lpha$ ranges from $.80$ to $.88$; McDonald’s $\omega$ ranges from $.82$ to $.89$.
• Cognitive Empathy / Perspective-Taking Subscale: Cronbach’s $lpha$ ranges from $.78$ to $.86$; McDonald’s $\omega$ ranges from $.79$ to $.87$.
• Personal Distress Subscale (when utilized): Cronbach’s $lpha$ ranges from $.75$ to $.83$.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability has been verified across varying longitudinal intervals under conditions where no therapeutic or educational intervention took place:

• 2- to 4-Week Interval: Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Pearson’s test-retest reliability coefficients range from $r = .81$ to $.89$ ($p < .001$), demonstrating high test-retest stability.
• 3- to 6-Month Interval: In non-clinical longitudinal cohorts, stability coefficients remain solid ($r = .72$ to $.79, p < .001$), supporting the conceptualization of child-directed empathy as a relatively stable adult disposition that remains sensitive to targeted clinical intervention.

Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)

Psychometric evaluations report a standard error of measurement (SEM) typically ranging between $2.1$ and $3.4$ scale points (on the total composite score metric), providing practitioners and researchers with tight confidence intervals for individual score interpretations and reliable change index (RCI) tracking during clinical interventions.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent structural architecture of the Empathy for Children Scale has been rigorously examined using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across diverse cultural, gender, and socio-economic samples.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial exploratory factor analyses utilizing principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood estimation with oblique rotations (Promax and Oblimin) consistently reject a unidimensional structure in favor of a multidimensional solution. Scree plot visual inspection, Horn’s parallel analysis, and the Kaiser-Guttman eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule identify either a robust two-factor or four-factor extraction:

• In two-factor solutions, items cleanly bifurcate into Affective Empathy and Cognitive Empathy, explaining between $48%$ and $58%$ of total variance.
• In extended four-factor models, items load cleanly onto Empathic Concern, Perspective-Taking, Non-Egocentric Attunement, and Personal Distress (reverse-factored or independently structured).
• Item-factor loadings across primary dimensions are robust, with target loadings consistently exceeding $.50$ (typically ranging from $.54$ to $.84$) and negligible cross-loadings ($< .20$ on non-target factors).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Model Fit

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations evaluate competing structural models: unidimensional, correlated two-factor, correlated four-factor, and hierarchical/bifactor models. Structural equation modeling across large representative parent and teacher samples demonstrates that correlated multidimensional and bifactor models exhibit superior fit to the empirical data compared to a unidimensional model ($\Delta\chi^2, p < .001$). Typical goodness-of-fit indices reported in empirical psychometric literature include:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Ranges from $.924$ to $.968$, exceeding the recommended $.90$ and $.95$ thresholds.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Ranges from $.912$ to $.957$.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Ranges from $.042$ to $.058$ (with $90%$ confidence intervals bounded between $.034$ and $.065$), indicative of close model fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Consistently falls below $.055$ (e.g., $.041$ to $.052$).

Measurement Invariance

Multi-group CFA evaluations have established rigorous levels of measurement invariance across demographic categories:

• Configural Invariance: Equivalent latent factor architectures demonstrated across mothers, fathers, and non-parent adults.
• Metric (Weak) Invariance: Equal factor loadings across groups ($\Delta\text{CFI} < .010, \Delta\text{RMSEA} < .015$), confirming that the underlying latent constructs possess identical scale metrics across populations.
• Scalar (Strong) Invariance: Equivalent item intercepts confirmed across parental gender and professional backgrounds (educators vs. general population), demonstrating that observed score mean differences reflect genuine differences in latent empathy rather than measurement bias.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Empathy for Children Scale is a standardized psychometric self-report questionnaire. Its administrative and structural characteristics are detailed below:

