Simon Baron-Cohen’s Empathy Quotient test is biased. It unfairly favors the neurotypical culture. Its questions have more to do with social etiquette and communication than they do with empathy.
Empathy is the ability to understand how someone feels because you can imagine what it is like to be them. The fact of the matter is NTs continuously display an inability to imagine what it is like to not be NT. Even this Empathy Quotient test is proof of it. If that was not so, Simon Baron-Cohen would have been able to imagine how grossly inaccurate his test is (assuming, of course, he cares).
I wonder how he’d explain these two things compared with his EQ test:
1.) Maia Szalavitz’s article Asperger’s theory does about-face reveals the results of a groundbreaking study suggesting people with autism-spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s do not lack empathy – rather, they feel others’ emotions more intensely than neurotypical people do! In comparison to Aspies, NTs lack empathy. She points out that this information jibes with the “intense world” theory, a new way of thinking about the nature of autism.
2.) I scored a perfect 36 points (out of a total 36) on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, but yet I scored a 9 (80 is maximum) on the EQ test!¹ I also have an uncanny ability to predict human behavior, but this can ironically only happen if I’m ‘emotionally disconnected’ (it happens to me; it’s not something I can control). When I say ‘emotionally disconnected’, I mean being separated physcially (as if watching actors on t.v. rather than being with them in person).
Olga Bogdashina² sates in her book Autism and the Edges of the Known World: Sensitivities, Language, and Constructed Reality,
From this perspective, we can see that it is ‘normal’ people who are disconnected (‘off-line’) from ‘sensory-emotional feel’ typical for highly sensitive autistic individuals:
What Ms. Bogdashina’s research and book suggests is that professionals specializing in studies on autism spectrum people may need to change their perspectives on what they think they know about those of us in the neuro-A-typical culture. (More quotes from her book are in my post The Two Validation Choices.)
Almost all NTs are unable to take an Aspie’s perspective to see how their actions/words are impacting him or her because of being oblivious to an Aspie’s emotions. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test should have two columns of eyes → one column of NT eyes expressing emotion; the other column of eyes should belong to Aspies expressing their emotions. I’d love to see the results of NTs tested to read the minds of Aspies by looking at Aspie eyes! Almost always NTs fail to read my non-verbal language.
Analyzing a test like Simon Baron-Cohen’s one that claims to measure empathy fits perfectly into my neurologically designed (female Aspie) way of processing thought.
According to Dr. Tony Attwood, a leading expert on Asperger’s Syndrome, Aspie girls are “little philosophers” who think long and deeply about human interaction. From an early age, girls with Asperger’s syndrome have applied their cognitive skills to analyse social interactions and are more likely than boys to discuss the inconsistencies in social conventions and their thoughts on social events. They may wonder if all people see the same color as blue, for instance, or analyze the meaning of the word “mind.” They often appear odd or cold, or seem to live in fantasy worlds. They may love animals, but in an obsessive way. For example, if an Aspie girl loves horses, she may want to spend every waking hour riding, grooming her horse, or even sleeping in the stable.
I’m like sushipie, the author of the blog This has become a weakness., as she describes herself,
One of the common Asperger’s descriptions that doesn’t quite “fit” me is an encyclopedic knowledge of specific subjects. I have always had special interests but memorizing facts is just not something I do. I spent my time pondering the unseen world. Every time I rode in the car down a highway I would imagine the roads as a nervous system and people were the cells being transferred from place to place. I often contemplated God, souls, and spirits. Just like in the example I constantly wondered if everyone’s perception of the physical world was the same. Sometimes I would pretend that I had just hopped through time and I was in a new dimension of reality and I would act as though everything I did in the alternate reality was normal and people understood me. I am still a philosopher at heart only nobody knows it because I have such a difficult time verbalizing my understanding of such topics.
My mother never could understand my passion for analyzing. As a child, I was unaware that what I was thinking about most of the time is called metaphysics. That hunger I had for finding the meaning of things in life, knowledge, and beliefs never left me. I had no idea how much God pre-programmed the question, “If that’s so, then how come…?” along with the statement, “It depends…” into my being. No high caliber logic thinker would be born without such a question and statement deeply embedded into her nature.
I somewhat agree with these words stated by another female Aspie blogger,
The fact that female Aspies tend to observe, analyse, and critique social interactions may appear to indicate that we have no social impairments and feel more comfortable with people than with objects. It seems to me, however, that the only people interested in observing, analysing, and critiquing social interactions for free would be people who can’t intuitively grasp them.
The reason I say ‘somewhat’ is because I do intuitively grasp social interactions when I’m ‘emotionally disconnected’. Since I’m almost always incapable of disconnecting myself emotionally from others while I’m physically in the midst of a social situation, it’s only logical for me to be highly interested in observing, analysing, and critiquing social interactions. The intense level of empathy I experience actually creates chaos in my mind because NTs don’t think like Apies.
Being that NTs have comparatively less empathy, combined with their relatively illogical perception of what’s ‘correct’ social behavior (e.g., mismatch between what’s said verbally versus non-verbally), it’s only natural for them to feel frustrated and confused when attempting to socialize with me.
Maybe this illustration may help to clarify what I’m saying? → Cats and dogs can be happy. Happiness is expressed in dogs through the way they wag their tails. Cats purr when they’re happy. NTs and Aspies are both capable of feeling all the same kinds of emotions. However, Aspies are the “what you see is what you get” kind of people whereas NTs are natural “performers.” That’s what makes it so easy for NTs to be able to be manipulative (and bullies) compared to Aspies. That’s as unfair as Simon Baron-Cohen’s Empathy Quotient test.
¹I scored a 48 (50 is the maximum) on the Aspergers Quotient test (most Aspies score about 35; NTs score low numbers). I scored a 76 on the Systemizing Quotient test (most women score 24; 80 is the maximum).
²Olga Bogdashina has a MA Education (Autism), a PhD (Linguistics), and has worked extensively in the field of autism as teacher, lecturer and researcher, with a particular interest in sensory-perceptual and communication problems in autism. Since 1994, she has been the director of the first Day Centre for autistic children in Ukraine and the President of the Autism Society, Ukraine. Olga teaches and lectures around the world. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Birmingham University and Consultant Psychologist for Services for Adults with Autism, UK. She has an adult son with autism.
P.S. — There is a little short bit more on this topic in my next post Empathetic Coincidence, along with an important point humorously expressed that I haven’t yet seen made by anyone.