A Comparison of the Construct Validities of Four Measures of Empathy

Abstract

Various scales and inventories purport to measure effective/cognitive empathy. This article discusses four frequently used measures of empathy: Truax's Accurate Empathy Scale; Cark-huff's Empathic Understanding Scale; Barrett-Lennard's Relationship Inventory; and Truax's Relationship Inventory. Rogers's concepts served as a basis for six evaluative criteria: entering the perceptual world of another; empathy as an aesthetic state; suspension of personal value systems; empathy as a process; communication of empathic understanding; and additive empathy. None of the measures met all six criteria. Feldstein and Gladstein concluded that further evidence is needed of these scales' construct validities. If empathy is perceived as strictly a verbal skill, however, all four measures are promising. The authors recommend that several types of empathy measures be used in research, evaluation, and training, and they make several suggestions for creating new instruments to assess the aesthetic aspects of empathy.