Psychological Personality Measures

Instrument: Balanced Emotional Empathy Test (BEES)

Instrument available from: Albert Mehrabian, Ph.D.
email: ampsych@gmail.com

voice mail: 888 363 1732

Please specify: The institution where you will conduct your testing, the individuals you will test, and your reasons for testing

Construct/what is being measured

"Emotional Empathy" is defined as one’s vicarious experience of another’s emotional experiences — feeling what the other person feels. In the context of personality measurement, it describes individual differences in the tendency to have emotional empathy for others.

Format: questionnaire format; subjects report the degree of their agreement or disagreement with each of its 30 items using a 9-point agreement-disagreement scale.

Translations of the BEES in Spanish & French are available from Albert Mehrabian.

Key Articles

Mehrabian, A. (1996). Manual for the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES). (Available from Albert Mehrabian, 1130 Alta Mesa Road, Monterey, CA, USA 93940).

Mehrabian, A. (1996). Relations among personality scales of aggression, violence, and
Empathy: Validational evidence bearing on the risk of eruptive violence scale. Aggressive Behavior, 23, 433-445.

Mehrabian, A., & Epstein, N. (1972). A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of Personality, 40, 525-543.

Mehrabian, A., Young, A.L., & Sato, S. (1988). Emotional empathy and associated individual differences. Current Psychology: Research & Reviews, 7, 221-240.

Instrument: The Homesickness and Contentment Scale

Instrument available from: Appendix of Shin & Abell article*

_Construct/ what is being measured

The Homesickness and Contentment Scale was developed using a homesickness, loneliness, and depression scale. The Homesickness and Contentment Scale was developed as a means to gauge emotional and psychological adjustment to a new culture.

The scale was developed in a way that it is culturally sensitive to an Asian population (Shin & Abell 1999).

Format: Scale (20 items) and a five-point Likert-type response set (ranging from 1-very often to 5-never)

_Key articles

*Shin, H., & Abell, N. (1999). The homesickness and contentment scale: Developing a
culturally sensitive measure of adjustment for Asians. Research on Social Work Practice, 9(1), 45-60.

Instrument: Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents

Instrument available from: http://www.tru.ca/faculty/wlroberts/bryant.pdf

Construct/ what is being measured

The index was created as a means to gauge empathy in children and adolescents. It was designed to be comparable to the Mehrabian and Epstein Scale that is used to test empathy levels in adults. The index was field tested on 56 first graders, 115 fourth graders, and 57 seventh graders. The study concluded that the Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents met the minimum requirements for construct validity.

The following items were measured by the index (again the basis for these measurements were extrapolated from the Mehrabian and Epstein Scale; concepts were reworded to be suitable for children and adolescents):

Adapted measures of emotional empathy; empathy for children and adolescents: “People who hug and kiss in public are silly,” “it makes me sad to see a girl (boy) who can’t find anyone to play with”

Acceptance of individual differences: This construct was designed to gauge how close children let other children get to them. With a particular focus on children that have been negatively stereotyped, those children who are overweight (“fat”) or those who do not excel in school (“dumb”), are from diverse backgrounds, have either a learning difference, or are emotionally impaired, or are deemed to be physically unattractive.

Social desirability: In order to understand how children and adolescents view desirability questionnaires developed by Crandall, Crandall, and Katkovsky were consulted.

Early Childhood measure of empathy: Children express their feelings after hearing stories about other children in a variety of conditions.

Measure of aggressiveness: Teachers using a scale developed by Feshbach rated aggressive behavior in children in the sample

Reading achievement: Scores were utilized from standardized tests (SRA achievement/Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills)

Format: 22-item questionnaire

Key articles

Bryant, B. (1982). An index of empathy for children and adolescents. Child Development, 53, 413-425.

de Wied, M., Mass, C., van Goozen, S., Vernabde, M., Engels, R., Meeus, W., et al. (2007). Bryant’s empathy index. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 23(2): 99-104.

Instrument: Multidimensional Self Concept Scale

Instrument available from: *Portions of the Multidimensional Self Concept Scale are included in tables in Young & Sudweeks 2005, cited below.

The complete survey is available for purchase at: http://www.proedinc.com/

Construct/ what is being measured

The scale was created as a means to assess how adolescents define themselves with respect to the following categories: social, affect, competence, academic, family, and physical well-being (Young & Sudweeks 2005; Jones 1998).

The questions are framed in both a positive lens (“I am usually a lot of fun to be with”) and a negative lens (“People do not seem to be interested in talking with me”) (Young & Sudweeks 2005).

Format: Questionnaire
Key articles

Jones, K.E. (1998). A study of the difference between faith maturity scale and multidimensional self concept scale scores for youth participating in two denominational ministry projects. UMI Dissertation Services. (UMI No. 9830794)

Swaim-Flora,K. & Bracken, B.A. (1997). Global and domain-specific self-concepts of a matched sample of adolescent runaways and nonrunaways. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 26 (4), 397-403.

*Young, E.L., & Sudweeks, R.R. (2005). Gender differential item functioning in the multidimensional self concept scale with a sample of early adolescent students. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 38.

*(Tables within this text include portions of the Multidimensional Self Concept Scale)


Instrument: Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS)

Instrument available from:
http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/subjectivehappinessscale.pdf and in the appendix of the below cited article by Lyubomirsky and Lepper.

Construct/ what is being measured:

The Subjective Happiness Scale was created as a means to measure “global subjective happiness.” This four-item scale asks participants to rate themselves on a scale of 1-7 (one being not a very happy person and seven being a very happy person). Additionally, participants using the same scale rate their happiness compared to their peers. The remaining two questions give participants a scenario of a very happy person and of a person that is not very happy, in both situations survey takers need to rate themselves in terms of how these descriptions match them (Lyubomirsky & Lepper 1997).

Format: Questionnaire (4-item)

Key articles

Lyumbomirsky, S., & Lepper, H.S. (1997). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155.

Instrument: The Transgression Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM)

Instrument available from: http://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/mmccullough/forgiveness/TRIM-12.pdf

Construct/ what is being measured

This inventory was developed as a means to understand how forgiveness works in relationships between two or more people. This tool asks participants to think about their reasons behind wanting revenge on someone and the rational behind avoiding someone. ‘

The creators of this inventory created a revenge scale; the items of this scale include: I’ll make him/her pay, I wish that something bad would happen to him/her, I want him/her to get what he/she deserves, I’m going to get even, I want to see him/her hurt and miserable.

Additionally, an avoidance scale was integrated into this inventory. The items included are: I keep as much distance between us as possible, I live as if he/she doesn’t exist, isn’t around, I don’t trust him/her, I find it difficult to act warmly toward him/her, I avoid him/her, I cut off the relationship with him/her, I withdraw from him/her.

Format: Questionnaire (12 items)

Key articles

McCullough, M.E. (2001). Forgiveness: Who does it and how do they do it? Current Directions in Psychological Sciences, 10(6), 194-197.

Tsang, J., McCullough, M.E., Fincham, F.D. (2006). The longitudinal association between forgiveness and relationship closeness and commitment. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25(4), 448-472.

Wade, S.H. (1989). The development of a scale to measure forgiveness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA.