EQ test

[SusanLR]

https://psychology-tools.com/empathy-quotient

Just took this one. Guess I'm the winner?
4.

 

[FlowerChild]

I just thought I'd chip in here, as the EQ test has been highly criticised by many within the Autistic community. It was invented by Simon Baron-Cohen, a leading Autism researcher who works at Cambridge university. Baron-Cohen has released some of the most famous, and highly controversial Autism diagnostic criteria to emerge across the past couple of decades. Nearly all of his work centres on the external experience of Autism, as perceived by NeuroTypicals (as opposed to the internal, lived experiences of people with Autism). His tests often have the effect of creating confirmation bias, in that he crafted these diagnostic tools in order to support his own fundamentally flawed conceptualisations of Autism traits. When you answer those questions, you're taking a guess at how NT people feel, and the odds are stacked against you. But consider this: NT people are equally incapable of guessing what is going on within the minds of Autistic people (great blog in this topic here: https://autismandempathyblog.wordpr...ntial-for-harm-my-reply-to-simon-baron-cohen/ ). So, if Baron-Cohen is measuring empathy based on the concept that Autistic people should guess what is going on in the minds of NT's, then by this same measurement in reverse, wouldn't NT's also be lacking empathy if this test was a mirror version of itself trying to measure how well NTs understand Autistic people? Autistic woman and academic researcher Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg (no relation to Simon) has written some excellent work on this topic, so full credit to her for that idea. Building upon this further, there is now a new generation of Autism researchers who are Actually Autistic--myself included--who are actively working to discredit some of Baron-Cohen's arguments, and highlight the harm he's caused to the Autistic community. So, for those of you who are surprised and/or hurt and upset by your results--please don't take them too seriously. It does not mean you cannot empathise. It does not mean you are a bad person. If your lived experience is that you're quite empathetic and caring, you almost certainly are--you just don't meet Baron-Cohen's highly ableist standards for empathy, as defined by Neurotypical people. A poor score on the EQ just means that Baron-Cohen's test has had the exact effect that it intended: to convince the Autistic community that they lack empathy--thereby supporting Baron-Cohen's decades of research, and benefitting his own career--when in fact, we just cannot intuit the NT lived experience, much in the same way that NTs don't understand and cannot intuit the Autistic lived experience.

 

[SusanLR]

This seems to be the best paragraph for the differences between autism vs psycopathy reasons for
a low score on the test.
It seems you need to know which fits self to understand a low score:

The chart in his blog post shows psychopaths and autistics with profiles that are a mirror-image of each other: psychopaths are positive for cognitive empathy but negative for affective empathy (they can intuitively read how people are feeling, but they don’t care), while autistics are negative for cognitive empathy and positive for affective empathy (we can’t intuitively read how people are feeling, but once we understand that a person is upset, we’re upset, too).

 

[GrownupGirl]

I only scored an 18 out of 80, and yet people have said that I can have *too* much empathy.
Maybe I did at one time or was just better at faking it, but now I don't care anymore. I hardly ever spend time with other people anymore, and when I do it's usually only one or two, so I don't have to worry or care about pretending to care, anyway. They don't care about what I think or how I feel, and yet that's perfectly normal and acceptable for NTs.

 

[SplendidSnail]

In contrast is this more sophisticated instrument:
https://psychology-tools.com/empathy-quotient


Got 12 out of 80 on this one. Likely still qualifies as, "Not so good!".

Yes, I got 13 on that one.

On this one (https://www.arealme.com/eq/en/), I scored 65/200, which they call "not so good".

On this one (http://memorado.ca/emotional_quotient), I scored 114.

I think the one at psychology-tools, which I scored 13 on, is nearly completely cognitive (shallow) empathy, which people with ASD are generally bad at.

Other tests, which I've done better on, seem to have a different kind of questions - I think they mix some affective (deep) empathy questions in, which people with ASD are OK at.

 

[SplendidSnail]

I only scored an 18 out of 80, and yet people have said that I can have *too* much empathy.
Maybe I did at one time or was just better at faking it, but now I don't care anymore. I hardly ever spend time with other people anymore, and when I do it's usually only one or two, so I don't have to worry or care about pretending to care, anyway. They don't care about what I think or how I feel, and yet that's perfectly normal and acceptable for NTs.

I think it's more along the lines of the type of empathy you have than whether you have empathy at all.

People with ASD are actually generally just fine at Affective empathy (also known as deep empathy). This is what's involved in recognizing people's emotions and being affected by them. Perhaps, when you are around people who are sad, it makes you sad yourself, although you might not even know why.

People with ASD are generally pretty bad at Cognitive empathy (also known as shallow empathy). This is what's involved in seeing things from someone else's perspective. Knowing that someone is sad, you can understand why they are sad and you know how to comfort them.

I certainly know that in my case, that's a big problem for me. I'll recognise that someone needs comforting, feel sorry for them, but I don't have a clue what to do.

