Development of the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES)

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a new instrument to measure empathy and sympathy in adolescents that differentiates between empathy and sympathy, and balances its emphasis on affective and cognitive empathy. The psychometric properties of the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES) were established in two studies. In the first study, among 499 adolescents (10-15 years old), the structure of the AMES was investigated and the number of items was reduced. In the second study, among 450 adolescents, test-retest reliability and construct validity of the AMES was evaluated. Results indicate that the AMES met the standards of reliability and validity. By specifically distinguishing between affective empathy and sympathy, the AMES provides a distinct advantage over existing measurement tools and is useful in elucidating the relationship between empathy and behavior in adolescents.

Adaptation of the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES) to Turkish: a validity and reliability study

“…In Kaya and Siyez's 30 study, it was reported that the scale of the adolescent form was α=0.82 for the affective empathy subdimension; α=0.82 for the cognitive empathy subdimension; and α=0.87 for the entire scale and it is similar to the results of our study. Also, the fit indexes (CFI: 0.90; RMSEA: 0.07) obtained in this study are very close to the original study (CFI: 0.94; RMSEA: 0.07) of the scale Vossen et al 9 conducted.…”

“…Furthermore, the test-retest reliability of the scale performed in a two week period is moderate and consistent with other empathy scales. 9,36 These results support the reliability of the AMES.…”

“…The internal consistency coefficients in the original study of Vossen et al 9 were reported to be α=0.76 for the sympathy subdimension; α=0.86 for the cognitive empathy subdimension; and α=0.75 for the affective empathy subdimension. Bora and Baysan 37 found their Empathy Scale's Cronbach α to be 0.82 and Topcu et al 29 found the cognitive subdimension to be α=0.80 and the affective empathy subdimension to be α=0.76 for the Basic Empathy Scale.…”

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Media Violence and Empathy: Was It Sympathy All Along?

“…Moreover, affective and cognitive empathy are differential predictors of certain behaviors. For instance, researchers have demonstrated that affective empathy is negatively related to physical aggression, while cognitive empathy is not (Vossen, Piotrowski, & Valkenburg, 2015;Yeo, Ang, Loh, Fu, & Karre, 2011). This indicates that individuals with a high tendency to share the feelings of others may instantly feel the emotional distress of the victim when engaging in physical aggressive acts.…”

“…The Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES) was used at both time points (Vossen et al, 2015). This measure consists of 12 statements that measure affective empathy (4 items), cognitive empathy (4 items), and sympathy (4 items).…”