Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue)
We developed two questionnaires, a parent-report for toddlers /preschoolers and a self-report for older children /adolescents, covering different aspects of empathy relevant within each age-group.
EmQue for toddlers
- Developed in Dutch, also availabe in English, Italian, Japanese, German, Lithuanian, Spanish, Portuguese
- Parent-report for children 1-6 years old
- 3 scales: emotion contagion (6 items), attention to others' emotions (7 items), prosocial responses to others' emotions (6 items)
- total 19 items
- Original version in Dutch by Rieffe, Ketelaar, & Wiefferink (2010).
EmQue for children and adolescents (EmQue-CA)
- Developed in Dutch, also available in English, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese
- Self-report questionnaire (9-16 years)
- 3 scales: Affective empathy, Cognitive empathy, and Prosocial Motivation
- 18 items
- Original version in Dutch by Overgaauw et al (2017).
Publications EmQue (parent report)
Rieffe, C., Ketelaar, L., & Wiefferink, C.H. (2010). Assessing empathy in young children; construction and validation of an empathy questionnaire (EmQue). Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 362–367.
Lazdauskas, T., & Nasvytienė, D. (2021). Psychometric properties of Lithuanian versions of empathy questionnaires for children. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18(1), 144-159. doi: 10.1080/17405629.2020.1772048.
Takamatsu, R., Tsou, Y. T., Kusumi, T., Rieffe, C. (in press). The Japanese Empathy Question-naire (EmQue) for preschool children: Psychometric properties and measurement in-variance across gender. International Journal of Behavioral Development. doi: 10.1177/01650254211022852.
Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., Pepe, A., Brazzelli, E., & Rieffe, C. (2016). The Italian version of the Emapthy Questionnaire for 18- to 36-months-old children: psychometric properties and measurement invariance across gender of the EmQue-I13. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2016.1140640
Lucas-Molina, B., Sarmento, R., Quintanilla, L., & Giménez-Dasí, M. (2018). The Spanish version of the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue): Evidence for longitudinal measurement invariance and relationship with emotional regulation. Early Education and Development, 29, 467–476.
Publications EmQue-CA(self-report)
Overgaauw, S., Rieffe, C., Broekhof, E. Crone, E.A., & Güroğlu, B. (2017). Assessing empathy across childhood and adolescence: Validation of the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA). Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 870.
Lazdauskas, T., & Nasvytienė, D. (2021). Psychometric properties of Lithuanian versions of empathy questionnaires for children. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18(1), 144-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2020.1772048
Ziqin, L., Claudia, M. & Elisa, D. (2022). Empathy questionnaire for children and adolescents: Italian validation. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2022.2096000
Pouw, L. B. C., Rieffe, C., Oosterveld, P.,Huskens, B., & Stockmann, L. (2013). Reactive/proactive aggression and affective/cognitive empathy in children with ASD. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34, 1256–1266.
Download EmQue pdfs here:
EmQue for toddlers
EmQue (toddlers) for parents [English]
EmQue (toddlers) for teachers [English]
EmQue (toddlers) for parents [Dutch]
EmQue (toddlers) for teachers [Dutch]
EmQue (toddlers) for parents [Lithuanian]
EmQue (toddlers) for parents [Japanese]
EmQue (toddlers) for parents [German]
EmQue (toddlers) for teachers [German]
The syntax for the EmQue (toddlers) scales can be downloaded here.
EmQue (toddlers) for parents (short 13-item-version) [Italian]
EmQue (toddlers) for parents (short 13-item-version) [English]
EmQue (toddlers) for parents (short 13-item-version) [Spanish]
The syntax for the short 13-item-version EmQue (toddlers) scale can be downloaded here.
EmQue for childre/adolescents (EmQue-CA)
EmQue-CA [Polish] (validating)
EmQue-CA [Portuguese] (validating)
The syntax for the EmQue-CA can be downloaded here. Please note that we currently do not have norm scores or cut-off scores for our questionnaires. For more info please refer to our FAQs.