The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire

Abstract

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) is a concise 16-item self-report instrument designed to measure empathy. Developed by Spreng and colleagues in 2009, the scale was created through a comprehensive review and factor-analytic synthesis of existing psychological scales, isolating a single underlying factor. The TEQ specifically conceptualizes empathy as a primarily affective or emotional process, distinguishing it from instruments that emphasize cognitive perspective-taking. The instrument has demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and robust construct validity, showing expected inverse correlations with measures of autism symptomatology.

Keywords

Empathy, Affective Empathy, Emotional Process, Psychological Assessment, Self-Report, Questionnaire, TEQ, Social Cognition, Autism.

Authors

Spreng, R. N., McKinnon, M. C., Mar, R. A., & Levine, B.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) is to provide researchers and clinicians with a brief, efficient, and psychometrically sound measure of empathy. Its concise 16-item format makes it highly suitable for use in large-scale studies, population screenings, or clinical settings where administration time must be minimized.

The scale was explicitly designed to capture the core emotional dimensions of empathy that were common across various pre-existing instruments, thereby offering a focused assessment tool that minimizes conceptual overlap with cognitive components like theory of mind or perspective-taking.

Construct

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire measures empathy, which it defines strictly as a primarily emotional process. This conceptualization focuses on the capacity to share or be moved by the feelings and emotional states of others, often referred to as affective empathy.

The TEQ operates on the basis of a single-factor solution derived from the synthesis of multiple existing measures. This singular factor reflects an individual’s tendency toward emotional resonance, such as experiencing distress when others are suffering or feeling protective when others are taken advantage of. This focus ensures the scale targets the spontaneous affective response rather than deliberate cognitive processing.

Validity

The TEQ demonstrates strong evidence of construct validity, confirmed through its correlation patterns with external psychological measures, as reported in the initial validation study (Spreng et al., 2009).

• Convergent Validity: The TEQ was found to be positively correlated with other established measures of empathy, confirming that it measures a construct similar to those captured by longer, multi-faceted instruments.
• Criterion Validity: Positive correlations were observed with measures of social decoding, suggesting that higher TEQ scores are associated with greater sensitivity in interpreting subtle social and emotional cues from others.
• Discriminant Validity: Crucially, the TEQ was negatively correlated with measures of autism symptomatology. This result supports the scale’s validity by aligning with the established psychological finding that reduced affective empathy is a common characteristic associated with autism spectrum disorder.

Reliability

The reliability of the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire is reported to be high, supporting its consistent and stable measurement of the affective empathy construct.

• Internal Consistency: The scale exhibits high internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha), meaning that the 16 items reliably cohere and measure the same underlying construct.
• Test–Retest Reliability: The TEQ also possesses strong test–retest reliability (Spreng et al., 2009), indicating that individual scores remain stable and consistent over reasonable periods of time, suggesting the scale captures a relatively stable personality trait.

Factor Analysis

The foundation of the TEQ lies in a rigorous factor-analytic solution applied to the items common across multiple established empathy measures. This methodological approach was undertaken to overcome inconsistencies and redundancy found across existing instruments.

The analysis successfully yielded a robust single-factor structure, confirming the scale’s premise that a core, unidimensional component of empathy—the emotional process—could be reliably isolated and measured. This single factor justifies the use of the TEQ as a brief measure that does not require separate subscales for cognitive and affective components.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report Questionnaire/Psychological scale

Format: 16 items, 5-point Likert scale (0=Never to 4=Always/Often)

Language Available: English (Original validation)

Population Group: General population; validated primarily in adult samples.

Age Group: Adults (Typically 18+)

Population Details: Initial validation included diverse adult samples, such as university students and community members, suggesting broad applicability.

Test Methodology: Responses are scored on a linear scale. Scores from negatively worded items are reversed, and all item scores are summed to yield a total score reflecting the degree of affective empathy.

Scoring Information

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire utilizes a 5-point scale where responses range from 0 (Never) to 4 (Always/Often).

The total score is derived by summing the responses across all 16 items, resulting in a minimum possible score of 0 and a maximum possible score of 64. Higher scores indicate a greater degree of affective empathy.

• Direct Scored Items (Positively Worded): Items 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 16 are scored: Never = 0; Rarely = 1; Sometimes = 2; Often = 3; Always = 4.
• Reverse Scored Items (Negatively Worded): Items 2, 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 are reverse scored: Never = 4; Rarely = 3; Sometimes = 2; Often = 1; Always = 0.

Keywords

Affective Resonance, Emotional Sharing, Psychometrics, Factor Analysis, Single Factor, Brief Measure.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Information not provided in source)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Information not provided in source)

Correspondence Address: N/A (Information not provided in source)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire was published in 2009. While the scale items are often reproduced for non-commercial academic research, users are strongly advised to contact the original authors (Spreng et al.) or the journal publisher (Journal of Personality Assessment) to secure necessary permissions, especially for commercial use or translation into new languages.

Test Year: 2009

References

• Spreng, R. N., McKinnon, M. C., Mar, R. A., & Levine, B. (2009). The toronto empathy questionnaire: Scale development and initial validation of a factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 62-71.

Items of the The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Below is a list of statements. Please read each statement carefully and rate how frequently you feel or act in the manner described. Circle your answer on the response form. There are no right or wrong answers or trick questions. Please answer each question as honestly as you can.