CHAPTER
10
Measures of Empathy: Self-Report, Behavioral,
and Neuroscientific Approaches
David. L. Neumann1, Raymond C.K. Chan2, Gregory. J. Boyle3,
Yi Wang2and H. Rae Westbury1
1Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia;2Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;3University of
Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
The measurement of empathy presents a serious challenge for researchers in disciplines ranging from social
psychology, individual differences, and clinical psychology. Part of this challenge stems from the lack of a clear,
universal definition for empathy. Titchener (1909) used the term to describe how people may objectively enter
into the experience of another to gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of their experiences. However,
contemporary definitions are much more complex and highlight a range of cognitive, affective, and physiological
mechanisms. For example, Batson (2009) noted eight conceptualizations: (a) knowing another’s emotional and
cognitive state; (b) matching the posture or neural response of another; (c) feeling the same as another; (d) pro-
jecting oneself into another’s situation; (e) imagining how another is feeling and thinking; (f) imagining how one
would think and feel in another’s situation; (g) feeling distress for the suffering of another; and (h) feeling for
another person who is suffering. Furthermore, empathy overlaps with related, although distinct, constructs such
as compassion and sympathy ( Decety & Lamm, 2009; Hoffman, 2007; Preston & de Waal, 2002 ).
A review of the major definitions of empathy over the past 20 years reveals that there is no single definition
that is consistently cited; indeed, the multitude of definitions is often cited as a distinct feature of the field (e.g.,
Batson, 2009; Gerdes, Segal, & Lietz, 2010 ). Despite this disparity, some commonality can be seen across defini-
tions, and comprehensive theoretical conceptualizations have been provided (e.g., Preston & de Waal, 2002 ). At a
broad level empathy involves an inductive affective ( feeling ) and cognitive evaluative ( knowing ) process that
allows the individual to vicariously experience the feelings and understand the given situation of another
(Hoffman, 2007 ). Its presence or absence is related to autonomic nervous system activity ( Bradley, Codispoti,
Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001; Levenson & Ruef, 1992 ) and overt behaviors that are augmented by affective intensity
and cognitive accuracy ( Ickes, Stinson, Bissonette, & Garcia, 1990; Plutchik, 1990 ). Further, empathy is a funda-
mental emotional and motivational component that facilitates sympathy and prosocial behavior ( responding com-
passionately )(Thompson & Gullone, 2003 ).
Researchers have used various approaches to measure empathy with instruments dating back to the 1940s
(e.g., Dymond, 1949 ). Largely, as a consequence of the cognitively oriented psychological zeitgeist of the mid-
20th century, empathy measurement was heavily influenced by cognitive approaches, although there were some
notable emotion-based measures (e.g., the Emotional Empathic Tendency Scale; Mehrabian, & Epstein, 1972 ).
Prominent examples of such measures from the mid-20th century include the Diplomacy Test of Empathic
Ability ( Kerr, 1960 ) and Hogan’s (1969) Empathy Scale. In the 1980s to 1990s, social and developmental psycholo-
gists emphasized the multiplicity of empathy in terms of physiologically linked affective states ( Batson, 1987 ),
cognitive processing, or a self-awareness of these feelings ( Batson et al., 1997 ), and emotion regulation ( Eisenberg
257Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386915-9.00010-3 ©2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.