Compassion for Others Scales

Abstract

The Compassion for Others Scales, professionally recognized in psychometric literature as the Compassion Scale (CS; Pommier, 2011; Pommier et al., 2020), is an empirically validated, multidimensional self-report instrument designed to assess an individual’s propensity to experience compassion toward others who are suffering. Developed as an interpersonal counterpart to Kristin D. Neff’s seminal construct of self-compassion, the scale operationalizes compassion across three core bipolar dimensions yielding six distinct subscales: Kindness versus Indifference, Common Humanity versus Separation, and Mindfulness versus Disengagement. Comprising 24 items administered on a 5-point Likert response metric ranging from 1 (Almost Never) to 5 (Almost Always), the instrument captures cognitive, affective, and behavioral facets of prosocial responsiveness to human distress. Psychometric evaluations across diverse university, community, and clinical cohorts have demonstrated robust construct validity, high internal consistency reliability (α = .87 to .91 for total compassion; α = .67 to .84 across subscales), and reliable test-retest stability. Confirmatory factor analyses support a hierarchical or bifactor structure consisting of six first-order factors loading onto a overarching global compassion construct. The scale exhibits strong convergent validity with measures of dispositional empathy, perspective-taking, altruism, and social connectedness, while maintaining discriminant divergence from emotional distress, personal distress, and self-compassion, confirming that compassion directed inward and compassion directed outward operate as distinct psychological systems.

Keywords

Compassion Scale, Compassion for Others Scales, prosocial behavior, empathy, common humanity, mindfulness, kindness, psychometrics, Elizabeth Pommier, Kristin Neff

Authors

The Compassion Scale was originally developed and psychometrically validated by Elizabeth A. Pommier, Ph.D., as part of her doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin under the academic supervision of Kristin D. Neff, Ph.D.

• Elizabeth A. Pommier, Ph.D. — Department of Educational Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Inquiries regarding scale development may be directed to: [email protected].
• Kristin D. Neff, Ph.D. — Associate Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Correspondence: [email protected].
• Subsequent Validation Collaborators: István Tóth-Király, Ph.D. (Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada), who co-authored the comprehensive psychometric refinement and bifactor validation of the instrument published in Assessment (2020).

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Compassion for Others Scales is to provide psychological science with a theoretically rigorous, standardized, and structurally robust self-report measure of an individual’s trait orientation toward suffering in other human beings. For decades, empirical social psychology investigated prosocial responding predominantly through the related, yet theoretically distinct, frameworks of empathic concern, sympathetic distress, and altruistic behavior (Batson, 1991; Davis, 1983). However, traditional empathy inventories frequently conflate cognitive perspective-taking and affective resonance with visceral personal distress—an aversive self-focused state that often prompts withdrawal or avoidance rather than supportive action.

To overcome these empirical limitations, the Compassion Scale was engineered to measure compassion specifically: an open, mindful awareness of another’s suffering coupled with genuine feelings of warmth, care, a recognition of shared human fallibility, and the non-aversive motivation to alleviate that distress. By explicitly distinguishing compassionate responding from emotional contagion and callous indifference, the instrument establishes an operational foundation for quantitative investigation into prosocial personality, healthcare provider burnout, therapeutic alliance, and social cohesion.

The clinical and research applications of the instrument are wide-ranging:

• Clinical and Counseling Psychology: Evaluating changes in interpersonal warmth, therapeutic alliance capacity, and interpersonal reconciliation in individuals undergoing compassion-focused therapy (CFT), acceptance-based couples therapy, or interventions targeting callous-unemotional traits.
• Medical and Caregiver Environments: Investigating compassion fatigue, professional burnout, and patient satisfaction among physicians, nurses, palliative caregivers, and social workers. The scale allows researchers to differentiate between protective, mindful compassion and self-detrimental emotional over-identification.
• Contemplative Science and Mind-Body Interventions: Tracking the efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), loving-kindness meditation (LKM), and compassion cultivation training (CCT) programs in shifting individuals from avoidance or indifference toward open engagement and benevolence.
• Cross-Cultural and Social Psychological Research: Examining how social categorization, out-group prejudice, and moral inclusion or exclusion alter the perceived common humanity and kindness expressed across ethnic, political, and socio-economic divides.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the Compassion for Others Scales is defined as a multidimensional dispositional orientation characterized by recognizing the suffering of others, experiencing emotional resonance and tenderness toward them, acknowledging suffering as a universal aspect of the shared human condition, and adopting a balanced, non-avoidant awareness of their distress. Reflecting Neff’s tripartite model of self-compassion adapted into an interpersonal orientation, the construct is conceptualized across three bipolar dialectics, which unfold into six specific dimensions:

1. Kindness

The Kindness subscale (items 6, 8, 16, 24) assesses an active emotional disposition of benevolence, warmth, care, and emotional availability toward individuals facing adversity. Rather than remaining passive observers of distress, individuals scoring high on this dimension express an emotional reaching-out (“My heart goes out to people who are unhappy”) and a behavioral inclination to comfort and support those in pain (“If I see someone going through a difficult time, I try to be caring toward that person”).

