Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES)

This instrument was designed to measure and differentiate empathy and sympathy in adolescents and balance its emphasis on affective and cognitive empathy. The Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES), (1) balances the emphasis on affective empathy and cognitive empathy, (2) uses unambiguous wording and (3) distinguishes between empathy and sympathy. The three subscores are affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and sympathy.  

Content

Domains
Social Awareness
Subdomain

Empathy, Affective Empathy, Cognitive Empathy, Sympathy

Grades
7th Grade,
8th Grade,
9th Grade,
10th Grade,
11th Grade,
12th Grade
Languages
English,
Chinese
Respondent
Student

Administration Information

Length
12 items
Administration
Paper

Access and Use

Price

Free

Contact

Dr. Helen Vossen

Email: h.g.m.vossen@uu.nl

Open Access
Yes
Use in Research

Bloom, Z. D., McNeil, V. A., Flasch, P., & Sanders, F. (2018). A comparison of empathy and sympathy between counselors-in-training and Their non-counseling academic peers. Professional Counselor8(4), 341-354. https://doi.org/10.15241/zdb.8.4.341

Vossen, H. G., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2016). Do social media foster or curtail adolescents’ empathy? A longitudinal study. Computers in Human Behavior63, 118-124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.040

Vossen, H. G., Piotrowski, J. T., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2017). The longitudinal relationship between media violence and empathy: Was it sympathy all along?. Media Psychology20(2), 175-193. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2015.1121825

Psychometrics

Scoring
Manual scoring
Psychometric References

Murphy, B. A., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2019). Are self-report cognitive empathy ratings valid proxies for cognitive empathy ability? Negligible meta-analytic relations with behavioral task performance. Psychological Assessment31(8), 1062. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/pas0000732 

Bloom, Z. D., & Lambie, G. W. (2020). The Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy in a sample of emerging adults. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development53(2), 89-103. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2019.1667243 

Li, H., Tan, J. W., & Ying, P. X. (2019). Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal47(6), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.8007 

Vossen, H.G.M., Piotrowski, J.T., Valkenburg, P.M. (2015). Development and validation of the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES). Personality and Individual Differences, 74, 66-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.09.040

Item Type
Likert

Psychometric Considerations

Psychometrics is the science of psychological assessment. A primary goal of EdInstruments is to provide information on crucial psychometric topics including Validity and Reliability – essential concepts of evaluation, which indicate how well an instrument measures a construct - as well as additional properties that are worthy of consideration when selecting an instrument of measurement.

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