A validation and comparison of three measures of participants’ disposition to feel moved (introducing the Geneva Sentimentality Scale)

Figures & data

Figure 1. (a) Scree plot graphing of eigenvalues of parallel analysis for the 17 final components of Study 1; (given minimum residual solution for 500 simulated analyses, .50 for added observation per cell and with eigenvalues compared against the matching 95% quantile of the simulated data). (b) Scree plot graphing of eigenvalues of parallel analysis for the 10 final components of Study 1 (given minimum residual solution for 500 simulated analyses, .50 for added observation per cell and with eigenvalues compared against the matching 95% quantile of the simulated data).

Table 1. Results from an exploratory factor analysis of the Geneva Sentimentality Scale (Study 1)

GSS item	Factor loading
	1	2		3
Factor 1
1. I often feel moved.	.87	.02		.03
2. I often feel touched.	.72	.01		.20
3. I am often struck by things that I consider to be moving (or touching).	.41	.15		.34
9. I’m a very sensitive person.	.52	.22		.05
15. I am rarely moved [reverse-coded]	.64	.05		.09
Factor 2
4. In the last month, there were many occasions in which I wanted to cry because I felt moved.	−.03	.89		−.09
5. I often shed tears of joy.	.16	.94		−.28
6. I often cry while having a warm feeling in the heart because I find something beautiful.	.00	.85		.00
7. I often feel a lump in my throat and get tears in my eyes, even though I am not sad.	.02	.70		−.04
11. I often feel overwhelmed by great and powerful things.	.06	.52		.25
13. I often have tears coming to eyes and warm feelings in the heart when I realise that the good in this world is stronger than the bad.	−.16	.67		.28
14. It often happens that certain events are so positive that they make tears come to my eyes or give me chills.	.02	.65		.20
Factor 3
8. I often find certain things so great or beautiful that I get goosebumps or feel a thrill.	.00	.35		.49
16. It often warms my heart when people tell me touching stories.	.18	−.08		.77
17. Listening to a moving story often gives me a warm sensation in the chest.	.07	.01		.76
18. Witnessing or hearing about positive stories often makes me experience a warm feeling in the heart.	.03	−.15		.93
Proportion Variance	18%	29%		20%
Cumulative Variance	67%	29%		49%

Note. N = 236. Results of an exploratory factors analysis (EFA) using Maximum Likelihood and Promax rotation. The values represent the standardised model parameters (the variances of both the observed and the latent variables are set to unity). Factor loadings above .30 are in bold.

Table 2. Correlations between GSS scores and participants’ scores to the various subscales of the DPES.

	GSS	KAMF	Joy	Contentment	Pride	Love	Compassion	Amusement	Awe
GSS	.93 .94	.78	.43	.17	.13	.39	.56	.21	.50
KAMF	.80	.94 .94	.45	.20	.18	.37	.51	.30	.51
Joy	.58	.50	.91 .92	.84	.74	.78	.60	.58	.79
Contentment	.42	.36	.89	.94 .94	.82	.73	.45	.48	.65
Pride	.33	.29	.76	.84	.83 .85	.65	.41	.43	.58
Love	.55	.46	.78	.74	.64	.88 .89	.65	.53	.58
Compassion	.63	.53	.57	.48	.46	.62	.90 .89	.46	.69
Amusement	.34	.33	.44	.34	.34	.41	.37	.73 .82	.53
Awe	.62	.54	.79	.72	.66	.62	.63	.52	.84 .86

Correlations for Study 1 are displayed above the diagonal in bold and correlations for Study 2 below. The diagonal displays Cronbach’s alphas for Studies 1 and 2 (in italics).

Table 3. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis of the Geneva Sentimentality Scale (GSS).

