Janelt Tobias, Altmann Tobias, Gubler Danièle Anne, Roth Marcus
Department of Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2025 Sep 9;20(9):e0331953. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331953. eCollection 2025.
The susceptibility to emotional contagion has been psychometrically addressed by the self-reported Emotional Contagion Scale. With the present research, we validated a German adaptation of this scale and developed a mimicry brief version by selecting only the four items explicitly addressing the overt subprocess of mimicry. Across three studies (N1 = 195, N2 = 442, N3 = 180), involving various external measures of empathy, general personality domains, emotion recognition, and other constructs, the total German Emotional Contagion Scale demonstrated sound convergent and discriminant validity. A bi-factor model provided acceptable fit, suggesting the factorial validity of the total scale, which is aimed to measure a general factor, representing the susceptibility to emotional contagion. Longitudinal analyses across four measurement occasions revealed high temporal stabilities for the total scale across periods of up to 1 year as well as longitudinal measurement invariance of the factor loadings and partial invariance of the intercepts and residuals. The correlation pattern of the mimicry short version was comparable to the total Emotional Contagion Scale's correlation pattern, the unidimensional factor structure was confirmed, and it also demonstrated high temporal stabilities and longitudinal invariance. The present research underscores the relevance of susceptibility to emotional contagion and mimicry as personality constructs and provides valid measurement tools for assessing them in future research and practical contexts (e.g., assessment in the clinical or work context).
情绪感染易感性已通过自我报告的情绪感染量表从心理测量学角度进行了研究。在本研究中，我们验证了该量表的德语改编版，并通过仅选择明确涉及模仿明显子过程的四个项目开发了一个模仿简短版。在三项研究（N1 = 195，N2 = 442，N3 = 180）中，涉及共情、一般人格领域、情绪识别和其他构念的各种外部测量，德语情绪感染总量表显示出良好的收敛效度和区分效度。一个双因素模型提供了可接受的拟合度，表明总量表的因素效度，该量表旨在测量一个代表情绪感染易感性的一般因素。在四个测量场合进行的纵向分析显示，总量表在长达1年的时间内具有较高的时间稳定性，以及因素载荷的纵向测量不变性和截距与残差的部分不变性。模仿简短版的相关模式与情绪感染总量表的相关模式相当，确认了单维因素结构，并且它也显示出较高的时间稳定性和纵向不变性。本研究强调了情绪感染易感性和模仿作为人格构念的相关性，并为在未来研究和实际情境（如临床或工作情境中的评估）中评估它们提供了有效的测量工具。
