Empathy Quotient EQ
Empathy Quotient EQ overview
Creator and Context
The Empathy Quotient (EQ) is a self report measure of empathy in adults.
It was developed by Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge and published in 2004. Short forms exist, including the EQ-Short and the EQ-10.
Autism Research Centre instruments are licensed for research and non commercial use, and may not be adapted without permission.
Presenting Conditions
The EQ measures empathy as a single total. Later psychometric work identified three underlying factors, which are used in research but are not part of official scoring:
Cognitive empathy
Emotional reactivity
Social skills
Administration
Self administered. There are 60 items, of which 40 are empathy items and 20 are filler items that are not scored. Each empathy item is answered on a four point agree to disagree scale and scores 2, 1 or 0. It is a trait measure with no recall window.
Desired Audience
Adults of normal intelligence. Adolescent and child versions are published separately.
The EQ is best used as one piece of a broader picture rather than as a decision tool. It describes something real about how a person experiences other people, which is useful in formulation and in explaining difficulties to the person themselves.
Considerations
The EQ measures empathy, not autism. Low empathy is neither necessary nor sufficient for autism, and 19 percent of the autistic sample in the original study scored above the threshold.
Women score higher than men on average in the general population, so a single fixed threshold applied to women sets a higher bar and will plausibly under identify autistic women.
NICE recommends the AQ-10 rather than the EQ for autism screening in adults.
Cut offs for the short forms are not published. Do not apply the 60 item threshold to a short form score.
Autism Research Centre instruments are licensed for research and non commercial use. Commercial deployment requires their permission.
How to score the Empathy Quotient EQ
Conducting the assessment
The person answers 60 items. Only the 40 empathy items are scored, each contributing 0, 1 or 2 points.
Interpretation
Scores range from 0 to 80. Higher scores indicate greater self reported empathy.
A score of 30 or below is the threshold reported in the original study. At that threshold, 81 percent of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism scored at or below 30, compared with 12 percent of controls.
This is a group level discrimination statistic, not a diagnostic threshold.
Clinical Considerations
Never use the EQ alone to inform an autism decision. Use a validated autism screener such as the AQ-10 for that purpose.
Interpret women's scores against the known sex difference in the population distribution.
Treat it as descriptive. It is most useful in conversation with the person, not as a gate.
Empathy Quotient EQ use cases
Measuring self reported empathy in adults
Supporting formulation in autism assessment, alongside a validated autism screener
Research into empathy, autism and related conditions
Category
Autism
Research Summary
Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The Empathy Quotient: An investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(2), 163 to 175.
Lawrence, E. J., Shaw, P., Baker, D., Baron-Cohen, S., & David, A. S. (2004). Measuring empathy: Reliability and validity of the Empathy Quotient. Psychological Medicine, 34, 911 to 919.
Wakabayashi, A., Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., et al. (2006). Development of short forms of the Empathy Quotient and the Systemizing Quotient. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 929 to 940.
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