GSS item	Factor loading
	1	2		3
Factor 1
1. I often feel moved.	.90
2. I often feel touched.	.91
3. I am rarely moved	.70
Factor 2
4. I often shed tears of joy.		.81
5. I often cry while having a warm feeling in the heart because I find something beautiful.		.92
6. I often feel a lump in my throat and get tears in my eyes, even though I am not sad.		.77
7. In the last month, there were many occasions in which I wanted to cry because I felt moved.		.85
Factor 3
8. It often warms my heart when people tell me touching stories.				.92
9. Listening to a moving story often gives me a warm sensation in the chest.				.85
10. Witnessing or hearing about positive stories often makes me experience a warm feeling in the heart.				.88
Cronbach’s α	.91	.92		.92
McDonald’s ω	.90	.92		.92

Note. N = 209. Results of a confirmatory factors analysis (CFA) using Maximum Likelihood Estimator. The values represent the standardised model parameters (the variances of both the observed and the latent variables are set to unity). Factor loadings above .70 are in bold.

Table 4. Means, standards deviations, skewness, kurtosis and bivariate correlations for the GSS (Study 2).

	M	SD	Skewness	Kurtosis	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
F1
Item 1	3.34	1.22	−0.29	−0.85	.83	.60	.66	.64	.54	.54	.75	.66	.67
Item 2	3.39	1.20	−0.36	−0.84		.58	.62	.66	.54	.61	.75	.72	.72
Item 3	2.56	1.29	0.40	−0.93			.66	.80	.64	.45	.49	.57	.47
F2
Item 4	2.47	1.32	0.40	−1.08				.73	.64	.44	.61	.57	.50
Item 5	2.63	1.35	0.30	−1.11					.71	.53	.60	.64	.54
Item 6	2.44	1.27	0.33	−1.14						.41	.48	.53	.46
Item 7	3.89	1.27	−0.82	−0.62							.62	.58	.57
F3
Item 8	3.60	1.18	−0.52	−0.63								.77	.82
Item 9	3.45	1.22	−0.51	−0.70									.76
Item 10	3.66	1.18	−0.75	−0.31

Note. GSS = Geneva Sentimentality Scale. All correlations significant at p < .001 (N = 209).

Table 5. Zero-order correlations between participants’ emotional reactions towards the three video clips (Y-axis) and their emotional dispositions (X-axis) as measured through the GSS, the KAMF, the single-item measure, and the seven subscales of the DPES (Study 2).

	GSS	KAMF	1-item	Joy	Contentment	Pride	Love	Compassion	Amusement	Awe
Moved	.68	.53	.63	.55	.46	.41	.52	.60	.31	.59
Touched	.70	.54	.65	.58	.47	.43	.54	.60	.32	.61
Aggregate	.70	.54	.65	.57	.47	.43	.53	.60	.32	.61
Amusement	.29	.31	.28	.31	.28	.29	.27	.21	.21	.31
Anger	-.01	.14	.00	-.08	-.14	-.12	-.11	-.08	-.05	-.08
Awe	.61	.47	.56	.51	.45	.39	.42	.47	.20	.57
Compassion	.63	.50	.59	.56	.49	.45	.49	.61	.24	.60
Contentment	.49	.43	.53	.58	.54	.45	.51	.47	.32	.57
Fear	.09	.16	.04	.06	-.02	-.08	-.02	-.05	.03	.04
Gratitude	.63	.49	.58	.64	.58	.50	.56	.54	.29	.65
Joy	.65	.49	.62	.67	.57	.51	.58	.55	.36	.65
Pride	.58	.45	.53	.54	.46	.44	.46	.48	.23	.57
Sadness	.12	.10	.11	-.02	-.06	-.11	-.06	.11	.04	.04
Wonder	.54	.46	.51	.51	.45	.40	.42	.45	.25	.56

Table 6. Correlations between participants’ attitudes and behaviours and various emotional disposition scales (GSS, KAMF, Awe, and Amusement).

