Can you measure empathy

Researchers have approached the measurement of empathy from a number of perspectives. None of these measurements are perfect tools. As yet there is no fool-proof test of empathy, yet given its growing importance within cognitive neuroscience, it won't be long before there is one.

The advent of functional neuroimaging is making it possible to see beneath surface behaviour, to establish if the typical neural circuitry for empathy is or is not being employed, when someone says they care.

Simon Baron-Cohen A systematic review of tests of empathy in medicine 1 A systematic review of tests of empathy in medicine 2 'Empathy is frequently cited as an important attribute in physicians and some groups have expressed a desire to measure empathy either at selection for medical school or during medical or postgraduate training.

In order to do this, a reliable and valid test of empathy is required. The purpose of this systematic review is to determine the reliability and validity of existing tests for the assessment of medical empathy. The consultation and relational empathy CARE measure: development and preliminary validation and reliability of an empathy-based consultation process measure "In this paper, we have reported the development and preliminary validation of a new process measure based on a broad definition of clinical empathy, in the context of the clinical encounter.

We have called this the CARE measure. Making you feel at ease 2. Letting you tell your story 3. Really listening 4. Being interested in you as a whole person 5. Fully understanding your concerns 6. Showing care and compassion 7. Being positive 8. Explaining things clearly 9. Helping you to take control Making a plan of action with you". Both autism spectrum disorders ASD and conduct disorders CD have been described as disorders with empathy impairment.

While most instruments assessing empathy focused rather on one component of empathy, the Multifaceted Empathy Test MET was designed to measure cognitive and emotional empathy simultaneously and independently using a series of photorealistic stimuli.

The instrument contains four seven-item subscales, each tapping a separate facet of empathy. The perspective taking PT scale measures the reported tendency to spontaneously adopt the psychological point of view of others in everyday life "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective".

The empathic concern EC scale assesses the tendency to experience feelings of sympathy and compassion for unfortunate others "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me". I daydream and fantasize, with some regularity, about things that might happen to me.

I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me. I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the "other guy's" point of view. Sometimes I don't feel very sorry for other people when they are having problems. In three studies, the TEQ demonstrated strong convergent validity, correlating positively with behavioral measures of social decoding, self-report measures of empathy, and negatively with a measure of Autism symptomatology.

Moreover, it exhibited good internal consistency and high test-retest reliability. The TEQ is a brief, reliable, and valid instrument for the assessment of empathy. Empathy Scale Hogan, Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale Mehrabian, Emotion Specific Empathy Questionnaire , by Sally Olderbak "Empathy refers to the thoughts and feelings of one individual in response to the observed emotional experiences of another individual.

Empathy, however, can occur toward persons experiencing a variety of emotions, raising the question of whether or not empathy can be emotion specific. This paper discusses theoretical and empirical support for the emotion specificity of empathy. We present a new measure, the Emotion Specific Empathy questionnaire, which assesses affective and cognitive empathy for the six basic emotions.

This paper presents the measure's psychometric qualities and demonstrates, through a series of models, the discriminant validity between emotion specific empathies suggesting empathy is emotion specific.

Results and implications are discussed. In this article we review psychological theories of empathy and its measurement. Previous instruments that purport to measure this have not always focused purely on empathy.

We report a new self-report questionnaire, the Empathy Quotient EQ , for use with adults of normal intelligence. Development and validation of the Basic Empathy Scale 'In developing the Basic Empathy Scale BES , 40 items measuring affective and cognitive empathy were administered to adolescents in Year 10 aged about Factor analysis reduced this to a item scale that was administered 1 year later to different adolescents in Year 10 in the same schools.

Confirmatory factor analysis verified the two-factor solution. Females scored higher than males on both affective and cognitive empathy'. Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, A item questionnaire measuring components of empathy among physicians in patient-care setting. An important component of the relationship with my patients is my understanding of the emotional status of themselves and their familie s.

Jefferson Scale of Empathy. Kagan Affective Sensitivity Scale. The scale consists of multiple-choice items used with a series of short videotaped excerpts from actual counseling sessions. Data are presented indicating the scale's reliability, the extent of the content, and the concurrent and predictive validity. The scale is unaffected by pre- or posttest practice effect. Indications are that high scores on the scale are a necessary but not a sufficient condition of counselor effectiveness.

Some technical limitations are present in the scale, but it shows promise of being an appropriate model for a more refined instrument. Hogan's empathy EM scale Hogan The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire "Scale development and initial validation of a factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures.

In order to formulate a parsimonious tool to assess empathy, we used factor analysis on a combination of self-report measures to examine consensus and developed a brief self-report measure of this common factor.

It is a completely new scale and is based on a substantial amount of research evidence derived with an earlier scale developed in my laboratory.

Self-Compassion Scales for researchers. Long Version of the Self-Compassion Scale. Short Version of the Self-Compassion Scale. Compassion for Others Scales. Test how self-compassionate you are.

