Cognitive and Affective Empathy Psychology Test (TECA)

Evidence Based

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The Cognitive and Affective Empathy test emerges as a resource that is as useful as it is interesting. Its purpose is to evaluate the degree to which we are capable of not only connecting and feeling the emotions of others, but also understanding them.

The Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test YO. Fernández Pinto, B. López-Pérez, F. José García Abad It is an instrument as complete as it is easy to apply.. Since its publication in 2008, it has emerged as a highly valid and reliable resource to evaluate the dimension of empathy, from those two components that define it: the cognitive area and the affective area.

A little over a year ago an interesting book titled The empathy effect. In it, Helen Riess, professor at Harvard University and director of the empathy program at Massachusett General Hospital, analyzed the lack of this dimension in the medical and organizational field.

As she herself explained, many of those People who today have a position of responsibility towards others, continue to fail in this very basic competence.

One can be exceptionally skilled and effective in his or her job. You may have numerous studies, a high IQ and a leadership position. However, If empathy fails, a void arises. It is a crack that weakens the ability to maintain empathetic communication, to understand others and reach agreements, create alliances, bonds and where, ultimately, deploy adequate Emotional Intelligence.

Therefore, having adequate resources where we can measure this dimension can be of great help.. On the one hand, we have the opportunity to make use of them in such notable areas as the social, organizational and clinical.

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Likewise, with tests such as the Cognitive and Affective Empathy test, we can make a person aware of their limitation in empathic matters and assume the responsibility of working on it.

“If your emotional skills are not skillful, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you can’t manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, no matter how smart you are, you won’t get very far.”

-Daniel Goleman-

Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test (TECA): purpose, characteristics and reliability

The Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test (TECA) was developed with very specific purposes. The first, having a rigorous and simple tool to apply in various areas. The second, to shape a questionnaire capable of offering us a global measure of the empathy of the person evaluated.

Thereforethe purpose of TECA is none other than to measure empathic capacity from a cognitive and affective approach.. Fernandez, et al. (2008), authors of this test, consider that empathy is a fundamental phenomenon within the study of human behavior. Therefore, having this resource is as necessary as it is interesting.

Let’s therefore see more information about this test.

What are its areas of application?

The Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test (TECA) can be applied from 16 years of age. We can therefore use this resource in the educational field, however, this test was developed with the idea of being useful in three very specific scenarios. They are the following:

Clinical setting: to evaluate the relationship of empathy in psychological disorders as well as in delinquent or criminal behavior.Social ambit: In this scenario, TECA is very interesting to better understand prosocial behaviors, moral behavior, aggressiveness, etc.Organizational area: As expected, empathy continues to be key when creating better work scenarios, improving the work environment, reducing stress, optimizing communication, productivity, etc.

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The four scales of the Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test (TECA)

The Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test (TECA) consists of 33 items (questions) with a response typology likert style, That is, the person evaluated must choose between “totally disagree, agree, undecided, disagree and totally disagree.” Likewise, it should be noted that this instrument is proposed with the idea of evaluating the two basic components of empathy, which are the following:

Cognitive empathy: ability to identify and understand other people’s emotions.Affective empathy: ability to feel and connect with the emotions, sensations and feelings of others.

On the other hand, and in order to evaluate these two areas, the Cognitive and Affective Empathy test is structured into four scales:

Perspective Taking: cognitive ability we have to be able to understand the vision, thoughts and perspectives of others.Emotional understanding: refers to that ability when connecting with the emotions, impressions and intentions that those around me may have.empathic stress: This dimension refers to our competence (or not) to tune in to the negative emotions of others.Empathic joy. In contrast to the previous scale, empathic joy refers to the ability to understand and detect the positive emotions of those around me.

Is the TECA test reliable?

López-Pérez, Fernández-Pinto and Abad (2008), authors of the Cognitive and Affective Empathy test, managed to create a valid, reliable test and very simple to apply (in fact, it takes just over 10 minutes). Likewise, its ranking is based on percentile scores obtained from a large sample of the general population of adult men and women.

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It is an instrument with high reliability, very useful for evaluating people from 16 years of age and which stands as an excellent resource for any company, workplace, health center or social organization. Empathy is that dimension that we should all understand much more and, of course, enhance, and this test can help us.