Adaptation of the Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS) and gender differences within the Greek cultural context

BACKGROUND: The Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS) is a self-report scale used to measure individual differences in susceptibility to converge towards the emotions expressed by others. The main aim of the present paper was to examine the psychometric properties of the Greek translation of the scale. METHODS: The Greek ECS was completed by 691 undergraduate students (312 males and 379 females). To investigate the factor structure of the ECS, principal components analysis (PCA) was used. RESULTS: The results showed that a four-factor model was tenable. Regarding homogeneity, the Greek ECS version showed acceptable results for the full scale (α = 0.74) but not for all subscales. Gender differences were also identified concerning the susceptibility to emotional contagion between men and women. Women score significantly higher than men for all the different emotions described by the ECS (love, happiness, sadness) except the anger emotion, where there was no significant difference. CONCLUSION: The Greek version of the ECS showed good psychometric properties. It can be used to assess susceptibility to emotional contagion in correlation with psychopathological processes, mood and anxiety disorders primarily. The usefulness of the ECS in the fields of group psychotherapy and health psychology is also under consideration. Further investigation is needed in all these areas.