2. Indifference

The Indifference subscale (items 2, 12, 14, 18) assesses cold detachment, apathy, unconcern, and emotional dismissal in the presence of another person’s difficulties. Elevated scores reflect callous disinterest (“Sometimes when people talk about their problems, I feel like I don’t care”) and a conscious deflection of interpersonal responsibility (“When others are feeling troubled, I usually let someone else attend to them”). In the aggregate compassion model, these items are reverse-scored to signify the presence of warmth and concern.

3. Common Humanity

The Common Humanity subscale (items 11, 15, 17, 20) evaluates the cognitive appreciation that suffering, imperfection, vulnerability, and mortality are intrinsic parts of the universal human condition. Rather than viewing an afflicted person as anomalous, flawed, or personally defective, high common humanity situates the sufferer’s predicament within a shared existential reality (“Suffering is just a part of the common human experience”; “Despite my differences with others, I know that everyone feels pain just like me”). This cognitive dimension prevents condescension and moral superiorism.

4. Separation

The Separation subscale (items 3, 5, 10, 22) captures psychological isolation, alienation, and perceived disconnection from those who are hurting. Individuals exhibiting elevated separation perceive an unbridgeable chasm between their own emotional world and that of the sufferer (“I don’t feel emotionally connected to people in pain”; “When I see someone feeling down, I feel like I can’t relate to them”). Because separation alienates the self from the other, these items are reverse-scored when calculating overall compassion.

5. Mindfulness

The Mindfulness subscale (items 4, 9, 13, 21) measures an open, receptive, and balanced attention directed toward the suffering of others, without cognitive distortion, minimization, or premature judgment. This component involves perceptive attunement to subtle affective cues (“I notice when people are upset, even if they don’t say anything”), patient listening (“I tend to listen patiently when people tell me their problems”), and maintaining equanimity (“When people tell me about their problems, I try to keep a balanced perspective on the situation”).

6. Disengagement

The Disengagement subscale (items 1, 7, 19, 23) operationalizes experiential avoidance, emotional tuning out, numbness, and psychological withdrawal from distressing interpersonal situations. High scores denote an active avoidance of sufferers (“I try to avoid people who are experiencing a lot of pain”) or affective blunting (“When people cry in front of me, I often don’t feel anything at all”). These reverse-scored items capture an inability to maintain psychological presence during another’s hardship.

Theoretical Framework

The Compassion for Others Scales is rooted in the convergence of Buddhist psychological traditions and contemporary Western affective science. In classical Buddhist phenomenology (particularly within Theravada and Mahayana traditions), compassion (karuṇā) is defined as the trembling or quivering of the heart in response to the suffering of beings, accompanied by the earnest wish that their suffering cease. It is formally distinguished from pity (which reinforces hierarchical distance and patronizing separation), emotional contagion (which overwhelms the observer with personal distress), and grief (which impairs functional agency).

In her foundational theoretical work, Kristin D. Neff (2003a, 2003b) operationalized compassion toward the self into three interdependent experiential dyads: (a) self-kindness versus self-judgment, (b) common humanity versus isolation, and (c) mindfulness versus over-identification. Elizabeth Pommier (2011) directly extended this tripartite conceptual architecture into the interpersonal domain, hypothesizing that genuine compassion toward others demands identical cognitive-affective mechanisms, turned outward rather than inward:

1. Benevolent Engagement vs. Hostile/Callous Neglect: Compassion necessitates an active, emotionally tender disposition (Kindness) rather than cold aloofness or uncaring dismissal (Indifference).
2. Universal Belonging vs. In-Group/Out-Group Fragmentation: Compassion requires recognizing that another’s suffering is not unique, shameful, or completely alien, but a manifestation of our shared human vulnerability (Common Humanity) rather than creating an emotional wall of distinctness and othering (Separation).
3. Equanimous Attunement vs. Experiential Avoidance: Compassion demands sufficient attentional stability and emotional regulation to witness pain clearly and patiently (Mindfulness) without psychological numbing, distraction, or behavioral flight (Disengagement).