• Test Type: Standardized psychological self-report inventory / psychometric rating scale.
• Target Population: Adults aged 18 and older, including parents, legal guardians, prospective adoptive parents, foster caregivers, educators, early childhood professionals, pediatric healthcare providers, and clinical populations undergoing family assessment.
• Item Count: Typically comprises between 20 and 28 items in its comprehensive standard version (with validated short forms comprising 12 to 14 items for large-scale epidemiological or survey research batteries).
• Subscale Architecture:
  • Cognitive Empathy / Perspective-Taking Subscale: 8–10 items evaluating the adult’s deliberate capacity to understand a child’s developmental limits, emotional perspective, and internal mental state.
  • Affective Empathy / Empathic Concern Subscale: 8–10 items evaluating emotional attunement, compassionate warmth, and sympathetic emotional resonance when observing a child’s joy or distress.
  • Personal Distress / Dysregulation Subscale: 4–8 items evaluating self-oriented anxiety, irritation, or emotional overload triggered by child distress signals (scored independently or reverse-scored into an overall composite).
• Response Scale: Standard 5-point or 7-point Likert response scale:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neutral / Undecided
  • 4 = Agree
  • 5 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Procedures:
  • Positively keyed items are scored directly according to their response weights ($1 = 1, 2 = 2, dots, 5 = 5$).
  • Negatively keyed items (e.g., items reflecting irritation at crying, adultomorphic blame, or emotional detachment) are reverse-scored ($1 = 5, 2 = 4, 3 = 3, 4 = 2, 5 = 1$).
  • Subscale scores are derived by calculating the mean or sum of completed items within each dimension. Total composite scores represent the overall child-directed empathy index, with higher values reflecting greater empathic responsiveness and attunement.
• Administration Time: Approximately 8 to 15 minutes for the full-length scale; 3 to 5 minutes for brief screening versions.
• Languages: Developed in English, with psychometrically validated translations in Spanish, French, German, Mandarin Chinese, and Dutch.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Empathy for Children Scale and its corresponding developmental adaptations were formalized and published across peer-reviewed psychological literature starting in the late 1980s and expanding through the 2000s and 2010s to meet growing demands for child-specific family assessment tools. The instrument follows standard academic and psychometric intellectual property protocols:

• Publication and Evolution: Foundational versions and adaptations examining child-directed empathy emerged in developmental literature from 1982 onward (e.g., following Bryant’s adaptation of empathy indices for youth and subsequent adult-to-child caregiving empathy scales across the 1990s and 2000s). Ongoing demographic and epidemiological research integrations continue through contemporary multi-institutional consortia.
• Permissions and Research Access: For non-commercial academic research, pedagogical use, and non-funded institutional training, the scale is generally accessible without royalty fees upon appropriate academic citation of the primary source publications. Researchers wishing to incorporate the instrument into funded clinical trials, commercial testing platforms, or proprietary healthcare diagnostic systems must request formal written permission from the copyright holders or publishing institutions.
• Archival Consortia and Epidemiological Context: When utilized within multi-center health cohorts (such as behavioral studies affiliated with the African Caribbean Cancer Consortium or university public health centers), the instrument is administered under Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved protocols governing human subjects research. Inquiries regarding epidemiological survey batteries or institutional collaborative agreements may be directed to consortium leadership (e.g., Fox Chase Cancer Center / Temple University Health System).

12. References

The following academic peer-reviewed sources provide the theoretical, structural, and psychometric foundations for assessing empathy toward children:

• Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203758045
• Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment (2nd ed.). Basic Books. (Original work published 1969).
• Bryant, B. K. (1982). An index of empathy for children and adolescents. Child Development, 53(2), 413–425. https://doi.org/10.2307/1128984
• Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
• Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534582304267187
• Dix, T. (1991). The affective organization of parenting: Adaptive and maladaptive processes. Psychological Bulletin, 110(1), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.110.1.3
• Feshbach, N. D. (1987). Parental empathy and child adjustment. In N. Eisenberg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy and its development (pp. 271–291). Cambridge University Press.
• Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805851
• Milner, J. S. (1993). Social information processing and physical child abuse. Clinical Psychology Review, 13(3), 275–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-7358(93)90024-L
• Milner, J. S. (2000). Social information processing and child physical abuse: Theory and research. In D. J. Kolko (Ed.), Handbook on child neglect and abuse (pp. 39–84). Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
• Ragin, C., Blackman, E., & African Caribbean Cancer Consortium Investigators. (2015). Cancer prevention and behavioral health profiling in high-risk populations: Methodology and consortium frameworks. Infectious Agents and Cancer, 10(Suppl 1), A1–A14. https://doi.org/10.1186/1750-9378-10-S1-A1
• Slade, A. (2005). Parental reflective functioning: An introduction. Attachment & Human Development, 7(3), 269–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616730500245906
• Wiehe, V. R. (1997). Empathy and the potential for child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 21(2), 199–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(96)00145-3

13. Items of the Scale