	GSS	KAMF	1-item	Awe	Amusement	“moved” states
Study 2
Universality	.47***	.46***	.46***	.63***	.33***	.55***
Connectedness	.53***	.44***	.52***	.61***	.36***	.60***
Profundity	.51***	.45***	.46***	.51***	.29***	.62***
Study 3
Sad movies	.27***	.25***	.25***	.06	.08	.15*
Sad music	.20**	.24***	.20**	−.04	.09	.12
Art museum	.05	.09	.05	.18**	.13*	.10
Science museum	.02	.04	.06	.22***	.13*	.15*
Tears of joy	.61***	.65***	.54***	.21**	.24***	.49***
Study 5
Sad movies	.19**	.20**	.16*	.04	.04	.36***
Sad music	.25***	.21***	.20**	.05	.10	.25***
Art activities	−.00	.10	.03	.16*	.14*	.12
Science activities	−.02	.06	−.01	.18**	−.04	.06
Tears of joy	.55***	.56***	.49***	.31***	.18**	.64***

Rightmost column indicates correlation between attitudes and behaviours and the intensity of being moved states (while watching the videos in Study 2, and during the past week in Studies 3 and 5).

Table 7. Correlations between GSS scores and participants’ scores to the other emotion scales (Studies 3 and 5). Correlations for Study 3 are displayed above the diagonal in bold and correlations for Study 5 below. The diagonal (in italics) displays Cronbach’s alphas for Studies 3 and 5.

	GSS	KAMF	Joy	Contentment	Pride	Love	Compassion	Amusement	Awe	Gratitude
GSS	.93 .93	.78	.44	.21	.21	.40	.45	.26	.41	.34
KAMF	.79	.90 .93	.37	.18	.22	.32	.40	.22	.40	.32
Joy	.41	.40	.86 .89	.79	.73	.71	.48	.32	.64	.65
Contentment	.20	.24	.79	.93 .92	.82	.60	.33	.21	.52	.62
Pride	.19	.19	.73	.79	.84 .82	.64	.44	.18	.56	.63
Love	.41	.37	.73	.68	.65	.82 .85	.52	.26	.50	.61
Compassion	.56	.43	.39	.19	.29	.44	.86 .90	.16	.51	.57
Amusement	.22	.25	.36	.23	.18	.30	.28	.76 .82	.32	.18
Awe	.49	.48	.73	.52	.52	.54	.50	.42	.77 .82	.52
Gratitude	.40	.42	.73	.67	.58	.65	.40	.34	.65	.88 .88

Table 8. Zero-order correlations between participants’ emotional states during the past week (rows) and their emotional dispositions (columns) as measured through the GSS, the KAMF, the Gratitude Questionnaire and the seven subscales of the DPES.

	GSS	KAMF	1-item	Joy	Contentment	Pride	Love	Compassion	Amusement	Awe	Gratitude
Moved	.60	.66	.57	.36	.23	.24	.26	.26	.20	.36	.23
Touched	.51	.56	.48	.41	.30	.32	.35	.37	.20	.47	.31
Aggregate	.62	.69	.59	.43	.30	.32	.34	.35	.23	.46	.30
Awe	.37	.35	.34	.20	.08	.07	.13	.18	.17	.39	.11
Interested	.28	.22	.28	.41	.40	.37	.36	.31	.31	.44	.41
Excited	.34	.28	.32	.52	.40	.34	.38	.24	.36	.44	.38
Strong	.13	.10	.13	.43	.53	.49	.28	.25	.12	.38	.40
Enthusiastic	.34	.27	.33	.57	.51	.53	.46	.29	.32	.51	.47
Proud	.19	.12	.19	.51	.55	.53	.42	.29	.19	.36	.46
Alert	.11	.09	.16	.21	.23	.29	.16	.21	.07	.31	.26
Inspired	.37	.32	.32	.44	.36	.39	.30	.27	.22	.45	.34
Determined	.13	.05	.14	.46	.47	.46	.35	.29	.22	.42	.46
Attentive	.15	.12	.17	.26	.30	.34	.27	.26	.22	.31	.30
Active	.12	.04	.11	.32	.42	.42	.25	.22	.07	.33	.31
Joyful	.27	.21	.26	.63	.57	.53	.43	.33	.33	.49	.53
Content	.16	.14	.19	.59	.69	.56	.43	.20	.26	.37	.41
Love	.25	.20	.24	.45	.44	.47	.43	.38	.29	.34	.49
Compassion	.40	.36	.39	.34	.27	.33	.37	.58	.21	.35	.41
Amused	.21	.20	.23	.39	.26	.29	.34	.15	.41	.32	.26
Negative	.09	.08	.10	-.34	-.52	-.37	-.27	.04	.05	-.06	-.19

Table 9. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis of the Geneva Sentimentality Scale (Study 5).

