Empathy Quotient Test Understanding the Many Dimensions of Empathy

Understanding Empathy: A Spectrum We All Share

Before you begin this assessment, it's essential to understand what empathy truly means and to recognize that we all experience and express it differently.

The Two Primary Types of Empathy

Cognitive Empathy is the ability to recognize and understand what another person is thinking or feeling. This involves reading facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and social context. It's sometimes called "perspective-taking" or overlaps with what researchers call "Theory of Mind."

Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004; Decety & Jackson, 2004

Affective Empathy (also called emotional empathy) is the ability to feel and share the emotional experiences of others. When someone you care about is upset, affective empathy is what allows you to emotionally resonate with their distress and feel compassion for them.

Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004; Smith, 2009

A Third Dimension: Behavioural Empathy

Some researchers also identify behavioural empathy, knowing how to respond appropriately to someone's feelings. This is about translating your understanding and feelings into actions or words that others find supportive. People with ADHD often experience difficulties with impulse control, emotional regulation, and processing social cues in real time. This can lead to behaviours that may appear as a lack of empathy, even though the intention is not to hurt or be dismissive.

Someone with ADHD might blurt out a joke or a comment without realizing the emotional tone of the moment. They might interrupt or respond too quickly, not because they don’t care, but because their brain is moving fast and they’re trying to keep up.

But at the same time, people with ADHD often feel emotions deeply (a phenomenon called emotional intensity or rejection sensitivity) and can be incredibly empathetic ,

they just may struggle to express that empathy in the "expected" way.

Koegel et al., 2016

Mikami, Amori Y., 2010

Beyond "Typical": We're All Different

Important context: You may encounter terms like "neurotypical" and "neurodivergent" in discussions about empathy and brain differences. While these terms can be useful for advocacy and community-building, it's essential to understand their limitations.

The Construct of "Neurotypical"

The term "neurotypical" is not a biological reality. There is no standard brain against which all others can be measured. Traits like autism and ADHD exist on a continuum that extends into the general population, meaning there's no clear dividing line between so-called "neurotypical" and "neurodivergent" brains.

The term was originally coined by the neurodiversity movement to describe those who can adapt to society's norms without much conscious effort. It's better understood as a social construct that describes conformity to cultural expectations rather than a biological category.

Russell, 2020; Armstrong, 2015; Walker, 2014

The Wide Spectrum of Neurodivergence

Neurodivergence encompasses far more than autism and ADHD. Many people experience the world with particular intensity or process information in distinctive ways, including:

• Autistic individuals and those with ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and other developmental differences

• Intellectually gifted individuals, who may experience emotional intensity, intellectual distance from peers, and feelings of isolation

• People with creative, exploratory thinking styles who experience the world with particular depth and complexity

• Individuals with various mental health conditions, acquired brain differences, or other variations in processing

  
  

Intellectual Giftedness: Intensity and Isolation

Intellectually gifted individuals often experience the world with profound emotional intensity alongside their cognitive differences. Research shows that intellectual complexity goes hand in hand with emotional depth.

Many gifted individuals report a painful sense of being different from peers, leading to loneliness and social isolation. They may mask their abilities to fit in, hiding their genuine interests and love of learning to avoid standing out. This "masking" can become so habitual that they lose touch with their authentic selves.

The intellectual distance from peers can create what researchers describe as "epistemological loneliness" the exhaustion of constantly editing and translating oneself, struggling to find others who share their cognitive intensity and depth of processing.

Gross, 1998; Szymanski & Wrenn, 2019; Davidson Institute

Natural Fluctuations Across Life

Beyond diagnostic categories, all humans experience fluctuations in how we process information and connect with others. These variations occur based on:

• Stress levels, fatigue, and physical health

• Context and environment

• Relationship dynamics and social settings

• Life stage and age, empathy develops and shifts throughout our lives

• Cultural background and the cultural context we're navigating

We all have moments when social cues are harder to read, when emotions feel overwhelming, or when we need to withdraw and recharge. These are universal human experiences.

