The Measurement of Empathy

In this paper we examine the recent literature on the predicitve test of empathy, propose another procedure for scoring predictive empathy tests, and present some data suggestive of the relationship between various predictive measures which have been described in the literature. We attempt to demonstrate that a significant source of confusion in the literature, and particularly in the published critiques of the predictive test, results from important conceptual and methodological differences in the approaches of psychologically and sociologically oriented social psychologists to the study of empathy. The measure we propose permits precise segregation of "likeness bias" or projection but does not permit simultaneous segregation of "unlikeness bias" or reverse projection.