Empath Test - Are You Highly Empathetic?

What this test tells you

Sharing someone's joy. Feeling sad after hearing their troubles. Reflect on these emotional responses and the way you relate to others to explore your empath tendencies.

Reflect on everyday experiences

Answer 20 questions by choosing what best describes how you usually feel.

See your empath score

Your answers produce a percentage score and one of five tendency levels.

Read your explanation

Explore a description covering relationships and emotional strain, with comments on work and self-care.

This is a self-reflection tool, not a medical diagnosis or a career aptitude assessment.

01What is an empath?

An empath is someone described as feeling other people's emotions strongly, almost as their own. The word is used to describe emotional sensitivity, such as feeling another person's sadness yourself.

Authors including Judith Orloff use the term in books and writing for a general audience. Empathy as studied in psychology, however, is not a single ability. Two commonly discussed aspects are outlined below.

Affective empathy

Sharing a feeling

Hearing their story made me feel sad, too.

Experiencing an emotional response to someone else's joy or sadness.

Cognitive empathy

Understanding a perspective

I can see why that situation would make them anxious.

Imagining someone's situation and thoughts, even without feeling the same emotion yourself.

Sharing a feeling and understanding it can overlap, but they are not identical. This test does not give separate scores for these two aspects.

02Empath tendencies in everyday life

The word empath does not define your entire personality. Thinking about situations like these can help you reflect on how you experience other people's emotions.

Noticing emotional changes

You pay attention to expressions and tone as well as words. When someone seems upset, your own mood may shift, too.

Valuing emotional connection

You enjoy sharing someone's happiness or listening to their worries. Stories and music may also move you deeply.

Feelings that overlap

Someone's worries stay with you after a conversation. It can become difficult to separate what they are feeling from what you are feeling.

Sensing a feeling does not guarantee that you have understood it accurately. Emotional sensitivity and accuracy in reading others are different things.

03Your score and the five result levels

Your empath score leads to one of the results below and an explanation. These are levels of tendency within this test, not five distinct personality types.

Quite a Low Score

Your answers show relatively little agreement with the experiences covered by this test.

Low Empath Tendency

Your answers more often suggest keeping some distance from other people's emotions.

Not High in Empath Tendency

Strongly experiencing other people's emotions as your own is less prominent in your answers.

Slightly Empath Tendency

Your answers suggest some tendency to respond sensitively to other people's feelings.

Significantly High Empath Tendency

Your answers suggest a strong tendency to experience other people's emotions as your own.

The percentage is a score on this test. It is not the probability that you are an empath or a percentile ranking. Your circumstances and self-perception can affect your answers.

04How to read your result

A high score is not a measure of goodness

Sharing emotions strongly and acting respectfully are different things. Consider both the situations in which you connect easily and those you find emotionally demanding.

A low score does not mean you are uncaring

You can listen, understand someone's circumstances and offer help without feeling exactly what they feel. This score cannot identify other traits such as psychopathy.

Your score does not decide your career

The result explanation includes examples of work, but it is not a career aptitude assessment. Consider these comments alongside your interests, experience, skills and working environment.