What is compassion and how can we measure it? A review of definitions and measures.

By C. Strauss, Billie Lever Taylor, Jenny Gu, W. Kuyken, Ruth A. Baer, Fergal W. Jones, Kate Cavanagh. Clinical Psychology Review, 2016

881 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The importance of compassion is widely recognized and it is receiving increasing research attention. Yet, there is lack of consensus on definition and a paucity of psychometrically robust measures of this construct. Without an agreed definition and adequate measures, we cannot study compassion, measure compassion or evaluate whether interventions designed to enhance compassion are effective. In response, this paper proposes a definition of compassion and offers a systematic review of self- and observer-rated measures. Following consolidation of existing definitions, we propose that compassion consists of five elements: recognizing suffering, understanding the universality of human suffering, feeling for the person suffering, tolerating uncomfortable feelings, and motivation to act/acting to alleviate suffering. Three databases were searched (Web of Science, PsycInfo, and Medline) and nine measures included and rated for quality. Quality ratings ranged from 2 to 7 out of 14 with low ratings due to poor internal consistency for subscales, insufficient evidence for factor structure and/or failure to examine floor/ceiling effects, test-retest reliability, and discriminant validity. We call our five-element definition, and if supported, the development of a measure of compassion based on this operational definition, and which demonstrates adequate psychometric properties.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/205fb22c8dac225b0b2129d4fb6448681af1165f

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Citations in the corpus

Charities Can Increase the Effectiveness of Donation Appeals by Using a Morally Congruent Positive Emotion (2019, background): “Compassion is defined as the feeling that arises when one sees the suffering of a vulnerable person and emotionally connects with their distress (Goetz, Keltner, and SimonThomas 2010; Oveis, Horberg, and Keltner 2010; Strauss et al. 2016).”
Self-Compassion: Theory, Method, Research, and Intervention. (2022, background): “Strauss et al. (2016) proposed that both self-compassion and compassion for others involve five key elements: (a) recognizing suffering; (b) understanding the universality of suffering in the human experience; (c) feeling empathy for the person suffering; (d) tolerating uncomfortable feelings in…”
The development of compassionate engagement and action scales for self and others (2017, background): “In a recent major review Strauss, et al. [111] suggests the following “… .we propose a new definition of compassion as a cognitive, affective, and behavioral process consisting of the following five elements that refer to both self-and other-compassion: 1) Recognizing suffering; 2) Understanding…”
A Meta-Analysis of Compassion-Based Interventions: Current State of Knowledge and Future Directions. (2017, neutral): “In a recent review Strauss et al. (2016) highlighted how there are a general lack of self-report measures available for measuring compassion, and this is one of the limitations of the field. limitations This review is limited by the number and quality of studies included.”