Empathy Tests and Measurements

How can we measure and test empathy?

Empathy Questionnaires Table - Compiled by Jonathan Friesem
A handy table of different Empathy Questionnaires, located at the bottom of this page.

Wikipedia.org/Empathy#Measurement
"Research into the measurement of empathy has sought to answer a number of questions: who should be carrying out the measurement? What should pass for empathy and what should be discounted? What unit of measure (UOM) should be adopted and to what degree should each occurrence precisely match that UOM are also key questions that researchers have sought to investigate.Researchers have approached the measurement of empathy from a number of perspectives."

Measuring Empathy - Plato.standford.edu
'Psychologists distinguish between measurements of situational empathy—that is, empathic reactions in a specific situation—and measurements of dispositional empathy, where empathy is understood as a person's stable character trait. Situational empathy is measured either by asking subjects about their experiences immediately after they were exposed to a particular situation, by studying the “facial, gestural, and vocal indices of empathy-related responding. or by various physiological measures such as the measurement of heart rate or skin conductance. None of these measurements are perfect tools. '

'Empathic Civilization': Do We Have Empathy Or Are We Just Good Rule Followers?
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.' Empathy may be measured from three different perspectives:

• Self-rating (first person assessment) – the assessment of empathy using standardised questionnaires completed by those being assessed.

• Patient-rating (second person assessment) – the use of questionnaires given to patients to assess the empathy they experience among their carers.

• Observer rating (third person assessment) – the use of standardised assessments by an observer to rate empathy in interactions between health personnel and patients, including the use of 'standardised' or simulated patient encounters to control for observed differences secondary to differences between patients.

Dissociation of Cognitive & Emotional Empathy: Multifaceted Empathy Test for Children & Adolescents
'Background: Empathy, generally defined as the ability to understand and share another peronßs emotional state, is a multidimensional construct, consisting of cognitive (inferring mental states) and emotional (observer's emotional response to another person's emotional state ) components.  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 Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index
'The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980, 1983) is a measure of dispositional empathy that takes as its starting point the notion that empathy consists of a set of separate but related constructs. 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").  ' The following statements inquire about your thoughts and feelings in a variety of situations

1. I daydream and fantasize, with some regularity, about things that might happen to me.
2. I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.
3. I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the "other guy's" point of view.
4. Sometimes I don't feel very sorry for other people when they are having problems.
.......

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 363 adolescents in Year 10 (aged about 15). Factor analysis reduced this to a 20-item scale that was administered 1 year later to 357 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 20-item questionnaire measuring components of empathy among physicians in patient-care setting. The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) was developed by researchers at the Center for Research in Medical Education and Health Care (CRMEHC) at Jefferson Medical College to measure empathy among physicians, health professionals and medical students. Article as PDF with 20 questions (98 KB)

1.  I try to imagine myself in my patients’ shoes when providing care to them.

2.  My understanding of my patients’ feelings gives them a sense of validation that is therapeutic in its own
   right.

3. An important component of the relationship with my patients is my understanding of the emotional status
   of themselves and their families.
   ..20

Hogan's empathy (EM) scale (Hogan 1969)

Defines empathy as ‘‘the intellectual or imaginative apprehension of another’s condition or state of mind (Hogan, 1969).’’ 64-item scale.

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. The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) represents empathy as a primarily emotional process. 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. "

Balanced Emotional Empathy Test (BEES)
The Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) measures both of the aforementioned components of Emotional Empathy (i.e., vicarious experience of others' feelings; interpersonal positiveness) in a balanced way. 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

"Accurate Empathy Scale - Truax
 (Expert from Carl Rogers  Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being)

Then there is the Accurate Empathy Scale, devised by Truax and others for use by raters (Truax, 1967). 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, 1967, pp. 556-7).

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,1967, p. 566)."

 (Expert from Carl Rogers  Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being)
 "The more experienced the therapist, the more likely he is to be empathic.

Experienced therapists offer a higher degree of empathy to their clients than less experienced, whether we are assessing this quality through the client's perception or through the ears of qualified judges (Barrett- Lennard, 1962; Fiedler, 1949, 1950a; Mullen and Abeles, 1972). Evidently therapists do learn, as the years go by, to come closer to their ideal of a therapist, and to be more sensitively understanding."

Reflective Listening Tests

One person (John) shares a story, experience, feeling, etc with someone else (Jane).  Jane reflects back what she hears John say. John says how well he has been heard and empathized with.

Reading Peoples Expressions

Quick Guide - Emotion Test
Welcome to the quick guide to the Emotion Test. The Emotion Test is part of the Global Cognitive Empathy Study. Take part today - go to www.cognisess.com


 

Reading the mind in the eyes
	'For each pair of eyes, choose which word best describes what the person in the picture is thinking or feeling. When you've answered all the questions, press the 'Get score' button at the bottom to see your results.'

 

Reading the mind in the eyes
	For each set of eyes, choose which word best describes that the person is thinking or feeling.

 

DVD Mind Reading demo

'Mind Reading is a unique reference work covering the entire spectrum of human emotions. Using the software you can explore over 400 emotions, seeing and hearing each one performed by six different people.'

• View Shockwave Demo

  • Emotions Library:

  • Learning Center:

  • Game: Try out the game to identify the emotions

Yawning test
 

Tracing the Origins of Human Empathy
	In a group of people, if one person yawns, the first person to catch the yawn would be the most empathic. A recent report from The Wall Street Journal’s Science Journal columnist Robert Lee Hotz, on empathy in primates and other animals (”Tracing the Origins of Human Empathy”). (Yawning, mirroring, Frans de Wal, Kevin Ochsner, brain studies, mirror neurons, identifying with certain close groups)

Contagious Yawning Empathy Test
 
It has long been known that yawning is contagious among humans. Scientific studies have started to link contagious yawning with the emotional response known as empathy. Try watching this short video and count how many times you yawn.
 

