Situated empathy: Variations associated with target gender across situations

The aim in this study was to present a situated measure of empathy where person features such as gender of target and respondent vary within particular social contexts. The Empathy Situation Reaction Scale (ESRS; Manulik, Kelley, White, & Staats, 2004) has good psychometric properties for 3 different types of situations. Situations were associated with a much larger empathy effect size than gender of respondent. Gender differences on the ESRS were situation dependent, with women reporting more empathy in the social or threat situations than did men but not in situations where the target accidentally caused property damage or loss. The ESRS may be used to assess empathy in complex interactions of situation, target and respondent and provides a model for studying complex social situations.