Scaling Compassion and Applications in ABA

In light of recent unrest within and outside the ABA space, the terms "compassion" and "compassionate-care" have become major focuses of both the social and natural sciences. Although the colloquial interpretation of compassion may be well understood, we posit that a thoroughgoing conceptualization of compassion, beyond that which is currently available, is warranted. To that end, we explore historical and current conceptualizations of compassion within the literature, and offer a cogent, functional definition of compassion couched in perspective-taking and examine per Baer et al. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1), 91-97 (1968) that compassion is both observable and measurable. Finally, we offer several contexts in which adoption of compassion as outlined is, both in definition and related measurement framework, pragmatic for practitioners of the science and practice of applied behavior analysis.