I think it's actually the opposite for a psychopath - psychopaths have really good shallow empathy but very little deep empathy. They know exactly how to see things from someone else's perspective and what to say to make them feel a particular way, but lack the ability to be affected by others' emotions.

 

[Johann]

What are others' experiences with EQ tests?

I have never taken an EQ test before but, I thought it may be beneficial to members to add additional information about EQ testing.

There are two main categories of EQ testing: 1) Self-assessment and 2) Ability-based. The third type is some mixture between the two.

Self-assessment based testing usually comes in the form of a survey that one has to fill out about themselves. This self-referential based experiment at best measures one's perception of themselves and thus is a subjective measure. The difficulty is in reconciling the test to measure that perception in an objective form. In other words, how emotionally intelligent someone is in ultimate reality.

Ability-based testing attempts to measure how emotionally intelligent one is in ultimate reality. This is an attempt to measure emotional intelligence objectively. The best test I know for measuring ability-based emotional intelligence is the MSCEIT(Mayer Salovey Caruso) test.

The MSCEIT imitates the way an IQ test is scaled and has an official ceiling of 135. However, through extrapolation, the MSCEIT can measure up to 4 standard deviations above the mean(160SD15).

The MSCEIT measures 4 aspects of Emotional Intelligence:

1) Accurately identify emotions of people and symbolized by objects in pictures (perceive emotions)
2) Using emotions and solve problems with the emotion (use emotions)
3) Understand the causes of emotion (understand emotions)
4) Being open to emotions and fuse emotions with thinking (regulate emotions)

Your test results on the subtests that correlate to these four aspects of emotional intelligence are averaged and correspond to a final EQ.

The test is given by an MSCEIT certified proctor.

 

[SUM1]

I just thought I'd chip in here, as the EQ test has been highly criticised by many within the Autistic community. It was invented by Simon Baron-Cohen, a leading Autism researcher who works at Cambridge university. Baron-Cohen has released some of the most famous, and highly controversial Autism diagnostic criteria to emerge across the past couple of decades. Nearly all of his work centres on the external experience of Autism, as perceived by NeuroTypicals (as opposed to the internal, lived experiences of people with Autism). His tests often have the effect of creating confirmation bias, in that he crafted these diagnostic tools in order to support his own fundamentally flawed conceptualisations of Autism traits. When you answer those questions, you're taking a guess at how NT people feel, and the odds are stacked against you. But consider this: NT people are equally incapable of guessing what is going on within the minds of Autistic people (great blog in this topic here: Unwarranted Conclusions and the Potential for Harm: My Reply to Simon Baron-Cohen ). So, if Baron-Cohen is measuring empathy based on the concept that Autistic people should guess what is going on in the minds of NT's, then by this same measurement in reverse, wouldn't NT's also be lacking empathy if this test was a mirror version of itself trying to measure how well NTs understand Autistic people? Autistic woman and academic researcher Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg (no relation to Simon) has written some excellent work on this topic, so full credit to her for that idea. Building upon this further, there is now a new generation of Autism researchers who are Actually Autistic--myself included--who are actively working to discredit some of Baron-Cohen's arguments, and highlight the harm he's caused to the Autistic community. So, for those of you who are surprised and/or hurt and upset by your results--please don't take them too seriously. It does not mean you cannot empathise. It does not mean you are a bad person. If your lived experience is that you're quite empathetic and caring, you almost certainly are--you just don't meet Baron-Cohen's highly ableist standards for empathy, as defined by Neurotypical people. A poor score on the EQ just means that Baron-Cohen's test has had the exact effect that it intended: to convince the Autistic community that they lack empathy--thereby supporting Baron-Cohen's decades of research, and benefitting his own career--when in fact, we just cannot intuit the NT lived experience, much in the same way that NTs don't understand and cannot intuit the Autistic lived experience.

I scored 6. I for one, support most of Baron-Cohen's research. I'm diagnosed with ASD and do not relate to the feeling of empathy whatsoever, except with a significant other. I've never understood this manic backlash among autists against the notion of them not having empathy. It was never meant to be a criticism. Baron-Cohen is not some fraud, he is clearly a career psychologist who makes active contributions to science.

 

[Dadamen]

23/80, Empathy Quotient, i would call this social skills test rather than empathy quotinet test.

 

[Dadamen]

 

[Hylian]

I just got a 26 when I took this (Empathy Quotient) test. I used to get around a 12 a few years ago.

 

[Karamazov]

In contrast is this more sophisticated instrument:
Empathy Quotient

========
This discussion of EQ (emotional/empathy quotient) tests
would be more meaningful to me if people who have taken
a test would also mention the name of the instrument
and link to the test they have taken.

Just taken the one I’ve left in the quote: the answers that felt most honest to me this morning resulted in a score of 12/80.