Social skills and empathy

Abstract One hundred and seventy-one subjects completed the Social Skills Inventory (SSI) and three standardized empathy scales: the Hogan Empathy Scale (Hogan, J. consult. clin. Psychol. 45, 1299–1312, 1969), the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy (Mehrabian and Epstein, J. Person. 40, 525–543, 1972), and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, JSAS Cat. sel. doc. Psychol. 10, 85, 1980). Subgroups of these subjects also took part in empathy-related tasks. As predicted, there were positive correlations between the empathy measures and empathy indexes derived from the SSI scales. Scores on the various empathy measures also positively related to the empathy tasks. Examination of sex differences indicated that although females score higher on measures of emotional empathy, there were no significant sex differences on measures of cognitive, perspective-taking empathy. In sum, the results indicate that viewing empathy as a combination of basic social skills may be a productive alternative approach for future research on empathy.

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