GSS item	Factor loading
	1	2		3
Factor 1
1. I often feel moved.	.94
2. I often feel touched.	.86
3. I am rarely moved	.72
Factor 2
4. I often shed tears of joy.		.78
5. I often cry while having a warm feeling in the heart because I find something beautiful.		.83
6. I often feel a lump in my throat and get tears in my eyes, even though I am not sad.		.71
7. In the last month, there were many occasions in which I wanted to cry because I felt moved.		.87
Factor 3
8. It often warms my heart when people tell me touching stories.				.90
9. Listening to a moving story often gives me a warm sensation in the chest.				.77
10. Witnessing or hearing about positive stories often makes me experience a warm feeling in the heart.				.83
Cronbach’s α	.87	.87		.87
McDonald’s ω	.88	.89		.88

Note. N = 286. Results of a confirmatory factors analysis (CFA) using Maximum Likelihood Estimator. The values represent the standardised model parameters (the variances of both the observed and the latent variables are set to unity). Factor loadings above .70 are in bold.

Table 10. Zero-order correlations between participants’ emotional states during the past week (rows) and their emotional dispositions (columns) as measured through the GSS, the KAMF, the single-item measure, the Gratitude Questionnaire and the seven subscales of the DPES (Study 5).

	GSS	KAMF	1-item	Joy	Content	Pride	Love	Compassion	Amusement	Awe	Gratitude
Moved	.54	.54	.49	.35	.16	.14	.25	.32	.19	.39	.26
Touched	.45	.39	.42	.39	.28	.23	.32	.38	.13	.43	.35
Aggregate	.56	.52	.51	.42	.25	.21	.32	.40	.18	.47	.34
Awe	.26	.30	.25	.30	.20	.15	.18	.14	.26	.39	.18
Interested	.14	.16	.14	.38	.44	.37	.33	.11	.05	.33	.35
Excited	.21	.28	.15	.47	.36	.31	.27	.15	.19	.44	.31
Strong	.07	.08	.07	.46	.53	.61	.39	.12	.07	.30	.38
Enthusiastic	.14	.20	.15	.45	.45	.43	.32	.10	.05	.33	.29
Proud	.13	.17	.12	.47	.48	.53	.33	.12	.01	.37	.31
Alert	.16	.17	.17	.27	.21	.28	.18	.12	−.01	.23	.21
Inspired	.14	.17	.12	.43	.39	.40	.30	.09	.08	.36	.33
Determined	.10	.14	.12	.37	.38	.45	.32	.14	.08	.34	.31
Attentive	.13	.13	.14	.36	.38	.40	.28	.12	.04	.30	.27
Active	.13	.08	.14	.36	.36	.42	.33	.18	.02	.28	.27
Joyful	.23	.26	.21	.57	.50	.41	.43	.16	.17	.41	.41
Content	.18	.21	.17	.55	.64	.45	.49	.18	.15	.34	.45
Love	.32	.32	.30	.46	.48	.33	.37	.28	.19	.40	.42
Compassionate	.39	.33	.37	.37	.25	.25	.34	.39	.14	.41	.32
Amused	.22	.23	.22	.34	.31	.18	.25	.20	.36	.32	.31
Negative	.00	−.06	−.04	−.32	−.44	−.40	−.32	.06	.11	−.07	−.29
Sentimental	.43	.40	.38	.17	.05	−.03	.10	.32	.24	.30	.21

Data availability statement

All materials, data and analysis scripts are publicly available on OSF at https://osf.io/7gepq/ (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/7GEPQ)