10 responses to “EMPATHY QUOTIENT”

1. 

   Rita

   April 21, 2003 at 4:28 pm

   I blame law school for my score…it warped my brain. I wasn’t always like this…well, ok maybe a little.
2. 

   James Joyner

   April 21, 2003 at 4:32 pm

   🙂 Between my ARRRmy training and the doctoral program, same here. Although, partly, it’s a function of the idiocy of the poll. They give questions that I don’t really have an answer to–or, to which my first response is “What does that MEAN, exactly?”–and then force me to agree or disagree rather than assigning, say, a scale. Plus, some of the questions seemed to deal with self-confidence or tolerance rather than empathy. I’m enough of a rationalist that I really don’t give a rat’s rear end what most people think, as long as they can intelligently defend their position.
3. 

   Jay Solo

   April 21, 2003 at 5:35 pm

   Did you also take the SQ test and plot the overall brain type?
4. 

   James Joyner

   April 21, 2003 at 5:43 pm

   Heh. Not yet. The first one took freakin’ forever. 60 questions!
5. 

   John Lemon

   April 21, 2003 at 5:43 pm

   I think I have a high BQ (boredom quotient) as I didn’t get beyond question 27.
6. 

   James Joyner

   April 21, 2003 at 5:46 pm

   Indeed! It’s the ratchet effect at work–eventually, I felt I had sunk enough time into it that I had to finish to get my reward.
7. 

   MommaBear

   April 21, 2003 at 6:59 pm

   MB had SQ = 62, EQ = 42 . Still not sure what to make of it all, since that SQ score should have led to a very low EQ. Think there may have been quite a bit missing from some of the definitions.
8. 

   April

   April 21, 2003 at 10:18 pm

   Interesting…I have an EQ 0f 62 and an SQ of 41…but I’m hung up on EQ Qn 18 re cutting up worms to see what happens…it’s quite disturbing and might have affected my score…
9. 

   James Joyner

   April 22, 2003 at 2:09 pm

   Honestly, I think the test is rather bizarre. For one thing, they violate the rules of polling by using negatively worded and double barreled questions. They go back and forth between negative and positive wording throughout the quiz.

   Take this one: “It doesn’t bother me too much if I am late meeting a friend.”

   Huh?

   What is “too much”? Am I being asked whether I’m unbalanced–worrying “too much”–or whether I care whether I upset them by being late? It’s unclear what they’re after with it.
10. 

    James Joyner

    April 22, 2003 at 2:16 pm

    This one is a classic double-barreled question: 48. Other people often say that I am insensitive, though I donít always see why.

    So, if people often say I’m insensitive, but I damned well know why, I should strongly disagree, yes? And that makes me empathetic?

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