This theoretical framework also interfaces directly with Paul Gilbert’s evolutionary model of compassion (Gilbert, 2014, 2017) and social neuroscience models of caregiving (Preston, 2013; Singer & Klimecki, 2014). According to these models, human compassion is driven by the mammalian caregiving and soothing system, distinct from the threat-defense and resource-seeking drive systems. Whereas personal distress activates the amygdala-driven threat circuitry, genuine compassion activates neural architectures associated with reward, social bonding, and affiliation (e.g., oxytocin and vasopressin pathways, ventral striatum, and medial orbitofrontal cortex). The Compassion Scale precisely captures the psychological output of this mammalian affiliative system.

Validity

The validity of the Compassion Scale has been extensively evaluated across multiple independent empirical investigations, confirming construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity.

Construct and Structural Validity

In the original validation study involving university undergraduates (N = 384) and community adults (N = 172), Pommier (2011) demonstrated that the 24 items formed six distinct yet intercorrelated dimensions that reliably converged onto a higher-order general compassion factor. Subsequent cross-validation by Pommier, Neff, and Tóth-Király (2020) across four samples (total N > 1,000) confirmed that a bifactor exploratory structural equation modeling (bifactor-ESEM) approach and a second-order confirmatory model provide excellent structural fit, demonstrating that an overarching compassion score reflects meaningful common variance beyond the specific subscales.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established through statistically significant, moderate-to-high positive correlations with established psychometric indices of prosocial functioning:

• Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking: Total Compassion Scale scores correlate strongly with Davis’s (1983) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) Empathic Concern subscale (r = .58 to .68, p < .001) and Perspective Taking subscale (r = .42 to .54, p < .001).
• Altruism and Prosocial Motivation: The scale correlates positively with self-reported altruism (Batson et al., 1991; r = .45 to .56, p < .001) and social connection / inclusion of others in the self (Aron et al., 1992; r = .38, p < .001).
• Dispositional Mindfulness: Positive associations are consistently observed with the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al., 2006), particularly the “Act with Awareness” and “Non-Reactivity” facets (r = .31 to .43, p < .001).

Discriminant Validity

A crucial psychometric milestone of the Compassion Scale is its empirical distinction from self-compassion and emotional distress:

• Divergence from Self-Compassion: Neff and Pommier (2013) found only weak-to-modest correlations between total self-compassion (measured by the Self-Compassion Scale [SCS]) and compassion for others (r = .15 to .22 across non-clinical samples). This underscores that being compassionate toward oneself and extending compassion toward others are separate, independently varying behavioral traits.
• Divergence from Personal Distress: The scale correlates negligibly or negatively with the IRI Personal Distress subscale (r = −.12 to −.26, p < .01), demonstrating that individuals with high compassion do not succumb to self-focused emotional paralysis or aversive anxiety when confronted with another’s pain.
• Social Desirability: Correlations with Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scales remain minimal to modest (r = .14 to .21), indicating that the instrument is not an artifact of impression management.

Reliability

The Compassion Scale exhibits sound internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse cultural and linguistic adaptations.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the seminal psychometric evaluation (Pommier, 2011; Pommier et al., 2020), the global Compassion Scale achieved high internal consistency across multiple independent cohorts:

• Total Compassion Scale: Cronbach’s α ranges between .87 and .91, and McDonald’s ω coefficients consistently exceed .90, demonstrating strong internal coherence for aggregate scoring.
• Kindness Subscale: Cronbach’s α ranges from .77 to .84.
• Indifference Subscale (Reversed): Cronbach’s α ranges from .68 to .76.
• Common Humanity Subscale: Cronbach’s α ranges from .71 to .79.
• Separation Subscale (Reversed): Cronbach’s α ranges from .72 to .80.
• Mindfulness Subscale: Cronbach’s α ranges from .67 to .75.
• Disengagement Subscale (Reversed): Cronbach’s α ranges from .71 to .78.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability evaluated across a 4-week retest window in undergraduate samples demonstrated strong stability, with test-retest intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Pearson correlation values yielding r = .83 for the total score (ranging from .72 to .81 across the six subscales), indicating that the instrument captures enduring trait characteristics rather than transient mood fluctuations.

Factor Analysis

The latent structural integrity of the 24-item Compassion Scale has been validated using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and modern Bifactor Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM).

