The Empathy Quotient

The Empathy Quotient (EQ) is a self-report questionnaire designed to measure different aspects of empathy in adults.

Although the EQ gives you a single total score, empathy is not one single ability. Two people with the same total score can have very different profiles.

The EQ can be particularly interesting for autistic people because research distinguishes between different components of empathy, including:

• Cognitive Empathy — understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings, intentions, and perspective
• Emotional Reactivity — how strongly you respond emotionally to other people’s experiences and emotions
• Social Skills — aspects of intuitive social understanding and navigating social situations

Looking at these separately can provide much more information than looking only at your total EQ score.

Research has also explored something called empathic disequilibrium—an imbalance between cognitive and emotional empathy. This can be especially relevant in autism, where some people show relatively stronger emotional empathy alongside lower cognitive empathy.

Common reasons people take the EQ

People often arrive here because they are wondering:

• Why do I care deeply about other people but still struggle to know what they are thinking?
• Why do other people’s emotions affect me so strongly?
• Why can I understand someone intellectually without feeling what they feel—or the reverse?
• Why do social situations feel less intuitive even when I have learned to navigate them well?
• Does my empathy profile fit patterns seen in autism?

The EQ can help separate some of these experiences rather than treating empathy as a single trait.

This version is based on the original 60-item Empathy Quotient developed by Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004).

Take the EQ

Please read each statement carefully and choose the answer that best reflects your typical experience.

Getting your total score is free and anonymous

If you have purchased an Embrace Autism screening, please contact us before completing this test.

Notes on answering the questions

A few things to keep in mind:

• Answer based on your typical internal experience, not only how you appear to other people.
• Some social abilities may have become easier through experience, observation, study, or deliberate practice.
• If you consciously work out social rules, consider that when answering questions about whether social situations feel intuitive.
• Try not to answer according to what you think an empathic person “should” say.
• There are no right or wrong answers.

For autistic people in particular, learned social skills can sometimes make outward behaviour look very different from the internal effort involved.

What does my EQ score mean?

Remember

Your EQ total is only one part of the picture.

• The EQ does not measure whether you are kind, compassionate, moral, or caring.
• A low EQ score does not mean that you lack empathy altogether.
• A high EQ score does not rule out autism.
• Different components of empathy can be very different within the same person.
• No questionnaire can diagnose autism.

This is why we recommend looking at your profile, not only your total score.

How to interpret your total score

The EQ produces a total score from 0 to 80, with higher scores reflecting greater endorsement of the empathy-related characteristics measured by the questionnaire.

In the original research, a score of 30 or below was proposed as a threshold that differentiated many autistic from non-autistic participants.

However, this should not be treated as a diagnostic cutoff.

• Some autistic people score above 30.
• Some non-autistic people score at or below 30.
• Social learning, masking, professional experience, personality, alexithymia, and other factors may influence scores.

Your total EQ score is best understood as a starting point rather than a conclusion.

Your three empathy profile scores

This is where the EQ becomes much more informative.

Two people can receive exactly the same total EQ score while having very different patterns across the three areas below.

Cognitive Empathy

Cognitive Empathy reflects how easily you identify and understand another person’s thoughts, feelings, intentions, and perspective.

It includes things such as:

• Working out what someone may be thinking or feeling
• Interpreting social cues
• Understanding another person’s perspective
• Predicting how someone may respond

A lower Cognitive Empathy score does not mean that you do not care about other people.

Someone may care very deeply and respond strongly to another person’s distress while still finding it difficult to work out exactly what that person is thinking or feeling.

For autistic people, cognitive understanding may also develop through observation, experience, learning, psychology, counselling training, or deliberate reasoning even when it is less automatic or intuitive.

Emotional Reactivity

Emotional Reactivity reflects how strongly you respond emotionally to other people’s experiences and emotions.

It is related to the emotional or affective component of empathy—the tendency to emotionally resonate with what another person is experiencing.

A higher score may mean that:

• Other people’s distress affects you strongly
• You become emotionally involved in other people’s problems
• You respond strongly to suffering
• You experience other people’s emotions intensely

Emotional Reactivity is not the same thing as kindness or compassion, and a lower score does not mean that someone is uncaring.

Most importantly, Emotional Reactivity and Cognitive Empathy can be very different within the same person.

Social Skills

The EQ Social Skills subscale reflects aspects of intuitive social understanding, rather than your overall ability to socialize or maintain relationships.

It includes questions about:

• Knowing what to do in social situations
• Understanding social expectations
• Judging what is rude or polite
• Whether social rules need to be consciously worked out

A low score does not mean that you have no social skills.

You may have developed strong social abilities through experience, observation, deliberate learning, or camouflaging while still finding social interaction less automatic or intuitive.

This distinction can be particularly important for autistic people.

Why empathic disequilibrium matters

Looking at Cognitive Empathy and Emotional Reactivity separately allows us to ask another important question:

Are these two forms of empathy relatively balanced, or is one substantially stronger than the other?

This difference is called empathic disequilibrium.

Research by Shalev and Uzefovsky examined the standardized difference between cognitive and emotional empathy and found that empathic disequilibrium was associated with autistic traits.

A particularly relevant pattern for autism is:

Emotional empathy being relatively stronger than cognitive empathy.

This means someone may respond very strongly to another person’s emotions while finding it more difficult to identify, interpret, or understand exactly what that person is thinking or feeling.

This is very different from simply saying that autistic people have “low empathy.”