Cultural Differences in Empathy Expression

How empathy is experienced, expressed, and interpreted varies significantly across cultures. Research shows that what counts as an "empathic response" differs based on cultural context and communication styles.

Collectivistic cultures (such as many Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern societies) often show higher levels of empathy toward in-group members and those with relational connections. Individualistic cultures (such as many Western societies) may show more empathy toward strangers but less intense bonding within close groups.

Even basic empathic behaviours differ culturally: maintaining eye contact is considered essential for empathy in North American and European cultures but can be seen as disrespectful in Japanese culture. Physical touch, facial expressiveness, directness in communication, and appropriate emotional intensity all vary by cultural background.

Lorié et al., 2017; Ma-Kellams & Blascovich, 2012; Cheon et al., 2013

Challenging Outdated Views on Autism and Empathy

Correcting a harmful myth: For decades, autistic people were incorrectly labelled as lacking empathy. This outdated view has been thoroughly challenged by current research.

What Research Shows

Contemporary studies reveal a more nuanced understanding:

• Cognitive empathy may differ: Many autistic individuals process social cues differently, which can make it harder to intuitively read facial expressions or interpret social contexts. However, this reflects different processing strategies, not a lack of caring.

• Affective empathy is often intact or heightened: Research consistently shows that many autistic people have typical or even heightened emotional empathy, sometimes experiencing others' emotions with overwhelming intensity.

• "Empathic disequilibrium": Rather than lacking empathy overall, many autistic and ADHD individuals show different balances between cognitive and affective empathy, with emotional empathy often being particularly strong.

  
  

Shalev & Uzefovsky, 2020; Lombardo et al., 2016; Song et al., 2019

The Real Difference: Expression, Not Feeling

The challenge for many people, particularly autistic individuals and intellectually gifted people, isn't feeling empathy. It's expressing it in ways that conform to dominant cultural expectations.

Differences in facial expressions, body language, verbal responses, and social timing can make deep empathy invisible to observers, even when it's powerfully present.

This is sometimes called the "double empathy problem" people from different neurotypes and cultural backgrounds struggle to read each other's emotional cues and communication styles. It's not that one group lacks empathy; rather, different groups express and interpret empathy in different ways.

Milton, 2012; Sheppard et al., 2015

About EQ Assessment

The Empathy Quotient was developed by Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues. It measures various aspects of empathy through self-report questions. As you take this assessment, keep in mind:

• Empathy exists on multiple spectrums in all people

• Different scores reflect different patterns of processing, not better or worse character

• Lower scores on this measure might reflect differences in cognitive empathy or challenges with behavioural responses, not an absence of emotional resonance or caring

• High scores can also present challenges, such as emotional overwhelm or difficulty with boundaries

• This test primarily measures cognitive and behavioural aspects of empathy, and may not fully capture the intense affective empathy that many people experience

  
  

• Cultural background significantly influences how empathy is expressed and what is considered an "appropriate" empathic response

• 
  

Many autistic people, intellectually gifted individuals, and people from various cultural backgrounds report profound emotional empathy and deep connections with others, even if they score lower on measures of cognitive empathy or conventional social intuition.

Screening tools such as the EQ, ADOS-2, ADI-R or ASRS are widely used in the assessment of autism and ADHD, but no single questionnaire can offer a full diagnosis. In my work I follow the accepted clinical protocols, and on my website you will also find adapted tests that consider gender, cultural background, and attachment patterns to offer a more nuanced first step.

A proper diagnostic process must include clinical observation, developmental history, life context, comorbidities, and structured interviews with the person and an informant.

If you are seeking a legal diagnosis or planning to explore treatment that may include medication, please remember to consult a psychiatrist in the country where you will receive care. ADHD medication requires medical monitoring, including health checks and tests such as an ECG, to ensure safe treatment.

Laura Mannucci.