Self-report measure

Empathic Concern

Empathic Concern uses 7 International Personality Item Pool statements to assess Empathic Concern.

You learn how much warmth and concern you feel for others in difficulty.

For anyone curious about how strongly they feel for people who are struggling.

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Report and PDF $4, paid after you finish.

Your answers stay private.

It comes from empathy research on warm, other-focused concern.

Sample result, example data. Illustrative chart with invented scores; it does not describe any real respondent.

What this test is

Welcome. Empathic Concern uses 7 International Personality Item Pool statements to assess Empathic Concern.

The measure

The Empathic Concern was developed by Davis (1983). It has 7 items, each answered on a 5-point (Does Not Describe Me Well … Describes Me Very Well) scale.

Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. Items hosted at ipip.ori.org.

At a glance

Items

Response scale

5-point (Does Not Describe Me Well … Describes Me Very Well)

Est. time

~1 min

Access

Free to take · Full report and PDF for $4, or $2 to repeat

What it measures

Seven statements describe compassion for others: feeling tender and concerned for people less fortunate than oneself, feeling protective toward someone being taken advantage of, being touched by things one sees happen, and feeling sorry for people having problems. The scale concerns feeling for others, not simply understanding them.

Davis (1983) distinguished empathic concern from perspective-taking, personal distress and fantasy as one of four components of empathy. Empathic concern is the other-oriented emotional component, and later work found it closely associated with helping. The statements here come from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) and parallel Davis's scale.

The ratings are combined into a single score. Higher scores describe stronger and more frequent feelings of compassion; lower scores describe a more detached response to others' difficulties. Low scores do not imply unkindness, since people may help for reasons other than felt compassion.

The scale is used in research on empathy, helping and relationships. On this site, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) Battery measures all four components together, the Perspective-Taking scale measures the cognitive side of empathy, and the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) treats empathy as a single trait.

Example item

“I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”

Does Not Describe Me WellSlightly Describes MeSomewhat Describes MeMostly Describes MeDescribes Me Very Well

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Scoring & interpretation

Your report explains each of your scale scores in plain language.

References

Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126.
International Personality Item Pool. A Scientific Collaboratory for the Development of Advanced Measures of Personality Traits and Other Individual Differences. https://ipip.ori.org/

Sample report preview

The report shows your total score and where it falls across the range of possible scores, followed by a plain-language explanation of what scores in that region describe. Where the instrument has published interpretive bands, the report names the band and what it means. It closes with notes on how to read the result and on when a conversation with a qualified professional may be useful.

Report contents
Section	What it shows
Score	Your scale score, computed with the published scoring key.
Comparisons	How your scores compare with a published comparison group.

It is free to take, and the full report with a downloadable copy is $4.

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For yourself

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