Empathy quotient test confusion

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I took the test, got a 22 out of 80. Took it again, got 20 out of 80.

Two of my relatives claim to be highly empathetic. One claims to be an empath (which I'm fairly certain doesn't exist outside of science fiction and woo land). Yet I have experienced what seemed intentional cruelty from both of them.

On the other hand, I would never intentionally do harm to another human being. I am infuriated by state, religion, cultural sanctioned and other forms of discrimination, bias, injustice and other harms to other humans and beings.

How can this be? I have to assume that my understanding of right and wrong treatment of living beings is based on intellectual knowledge rather than emotion. Yet emotion and empathy are often said to be what makes us "human". It appears that empathy does not always produce the results one would expect.

What have your experiences been with empathy or lack thereof?

The EQ test I took was out of 60. I got a 30. Is that the same one?

I too don't understand how psychs and others tell me I lack empathy. It's equally frustrating when you see those that are NTs who act terrible toward others and yet they are supposed to have more empathy than you. It's very confusing.

There are two kinds of Empathy: Affective empathy and Cognitive empathy

Affective empathy is the ability to recognise other people's emptions and be affected by them. Affective empathy might help you to notice that someone is sad and to feel sorry for that person. You might even become sad yourself as a result of this. People with ASD generally have Affective empathy that is more or less on-par with that of Neurotypicals.

Cognitive empathy is the ability to see things from someone else's perspective. In the scenario above, it would be cognitive empathy that would help you to intuitively know how to comfort someone who is sad. People with ASD generally have below average Cognitive empathy.

I think the test at https://psychology-tools.com/test/empathy-quotient measures Cognitive empathy much more than Affective empathy.

strings and Splendid Snail,

Thank you for the explanations. They help a lot with a very confusing situation. I'll read up some more on the kinds of empathy.

Why is there such a focus by psychs and other people etc on empathy of (what I tend to see as) the "mind-reading" type rather than on behaviors such as sympathy and compassion?

It is that particular "Cognitive Empathy" and communication around feeling where our profiles and styles differ significantly from the other 99% of the population.

This scared me at first:

Your score was 24 out of a possible 80.

But then I saw this:

Scores of 30 or less indicate a lack of empathy
common in people with Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome.

So I'm only just really me with another number.

Are there any books to work on this? I doubt it. It's mostly about other people, isn't it?
Lost cause, in my world. Did we used to call this mind-blindness?

I feel a lot of empathy for people, but I'm befuddled by alexithymia and I don't know how to express my feelings.

I also scored really low on that test even though I am pretty good at telling what emotion people are feeling and I feel really bad for people, in fact I say "yes" in situations i should say no to try to please people.

Great explanation, SlendidSnail. As all can see by my EQ score.......cognitive empathy has eluded me all of my life.

If I've had the same experience as someone else has either good or bad, happy or sad, I can absolutely relate and have "empathy" to the point of being hyper-empathatic. However, if I've never had the kind of experience the other person is having or has had...I can't relate and I don't like guessing or pretending that I understand. True empathy in my mind is: "I understand that! That same thing, experience, problem, etc happened to me! I can literally relate to that."

I believe that "empathy" in the form of "feeling" for someone if you haven't experienced it yourself is a contrivance, guessing, pretending. I'm not saying that's bad; the intent is admirable, but in my mind, unlike "true empathy" as I describe it above, it's not genuine.

True empathy = literally being able to relate because of a shared experience. Real.

"empathy" as typically defined = imagining you can literally relate to another person's experience when you haven't had the experience. Pretend.

I score between 15 and 20 on the Empathy Quotient test and I sometimes take it to figure out how I am feeling or when people call me selfish. I do remember during my confusing diagnostic process actually scoring a 32, but I am not sure if it was actually 32 or if I am just recalling 32 as this was the year Sylvia (Plath) was born or if I did score 32 if I was overestimating my abilities-- as has been a consistent issue in my life in a very Nemo from "Finding Nemo" type of way ("You think you can do these things, Nemo, but you can't")-- or I actually do have slightly higher cognitive empathy skills for an autistic-ADHD person or an ADHD person with substantial Autistic traits.

I remember when autism was suggested to me by a new psychologist when I was twenty, I became very upset and told her "no, this can't be possible because I have empathy". She responded to this and told me that recent research suggests that autistic people may actually have higher than average empathy once they are aware that something is wrong. It takes me a little while to figure out when something is wrong, but when I do figure out that something is wrong, I often internalize the emotions of the other person, especially if I have had a similar experience. I have always been very empathetic and have only recently begun suppressing my excessive empathy-- although, I do still often randomly start thinking of the very sad things that have happened to other people and get very sad.

I usually do better at figuring out people's intentions in movies or books rather than in real life, such as when someone is lying to make someone else feel better. I am not sure if this means that I am not autistic. I am, however, better at figuring out the intentions of neurodivergent people, such as when an autistic person is immobilized for several seconds due to a change that I too noticed in the environment (this is how I figured out that a woman in my class was autistic because the desks were slightly rearranged and, luckily, my desk was still in the same spot, but her desk was not and she paused in front of the class for what seemed like a long time while she stared at the space where her desk was-- I asked her after class and she said that she was and she was also late diagnosed) and I can usually tell when an ADHD person is making a decision that they have thought about versus when they are being impulsive and I will ask them if they have thought about this... There is a theory that it might just be the difference in minds, that neurodivergent people relate more to neurodivergent people (even if they cannot always keep them as friends) and neurotypical people relate more to neurotypical people...

I score around there too. The tests is about reading body language and social cues so that affects the score.

A 9 out of 80 on the link. If it were really up to me instead of what and how I was built for.


Test may not really about empathy and sociability, but about being social and empathic.
Even if I do have empathy of any form, social-emotional intelligence of any degree, I'm still an asocial autistic.
One who would likely chooses not to have any concern over others, regardless of how I feel or think or ever capable of doing about it unless I truly care.

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Your score was 16 out of a possible 80.

Scores of 30 or less indicate a lack of empathy common in people with Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome.

Higher scores indicate greater levels of empathy.


What does it have to do with empathy if I'm afraid of going on big rollercoasters or if I enjoy do make to-do lists?