Even small portions of recorded interviews can be reliably rated by this scale. The nature of the scale may be indicated by giving the definition of Stage 1, which is the lowest level of empathic understanding, and Stage 8, which is a very high though not the highest degree of empathy.

Here is Stage 1 : Therapist seems completely unaware of even the most conspicuous of the client's feelings. His responses are not appropriate to the mood and content of the client's feelings. His responses are not appropriate to the mood and content of the client's statements and there is no determinable quality of empathy, hence, no accuracy whatsoever.

The therapist may be bored and disinterested or actively offering advice, but he is not communicating an awareness of the client's current feelings Truax, , pp. Stage 8 is defined as follows: Therapist accurately interprets all the client's present acknowledged feelings. He also uncovers the most deeply shrouded of the client's feeling areas, voicing meanings in the client's experience of which the client is scarcely aware He moves into feelings and experiences that are only hinted at by the client and does so with sensitivity and accuracy.

The content that comes to life may be new but it is not alien. While the therapist in Stage 8 makes mistakes, mistakes do not have a jarring note but are covered by the tentative character of the response.

Also the therapist is sensitive to his mistakes and quickly alters or changes his responses in midstream, indicating that he more clearly knows what is being talked about and what is being sought after in the client's own explorations. The therapist reflects a togetherness with the patient in tentative trial and error exploration.

His voice tone reflects the seriousness and depth of his empathic grasp. Truax,, p. Responding to the surface message of the caller but omitting feelings or factual aspects of the message.

Inappropriately qualifying feelings e. Level 2 responses are only partially accurate, but they show an effort to understand Level 3: Interchangeable or Reciprocal Level of Empathic Responding. Level 4 responses thus are aimed at enhancing self-awareness.

Level 5: High Level of Empathic Responding. H Patterson. The more experienced the therapist, the more likely they are empathic. Evidently therapists do learn, as the years go by, to come closer to their ideal of a therapist, and to be more sensitively understanding. The degree of empathy which exists and will exist in the relationship can be determined very early, in the fifth or even the second interview.

Such early measurements are predictive of the later success or lack of success in therapy Barrett-Lennard, ; Tausch, The implication of these findings is that we could avoid a great deal of unsuccessful therapy, by measuring the therapist's empathy early on. Some of the items from this instrument, indicating the range from empathic to non-empathic, follow:. He appreciates what my experience feels like to me.

He understands what I say from a detached, objective point of view. He understands my words but not the way I feel. Perhaps then it is not too surprising that therapists prove to be rather inaccurate in assessing their own degree of empathy in a relationship.

The client's perception of this quality agrees rather well with that of unbiased judges listening to the recordings, but the agreement between clients and therapists, or judges and therapists, is low Rogers, Gendlin, Kiesier and Truax, , Chs. Perhaps, if we wish to become better therapists, we should let our clients tell us whether we are understanding them accurately! Empathy Quotient "The Empathy Quotient EQ is a item questionnaire there is also a shorter, item version designed to measure empathy in adults.

The Empathy Quotient EQ "The Empathy Quotient is intended to measure how easily you pick up on other people's feelings and how strongly you are affected by other people's feelings. Please read each of the 60 following statements very carefully and rate how strongly you agree or disagree with them by circling your answer. There are no right or wrong answers, or trick questions. How to take the test 1. Print out this page and circle your answers. Work out your EQ score using the points system explained at the bottom of this page.

A large chunk of empathy research has focused on investigating the variables associated with empathy as a stable disposition. Dispositional empathy has been measured either by relying on the reports of others particularly in case of children or, most often in researching empathy in adults , by relying on the administration of various questionnaires associated with specific empathy scales.

These questionnaires reflect the multiplicity of empathy conceptions in psychology, since each understands itself as operationalizing a different definition of empathy.

From almost thousand questions, Hogan chose those questions in response to which he found two groups of people—who were independently identified as either low-empathy or high-empathy individuals—as showing significant differences in their answers. Yet, even though the QMEE distinguishes between these aspects of empathy on a conceptual level, it only assigns a total empathy score to individuals completing the questionnaire.

Remarkably, no significant correlation has been found between the scores on various empathy scales and the measurement of empathic accuracy. If any, only a negligibly small effect has been found between empathic accuracy and affective empathy as measured by QMEE and the empathic concern and personal distress subscales in the IRI Davis and Kraus Yet, if empathy plays a central role in establishing social relations among agents, one would expect to find a more positive correlation between the measurement of cognitive empathy as a stable disposition and empathic accuracy.

Davis and Kraus do not take such lack of correlation as an indication of a fundamental failure in the conception of the empathy questionnaires. Rather, it indicates a principal limitation of any empathy scale relying on self-reports.

They speculate, following Ickes , , chap. Within this interpretive framework, there is nothing in principle wrong with the questions asked to determine our empathic abilities.

People with DPD did not show a global empathy deficit, but reported less social competence. Conclusions: The EQ is a valid, reliable scale and the different subscales may have clinical applications. Abstract Background: Empathy plays a key role in social understanding, but its empirical measurement has proved difficult.

Publication types Research Support, Non-U.