Initial EFA and Second-Order CFA

During initial instrument derivation, principal axis factoring with promax rotation revealed six distinct factors corresponding to Kindness, Indifference, Common Humanity, Separation, Mindfulness, and Disengagement, accounting for over 56% of total item variance. Subsequent second-order CFA supported a hierarchical model in which all six first-order factors loaded significantly onto a single, overarching secondary factor representing global Compassion:

• Higher-Order Loadings: Standardized factor loadings from the six primary factors to the global compassion factor were high, ranging from .62 to .88 (with positive signs after reversing negative subscales).
• Goodness-of-Fit Statistics: CFA of the hierarchical model yielded acceptable-to-good fit across multiple cohorts: χ²(246) = 512.38, p < .001; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .938; Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .929; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .048 (90% CI [.042, .054]); Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .051.

Bifactor Modeling and General vs. Specific Variance

In a comprehensive re-evaluation of the scale’s structural validity, Pommier, Neff, and Tóth-Király (2020) implemented a bifactor-ESEM model. This demonstrated that while the 24 items define a dominant, reliable general compassion factor (Explained Common Variance [ECV] > .60; Hierarchical Omega [ω_h] = .82), the specific subscales retain sufficient unique variance to warrant independent reporting when specific theoretical dimensions (e.g., Common Humanity vs. Separation) are of focal interest.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Compassion for Others Scales (Compassion Scale) is formatted as an easy-to-administer self-report inventory suitable for pencil-and-paper or digital administration:

• Test Type: Trait self-report inventory measuring dispositional compassion directed toward others.
• Administration Format: Standardized psychological questionnaire (self-administered or computer-based).
• Completion Time: Approximately 5 to 7 minutes.
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (ages 14 and older).
• Item Count: 24 statements.
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert frequency scale:
  • 1 = Almost Never
  • 2 = Rarely / Seldom
  • 3 = Sometimes
  • 4 = Frequently / Often
  • 5 = Almost Always
• Subscale Item Breakdown:
  • Kindness: Items 6, 8, 16, 24
  • Indifference (Reverse-Scored): Items 2, 12, 14, 18
  • Common Humanity: Items 11, 15, 17, 20
  • Separation (Reverse-Scored): Items 3, 5, 10, 22
  • Mindfulness: Items 4, 9, 13, 21
  • Disengagement (Reverse-Scored): Items 1, 7, 19, 23
• Scoring and Computational Rules:
  1. Reverse Coding: Reverse-score the negative subscale items belonging to Indifference, Separation, and Disengagement (i.e., transform response: 1 → 5, 2 → 4, 3 → 3, 4 → 2, 5 → 1).
  2. Subscale Mean Calculation: Compute the mean of the 4 items comprising each subscale (using reversed values for negative subscales).
  3. Total Compassion Score: Calculate the grand mean of all 24 items (with reverse-scored items recoded) or calculate the average of the six subscale means. Total scores range from 1.00 to 5.00, where higher scores signify greater dispositional compassion toward others.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Compassion Scale was originally formulated in 2011 as part of Elizabeth A. Pommier’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin and subsequently published in revised form in peer-reviewed psychometric literature in 2020.

• Year of Publication: 2011 (Dissertation); 2020 (Peer-reviewed journal publication in Assessment).
• Copyright & Permissions: Dr. Elizabeth A. Pommier and Dr. Kristin D. Neff. The scale is placed in the public domain for academic, educational, non-commercial research, and clinical use without fee. Researchers and practitioners do not require formal written permission prior to administering the instrument in empirical studies, provided appropriate authorship attribution and citations are acknowledged.
• Licensing and Official Repository: The instrument, scoring guidelines, and translated editions are accessible via Dr. Kristin Neff’s official research website at self-compassion.org/scales-for-researchers.

References

• Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(4), 596–612. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.4.596
• Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191105283504
• Batson, C. D. (1991). The altruism question: Toward a social-psychological answer. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
• Gilbert, P. (2014). The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53(1), 6–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjc.12043
• Gilbert, P. (2017). Compassion: Concepts, research and applications. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315560472
• Neff, K. D. (2003a). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309032
• Neff, K. D. (2003b). The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and Identity, 2(3), 223–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309027
• Neff, K. D., & Pommier, E. (2013). The relationship between self-compassion and other-focused concern among college undergraduates, community adults, and practicing meditators. Self and Identity, 12(2), 160–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2011.649546
• Pommier, E. A. (2011). The compassion scale (Doctoral dissertation). Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, 72, 1174. University of Texas at Austin.
• Pommier, E., Neff, K. D., & Tóth-Király, I. (2020). The Compassion Scale. Assessment, 27(1), 21–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191119874108
• Preston, S. D. (2013). The origins of altruism in offspring care. Psychological Bulletin, 139(6), 1305–1341. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031755
• Singer, T., & Klimecki, O. M. (2014). Empathy and compassion. Current Biology, 24(18), R875–R878. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.06.054

Items of the Scale