24 out of 80
Posted on | March 22, 2008 | 32 Comments
A little bit ago I answered a set of questions meant to measure my empathy quotient.
I scored 24 out of 80.
That placed me in the “low” category, according to the test:
0 – 32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
I’m thinking of getting “24 out of 80″ tattooed on my arm, or emblazoned on a t-shirt.
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March 22nd, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
26 out of 80 for me.
I wonder how many other user experience folks are as unsympathetic. Haha.
March 22nd, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
I scored around what I thought I might. I got a 56 out of 80 (according to the site, a tad above average). Good thing or bad thing, I don’t really know, but hey – it’s just a test.
March 22nd, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
My score is 60, Which is the very best score achievable. Any higher scorer is a pathetic wimp or a liar. I would much rather hang with the liar than the wimp, with whom I could never empathize.
March 22nd, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
26 out of 80 for me as well – I was surprised thinking for sure it would be higher since part of the UX job is to be empathetic.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 7:21 am
I scored 33. It’s a stupid test.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 8:18 am
i scored a 72 out of 80.
bj, peter will be able to attest that i am neither a liar or a wimp, though it’s totally obvious to me why you might think that.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 8:29 am
I love you, Lane, so I hope you are a liar. If I empathized with wimps my score would have been over the top.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 10:25 am
Hmm. Scored a 60 out of 80, which seems about right. Lane, I’m impressed that you can go outside – if I could empathize with people any more than I already do, I probably wouldn’t be able to leave the house.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 10:55 am
62 out of 80. I actually thought it would be higher.
But really, how do you feel about your score?
March 23rd, 2008 @ 11:52 am
56 out of 80. Interestingly I found myself thinking “a few years ago I would have X”. Essentially I have lost some empathy over the years. I used to practically cry at AT&T commercials, but I’ve learned to detach myself from things that either don’t matter (a commercial) or that I cannot make an impact in changing (kid crying in the grocery store with supportive parent nearby). I am strongly empathetic and impassioned about things where I think I can have an impact of changing for the better.
So does that make me less empathetic? Or strategically empathetic?
March 23rd, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
29. Ouch.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
36, which seems about right. I care more for people than animals, I hate heartstring-tugging news stories, and I find many social situations to be draining. Clearly that skews me towards hermit-dom. I’d like to see a cross-tab with Myers-Briggs. Are introverts generally less empathetic?
March 23rd, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
My number is 55, but what does it mean? The test seem kinda random and as with all of these tests it is not really comparable to other people. Anyways, 55 is good enough.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
51. I thought it would be higher. This test seems bogus, though. It only asks for your own opinion of how you rank on these things, so it’s really just a measure of how empathetic you *think* you are.
I know for a fact that some of you folks in the 20s and 30s do in fact conduct yourselves like highly empathetic people. No comment on those of you in the 60s and 70s
March 23rd, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
29. I agree with Leah – it’s measuring how empathetic you think you are. As tests go, it’s badly designed.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
I don’t think it’s badly designed. It is what it is. It does require a) a heightened sense of self-awareness and b) a willingness to answer as truthfully as possible. If you meet both, I think it’s pretty apt… I mean, I know I’m not super empathetic, and so I wasn’t SURPRISED by my score.
(Nor am I surprised that many UX/design types are not empathetic. Nor do I think a high degree of empathy is necessarily a good thing, nor a low degree necessarily a bad thing. You can have a low degree of empathy and still be a good, honest, trusting, helpful person.)
March 23rd, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
I got a 29. In your face! (There’s empathy for ya.)
I also got a 53 on the Systemizing Quotient test. Apparently that’s oddly high for a woman. Since most of the questions were about having curiosity round how things work, I am disappointed that is the case.
Test is here: http://www.glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/SystemizingQuotient/SystemizingQuotient.aspx
March 23rd, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
[...] After scoring 24 out of 80, I explored the other tests on the site. One that caught my attention is the Mind in the eyes test, which asks you to describe what someone is thinking or feeling based just on looking at their eyes. I believe it’s related to Paul Ekman’s work on reading faces. [...]
March 23rd, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
I scored 54. Not sure how to react to that. It is what it is. Maybe I should go laugh at a hurt puppy to lower my score a little.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 8:57 pm
I scored 39 (low average) and Seth scored 65 (very high). It wasn’t surprising, since I’m a Thinker and he’s an extreme Feeler.
I think there are two kinds of Thinkers/”Unempathetic” people though — brash ones who aren’t afraid to speak their mind and oblivious ones who hate ruffling people but whose minds are just caught up in something else a lot of the time (e.g., getting information, getting things done).
I’m the latter kind.
Another observation — which goes back to the how empathetic you THINK you are vs. you actually are — is that both Seth and I often *think* we are doing a great job of reading people, yet we both get totally different reads.
Frequent Example: We both feel we are being super-sensitive to whether anyone minds that we’re taking pictures with our obnoxiously huge camera.
Seth might perceive: Everyone is annoyed so we should stop.
I might perceive: It’s totally fine, no one’s even noticing.
So who’s more empathetic?
March 23rd, 2008 @ 9:16 pm
41 for myself, so once again, I am “average”. Nothing new there.
March 24th, 2008 @ 5:52 am
A rather empathetic score: 69.
March 24th, 2008 @ 6:57 am
65, which feels about right for me. This test does make an important point with its scoring. Empathy isn’t just abstractly seeing from someone else’s perspective but actually feeling a bit from it as well. There’s a limit to how much you can get into someone else’s shoes without beginning to get sucked into their emotional state as well.
So, BJMe is right that highly empathic people end up being highly sensitive emotionally. Now excuse me while I go sit in a corner and cry about BJ not wanting to hang with me.
March 24th, 2008 @ 7:43 am
32. Meaning i might only twitch a bit at a screening of Old Yeller?
March 24th, 2008 @ 9:54 am
66, despite teasing people.
March 24th, 2008 @ 11:38 am
Damn it, Todd. Now you’ve got me feeling all blubbery and high scoring. I hate that.
March 25th, 2008 @ 11:56 am
43 – totally average. I wonder if there is a connection with the fact that I supposedly use my left and right brain equally. hmmm.
March 31st, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
9. NINE. I think that means I eat children for breakfast.
It does conveniently explain why I continue to get feedback from managers about being more sensitive to others around me, however
April 3rd, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
72. i feel your pain.
April 13th, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
[...] Peter blogged about his empathy quotient, and a bunch of us joined in the test. I ranked low, which didn’t really surprise me. I was a 36 out of 80. Apparently I don’t care about people around me. Which is funny, because I think I do. [...]
April 19th, 2008 @ 3:30 am
Soo glad Mike mentioned his score of 9.
I got 10….
There goes my theory that all UX people are empathetic, and that I was a good example. Maybe I’ll take pride in the “Thinker” category that seems to be associated with this.
By the way, previously I scored rather high on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient:
http://www.peterboersma.com/blog/2006/09/autism-spectrum-quotient-aq-test.html
I hope you all go to hell
May 7th, 2008 @ 6:05 pm
I got 16. You goddamn freaks.