Sympathy and Tenderness as Components of Dispositional Empathic Concern: Predicting Helping and Caring Behaviors

Lopez-Perez, B. and Carrera, P and Oceja, L. and Ambrona, T and Stocks, E (2017) Sympathy and Tenderness as Components of Dispositional Empathic Concern: Predicting Helping and Caring Behaviors. Current Psychology. ISSN 1046-1310

Text Lopez-Perez, Carrera, et al. 2017.pdf - Accepted Version Download (379kB)

Abstract

Recently, empathic concern was separated into the components of sympathy and tenderness (Lishner, Batson, & Huss, 2011). So far, these two emotional experiences have been assessed as episodic emotional responses, as the existent dispositional measures remain blind to such distinction. The aim of the present research is to develop and validate a dispositional measure that captures the personal disposition to feel sympathy, tenderness, and personal distress. This new scale is called Sympathy, Tenderness and Distress Dispositional Scale (SyTeD). In Study 1, we developed and tested the internal consistency and factor structure of the English version of the scale in the United States. In Study 2, we translated the scale into Spanish and tested its content and criterion validity in Spain. In Study 3, we tested the predictive validity of the sympathy-tenderness distinction within a helping vs. a care-based scenario in the United Kingdom (SyTeD-English version). In Study 4, we tested the predictive validity of the sympathy-tenderness distinction in a real helping situation in Spain (SyTeD-Spanish version). The results across these four studies suggest that the SyTeD is a useful measure of dispositional sympathy and tenderness that allows studying further different types of prosocial behavior (i.e., help vs. care).

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: (Lopez-Perez, B., Carrera, P., Oceja, L., Ambrona, T., & Stocks, E. Sympathy and Tenderness as Components of Dispositional Empathic Concern: Predicting Helping and Caring Behaviors. Subsequently published in Current Psychology. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the Springer Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. Published version available at https://link.springer.com/journal/12144
Keywords:	sympathy; tenderness, personal distress; care; help; questionnaire.
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Belen Lopez-Perez
Date Deposited:	06 Jun 2017 13:40
Last Modified:	29 Jun 2020 14:10
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2008

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