These ten statements form the Compassion aspect of the Big Five Aspect Scales. Here, “Compassion” is an academic scale name for emotional affiliation with and interest in other people’s feelings. The items also ask about giving time and help. This standalone reflection does not measure kindness, moral character, accurate emotion recognition, relationship quality, or how you behave in every situation.
Inside the assessment
The source calls this the Compassion aspect of Agreeableness: emotional affiliation with and interest in other people’s feelings. It is distinct from the BFAS Politeness aspect. DeYoung, Quilty, and Peterson (2007) developed the ten-item aspect inside the 100-item BFAS using a U.S. community sample (n=481) and validated it in a Canadian undergraduate sample (n=480). Internal-consistency alpha was .84 in both main samples. Among a 90-person retest subset, alpha was .91 and the test–retest correlation was .79 after an average interval of about 38 days. These group estimates do not establish the precision or truth of one person’s standalone result.
Very Inaccurate through Very Accurate receive 1–5 points. Items 1, 4, 6, 7, and 9 are reverse scored from 5 to 1; the other five are scored directly. The keyed values are summed for a total from 10 to 50, and the report also shows the keyed average out of 5. The published BFAS study used agreement anchors and averaged the items; TraitSpring uses the official IPIP accuracy-response convention and a mathematically equivalent sum for consistency with its other IPIP reflections. The less, mixed, and more positions are TraitSpring descriptions of the possible response range, not author cutoffs or population norms.
10-item Big Five Aspect Scales Compassion aspect
DeYoung, Quilty, and Peterson (2007)
Assessment v1.0.0 · Source links checked at publication on September 17, 2026
International Personality Item Pool — public domain; items and scales may be used for any commercial or noncommercial purpose without permission or a fee
A continuous summary of how strongly these statements about feeling with others, checking on well-being, taking interest, giving time, and helping fit your self-description. It reflects this answer pattern rather than a caring or uncaring type.
Important limits
This ten-item self-report describes how you answered a small set of feelings-and-care statements today. It is not a percentile, moral or kindness rating, empathy-skill test, diagnosis, relationship assessment, or measure of trustworthiness, safety, caregiving fitness, or work performance. It must not be used for hiring, promotion, performance management, discipline, education, relationship screening, caregiving selection, or other high-stakes decisions. A higher score does not create an obligation to provide care, and a lower score does not establish harm or lack of care. Results can change with capacity, relationship, and context.
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