Abstract
ABSTRACT Recent reviews of the emapthy literature have revealed that nearly half of the published studies on empathy employed an empathy measure that did not align precisely with the theoretical definition the author provided. This may occur because researchers might not know what each published empathy scale actually measures. The present research begins to address this problem by reporting a large set of correlates for five different empathy scales to enable researchers to review the interpersonal traits and abilities each scale predicted. Participants (N = 182) completed the Davis IRI and the empirically derived Hogan Empathy Scale (HES). Each empathy scale produced its own unique pattern of correlates with empathy related traits that more or less supported each scale’s description. However, none of the five scales reliably predicted empathy related abilities. We discuss the importance of examining a scale’s predictive validity over its reliability, face-validity, popularity, or name.
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