The kinetic effects influencing the stability of the Resistive Wall Mode (RWM) are investigated by applying a drift kinetic code to calculate the change in the potential energy of the mode in the presence of thermal and energetic particles. The analysis is carried out for typical JET high- plasmas. It is found that the strongest kinetic damping of the RWM arises due to mode resonance with the precession motion of the trapped thermal particles. The stability of the RWM in JET plasmas is also probed by using active MHD spectroscopy. The frequency spectrum of the plasma response to oscillating externally applied fields has been measured and fitted to parameter models in order to infer the stability of the RWM. A new model retaining information about the plasma response is presented to describe the resonant field amplification in the presence of a stable RWM and favourably compared with the calculated response.