How Empathetic Are You?
A Self-Scoring Inventory
Note *This post has been edited to fix a scoring error on the self-inventory. For those of you who took the test’s first iteration, please try again. I apologize for the confusion!*
Empathy is complex. It’s not a fixed trait or a moral virtue—it’s a psychological and emotional capacity that develops over time and is shaped by personality, life experience, and emotional resilience. In The Narcissist in You and Everyone Else, I describe seven distinct levels of empathy, each with a particular emotional structure and psychological challenges. This inventory will help you reflect on how you engage with empathy and identify where you might fall on this spectrum.
A Few Notes Before You Begin:
• Reflect on patterns over time rather than how you feel at this particular moment. Empathy fluctuates based on life circumstances and emotional capacity.
• If you’ve recently experienced trauma, burnout, or emotional exhaustion, your empathy levels may be temporarily lower than usual. This is not a flaw; it’s a protective response.
• Empathy exists on a continuum. Most people span a few levels rather than fitting neatly into one category.
• This is a tool for self-reflection, not a diagnostic measure.
Instructions:
For each statement, select the answer that most closely reflects how you feel or behave most of the time. Use the following scale:
• 5 = Strongly Agree
• 4 = Agree
• 3 = Neutral
• 2 = Disagree
• 1 = Strongly Disagree
Empathy Inventory Questions
1. I can sense how someone feels before they say anything.
2. When I see someone crying, I feel compelled to help them.
3. If someone close to me is hurting, I feel it almost physically.
4. I can put myself in someone else’s shoes, even if their experience is different from mine.
5. When I hear about a tragedy, I feel emotionally affected even if it doesn’t involve me personally.
6. I often feel emotionally connected to animals and nature.
7. I feel genuine concern for the well-being of strangers as well as close friends.
8. I have felt emotional concern for someone who has hurt me in the past.
9. I instinctively try to understand why someone feels the way they do, even if I disagree with them.
10. When someone describes a painful experience, I automatically imagine how I would feel in their situation.
11. I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the emotional well-being of people I care about.
12. I feel emotionally moved when I witness someone helping another person.
13. I have been able to emotionally connect with someone I’ve never met.
14. I feel strong emotional resonance with collective suffering, such as news of war or natural disasters.
15. I’ve experienced emotional empathy for someone who has committed a crime, even if I condemn their actions.
16. If someone makes a mistake, I tend to feel compassion for them rather than judgment.
17. I feel distressed when I see an animal being mistreated or harmed.
18. I feel emotionally uncomfortable when someone I care about is upset, even if I can’t fix the situation.
19. I often mirror the emotional states of others without consciously intending to.
20. I feel compelled to repair things emotionally when I know I’ve hurt someone.
21. I’ve experienced emotional connection with someone simply by being near them, without speaking.
22. I feel an emotional connection to people from different cultures and backgrounds, even when their experiences are different from my own.
23. I feel affected when someone close to me is upset, even if they aren’t showing it outwardly.
24. I sometimes feel that emotional pain is harder for me to handle than physical pain.
25. If someone I love is angry with me, I feel emotionally unsettled until the situation is resolved.
26. I sometimes feel emotionally overwhelmed by the intensity of other people’s suffering.
27. I have a hard time emotionally disconnecting from someone else’s pain once I’ve witnessed it.
28. I have felt emotional resonance with someone’s creative work (e.g., music, art, writing) as if I could feel what they felt.
29. I’ve felt emotional empathy for someone who was actively trying to manipulate or harm others.
30. I have been able to emotionally connect with someone even when I intellectually disagreed with their perspective.
Scoring Key:
• 5 = Strongly Agree
• 4 = Agree
• 3 = Neutral
• 2 = Disagree
• 1 = Strongly Disagree
Total your score and refer to the empathy levels below:
Empathy Levels:
Level 0 (30–50 points) – Low Empathy
In most situations, you experience minimal emotional resonance with others and may feel emotionally disconnected. Emotional suffering in others may seem confusing or excessive, and you may rely more on logic than emotional connection when responding to others’ distress. If you do express empathy, it’s usually calculated rather than spontaneous.
Level 1 (51–70 points) – Shallow or Detached Empathy
You may intellectually understand how others feel, but emotional connection is inconsistent. You may struggle to engage emotionally unless it serves a personal or strategic purpose. Emotional situations may feel taxing or uncomfortable.
Level 2 (71–90 points) – Functional but Limited Empathy
You can engage emotionally when the situation requires it, but you tend to compartmentalize your emotional energy. Your empathy is likely to be more situational and directed toward people you care about rather than extending broadly to others.
Level 3 (91–110 points) – Situational Empathy
You can engage with others’ emotions in most situations, but you may struggle to maintain emotional boundaries when emotionally overwhelmed. Your empathy tends to be stronger for close friends and family but less consistent in wider social settings.
Level 4 (111–125 points) – Moderate Empathy
You experience empathy consistently and are emotionally available to others, even when the emotional stakes are high. You are sensitive to emotional cues and can hold emotional space for others without losing your emotional center.
Level 5 (126–135 points) – High Empathy
You feel deeply connected to others’ emotional experiences and often experience emotional resonance across various situations. Your emotional sensitivity allows you to anticipate emotional responses and intuitively adjust to others’ needs. However, you may experience emotional exhaustion from over-identifying with others’ suffering.
Level 6 (136–145 points) – Deep Empathy
You experience empathy as an instinctive emotional connection that extends beyond personal relationships. You may feel intense emotional responses to human suffering collectively or globally. This level of empathy requires careful emotional boundaries to avoid burnout.
Level 7 (146–150 points) – Hyper Empathy
Your emotional sensitivity extends beyond human relationships, including animals, nature, and objects. You may feel emotional resonance with people who have caused harm, including criminals and abusers and feel compelled to understand the emotional wounds behind their behavior. This level of empathy can feel spiritually overwhelming and may require conscious emotional management.
Interpretation and Reflection:
Empathy is not fixed. Your capacity for empathy may change depending on life circumstances, emotional exhaustion, or personal growth. Higher empathy is not inherently better—it’s about balance. Deep empathy can lead to burnout, while lower empathy may reflect emotional boundaries developed for self-preservation.
This inventory is based on the seven levels of empathy described in The Narcissist in You and Everyone Else. If you’d like to explore how empathy functions in relationships and personality, order the book for a deeper dive.
Thanks for the updated version!!
Quick math + methodology question: How does the scoring work with the questions for which the answer is a no? I assume that would be a 1, but then that means you’d have to answer 5 on each question to get 150, even questions that seem to contradict, like feeling empathy for inanimate objects but also not feeling empathy unless you’ve experienced something. I’m mainly asking because I was expecting to get a lot higher score than I did, because I tend to experience hyper empathy.
I answered strongly agree on 21 of the questions and the 9 I answered 1 on were questions 5, 8, 10, 11, 19, 22, 24, 25, and 27. Those questions I put 1 on because every one of them is the opposite for me. I can’t stop feeling sympathy for people even if they hurt me, I don’t get irritated with people who get emotional over things I find trivial, I struggle to detach from other people’s suffering, and when I try I do feel cold and uncaring, I can’t stop caring emotionally about someone and I pretty much always care emotionally. I think I’m just confused on how answering strongly disagree on those questions makes me less empathetic according to the numbers when I answered strongly agree on things like I’ve experienced intense emotional connection to an animal or even an object, or I’ve felt empathy for someone even when I knew they were being manipulative or deceitful, etc.
When you get a second, I’d appreciate some clarification.