Writing the E for Empathy on your Forehead test
Ask someone to draw a a capital E on their forehead. Do they write it so they can see it our so that others can see it?

Draw the Letter E on our forehead test
Then ask him to take that extended finger and draw a capital E on his forehead. Does he draw the letter so that it faces him – that is, backward to a person looking at him? Or does he draw the letter so that the viewer can read it? Neither way is right or wrong. But the direction of that letter might tell you something about the disposition of that leader.  [the more empathic person draws it so others can read it]

The University of Michigan test - American college students test

Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students Over Time: A Meta-Analysis Personality and Social Psychology Review  Sara H. Konrath, Edward H. O'Brien, Courtney Hsing "The current study examines changes over time in a commonly used measure of dispositional empathy. A cross-temporal meta-analysis was conducted on 72 samples of American college students who completed at least one of the four subscales (Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, Fantasy, and Personal Distress) of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index between 1979 and 2009"

 

 

Social perspective taking: A multidimensional approach
HGSE Assistant Professor Hunter Gehlbach
Gehlbach and HGSE doctoral students Maureen Brinkworth, Ming-Te Wang, and Christopher Wynne have developed a test to measure perspective taking ability – and they invite you to try it. Watch this video of a conversation between Gehlbach and Brinkworth, and then answer the short list of yes-or-no questions below. Then click the submit button, and find out how skillfully you can recognize the feelings that underlie other people's words, gestures, and expressions.

Science of Empathy
'Autism expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen reveals the science behind "the world's most valuable resource" – and how its lack is the root of human cruelty'
See how you fare in our empathy test

Qualtrics Survey
'Please answer ALL of the questions below and when you are done, you will see a screen with your score on it. You will learn how you compare to almost 14,000 college students on empathy. '

Empathy quotient test
Read each of the following 60 statements very carefully and state how strongly you agree or disagree with it. When you've answered all the questions, press the 'Get score' button at the bottom to see your results.
 

Systemizing quotient test
Read each of the following 60 statements very carefully and state how strongly you agree or disagree with it. When you've answered all the questions, press the 'Get score' button at the bottom to see your results.

 

Autism Spectrum quotient test
Read each of the following 50 statements very carefully and state how strongly you agree or disagree with it.


Levels of Empathy
'Empathy can be difficult to measure, so an "empathy scale" is often used by psychologists to characterize degrees of empathy during our verbal exchanges with others.

Level 1: Tuned Out
Level 2: Reptilian or Pretend Listening
Level 3: Connection
Level 3: Advanced Level'

 

 

Empathy test

'The following test measures one's empathy level. Empathy is the ability to feel and comprehend other people's emotions. An empathic person performs an active effort to get in tune with another person, leaving out personal aptitudes such as sympathy, antipathy, fondness and moral judgements.'

 

Test how self-compassionate you are
'Please read each statement carefully before answering. To the left of each item, indicate how often you behave in the stated manner, using the following scale'

 

Are you an Empath? Take the test and find out!
'This test scores you on several categories, including: whether you are an Out of Control Healer, how well you use your own Empathic Protection Tools, how much you Unconsciously Mirror other people, and how Logical vs Intuitive you are. '

 

What’s your EQ (empathy quotient)?  pdf
'This quiz, adapted from a common psychological test of empathy, gauges two key empathy types: concern for others and perspective (the ability to imagine someone’s point of view). For each question, pick a number from 1 to 5, then tally your scores.'

Second Person  Assessment Test

"Clients are better judges of the degree of empathy than are therapists.
 (Expert from Carl Rogers  Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being. This is related to therapists being bad judges of their quality and degree of empathy. This could be applied to anyone)

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, 1967, Chs. 5, 8). Perhaps, if we wish to become better therapists, we should let our clients tell us whether we are understanding them accurately!"

  Ask others to Assess You

 

Observer rating (third person assessment)

Measuring Bodily Chemicals

Measuring Oxytocin Levels

 

Oxytocin Enhances Amygdala-Dependent, Socially Reinforced Learning and Emotional Empathy in Humans
'Oxytocin (OT) is becoming increasingly established as a prosocial neuropeptide in humans with therapeutic potential in treatment of social, cognitive, and mood disorders. However, the potential of OT as a general facilitator of human learning and empathy is unclear. ...A general conclusion from our results is that treatment with an OTR agonist may be a useful therapy in enhancing socially motivated learning and emotional empathy in men. '

 

Measuring Testosterone Levels
 

Extra Testosterone and Reduced Empathy
	A new study for the first time has provided hard data on how administering testosterone under the tongue (sublingually) negatively affects an important marker for empathy.

 
2D:4D ratio. finger Ratio
Digit ratio - Wikipedia
Hand with index finger being shorter than the ring finger, resulting in a small 2D:4D ratio, pointing to a high exposure to testosterone in the uterus.


Genetic Markers for Oxytocin Receptors

Telltale Signs You’ve Got the ‘Love Hormone’ Gene?
Research has shown that people with two G variants of the gene are more empathetic and “prosocial,” showing more compassion, cooperation and positive emotion. In contrast, those with the at least one A version of the gene tend to be less empathetic, may have worse mental health and are more likely to be autistic.

 

fMRI

Others