Your complete EQ profile calculates this standardized difference and shows whether your results fall into:

• Emotional-empathy-dominant empathic disequilibrium
• Relatively balanced cognitive and emotional empathy
• Cognitive-empathy-dominant empathic disequilibrium

For many people, this relationship between their scores may be more informative than the total EQ score alone.

Empathy and autism

Autism should not simply be understood as a global lack of empathy.

Research increasingly distinguishes between different components of empathy.

Some autistic people report relatively greater difficulty with cognitive empathy while showing relatively intact—or sometimes very strong—emotional responsiveness.

This can create experiences such as:

• Feeling another person’s distress very strongly but not immediately knowing why they are upset
• Caring deeply while being unsure what response is socially expected
• Needing explicit information before understanding another person’s perspective
• Becoming overwhelmed by other people’s emotions

There is also substantial variation between autistic people. No single empathy profile defines autism.

The double empathy problem

Differences in social understanding between autistic and non-autistic people are not necessarily one-sided.

The double empathy problem proposes that misunderstandings can arise because people with different ways of experiencing and communicating may have difficulty understanding each other.

Autistic people may sometimes find it difficult to interpret non-autistic people—but non-autistic people can also have difficulty accurately understanding autistic people.

Social understanding therefore depends partly on the match between the people communicating, rather than simply reflecting a deficit within one person.

This is important when interpreting Cognitive Empathy and Social Skills scores.

A lower score should not automatically be understood as evidence that an autistic person is generally unable to understand other people.

What about alexithymia?

Alexithymia refers to difficulty identifying and describing emotions.

It can affect how someone recognizes and reports both their own emotions and emotional experiences involving other people.

Alexithymia is relatively common among autistic people, and research has questioned whether some emotional-processing differences historically attributed to autism may instead be more strongly related to co-occurring alexithymia.

This is another reason EQ results should be interpreted as a profile rather than a simple measure of whether someone “has empathy.”

Remember: your profile matters more than one number

Two people with the same EQ total can show very different patterns across Cognitive Empathy, Emotional Reactivity, and Social Skills.

When interpreting your results, keep the following in mind:

• Your total score can hide important differences between forms of empathy.
• Lower Cognitive Empathy does not mean lower emotional empathy.
• A low Social Skills score does not mean you have no social skills.
• Your EQ score does not measure kindness, compassion, morality, or your capacity to care.
• No EQ score or empathy profile can diagnose autism.

Your results are most useful when considered alongside your lived experiences, developmental history, other autism questionnaires, and—if desired—professional assessment.

Empathy Quotient Frequently Asked Questions

Can the EQ diagnose autism?

No. The EQ is a self-report questionnaire, not a diagnostic assessment. It provides information about empathy-related patterns but cannot determine whether someone meets diagnostic criteria for autism.

Can I be autistic if my EQ score is above 30?

Yes.

The original EQ research proposed 30 or below as a useful threshold, but autistic people vary considerably. Some autistic people score above this level.

Social learning, masking, professional training, personality, interpretation of questions, and individual differences may all influence EQ scores.

A score above 30 does not rule out autism.

Does a low EQ score mean I lack empathy?

No.

The EQ combines several different processes into one total score.

A person may score lower in Cognitive Empathy while showing much stronger Emotional Reactivity, or vice versa.

The EQ does not measure whether you are kind, compassionate, moral, or capable of caring deeply about others.

Why are the three EQ subscales important?

Because the same total score can result from very different combinations of Cognitive Empathy, Emotional Reactivity, and Social Skills.

Looking at the three areas separately helps show where your score comes from.

For some people, the pattern between the subscales is considerably more informative than the total EQ score.

What is empathic disequilibrium?

Empathic disequilibrium refers to an imbalance between Cognitive Empathy and Emotional Empathy.

Research has found associations between empathic disequilibrium and autistic traits, particularly when emotional empathy is relatively stronger than cognitive empathy.

Your complete EQ results calculate this difference using a standardized method and show whether your profile is emotional-empathy dominant, relatively balanced, or cognitive-empathy dominant.

Can autistic people have high emotional empathy?

Yes.

Autistic people can experience very strong emotional responses to other people.

Difficulty identifying or interpreting another person’s mental state is different from not caring about them or not responding emotionally.

This distinction between cognitive and emotional empathy is one reason a single total empathy score can be misleading.

Does masking affect EQ scores?

It can.

Some autistic people develop substantial knowledge about social interaction through observation, practice, therapy, psychology, counselling, or conscious study.

When answering the EQ, try to distinguish between abilities that feel intuitive and abilities you have learned to perform deliberately.

What does a low Social Skills score mean?

The Social Skills subscale reflects intuitive social understanding rather than your overall competence as a social person.

A low score does not mean that you have no social skills.

You may function very effectively socially while relying on conscious reasoning, learned rules, preparation, or masking.

Should I take other autism questionnaires?

Often, yes.

Different questionnaires measure different aspects of autistic experience.

The AQ examines autistic traits more broadly, while the CAT-Q measures social camouflaging. Looking at several measures together can provide a fuller picture than relying on one questionnaire.

Continue exploring autism

After the EQ, consider taking one of the tests below.

AQ

Measures autistic traits across several areas.

CAT-Q

Measures camouflaging and masking strategies that may affect how autistic traits appear to others.

Autism Screening Assessment

25+ page report • Clinical interpretation by an autistic psychologist