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Ways of Knowing Compassion: How Do We Come to Know, Understand, and Measure Compassion When We See It?
Open accessAbstract
Over the last decade, empirical research on compassion has burgeoned in the biomedical, clinical, translational, and foundational sciences. Increasingly sophisticated understandings and measures of compassion continue to emerge from the abundance of multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary studies. Naturally, the diversity of research methods and theoretical frameworks employed presents a significant challenge to consensus and synthesis of this knowledge. To bring the empirical findings of separate and sometimes siloed disciplines into conversation with one another requires an examination of their disparate assumptions about what compassion is and how it can be known. Here, we present an integrated theoretical review of methodologies used in the empirical study of compassion. Our goal is to highlight the distinguishing features of each of these ways of knowing compassion, as well as the strengths and limitations of applying them to specific research questions. We hope this will provide useful tools for selecting methods that are tailored to explicit objectives (methods matching), taking advantage of methodological complementarity across disciplines (methods mixing), and incorporating the empirical study of compassion into fields in which it may be missing.
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“The model chosen necessarily depends on the theory underpinning a given study [27].”
From Validation of the compassionate engagement and action scales, compassion scale, and Sussex-Oxford compassion scales in a French-Canadian sample (2024) · cites this paper as [27]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Mascaro, J. S., Florian, M. P., Ash, M. J., Palmer, P. K., Frazier, T., Condon, P., & Raison, C.
- Affiliations
- Emory University (US)
- Southern Oregon University (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Corresponding author
- Mascaro, Jennifer S.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2020-10-02
- Volume
- 11
- Pages
- 547241-547241
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7561712
- OpenAlex
- W3090052176
- Cited by
- 118
- References
- 211
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 1.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Keywords
- compassion, ways of knowing, theoretical framework, research methodology, methodological complementarity, interdisciplinary synthesis
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