Well, this never looks good

[elfs]

Empathy:
13.

Scoring:
0 - 32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
33 - 52 = average (most women score about 47 and most men score about 42)
53 - 63 is above average
64 - 80 is very high
80 is maximum

Autism: 38

Scoring:
0 - 10 = low
11 - 22 = average (most women score about 15 and most men score about 17)
23 - 31 = above average
32 - 50 is very high (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 35)
50 is maximum

Comments

Does Not Compute

[(Anonymous)]

But if you have autistic tendencies, then how is it that you can write eloquently about your characters' emotional states and maintain your many relationships?

If this is mental illness, then I don't want to be well.

Of course, maybe this quiz has all the relevance of a Cosmo survey.

Re: Does Not Compute

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Sure it does. In fact, it makes more sense. Normal human beings don't spend a lot of time processing their social feelings; they just work. Aspy's and ADD's (I've long known I have the latter; I've never been diagnosed with the former and I don't think at this point that it would serve any purpose if I were) are probably better at writing about these things precisely because they think about what those relationships are.

I mean, read any book where characters are thinking "deeply" about their relationships. Do real people think like that, or do they only wish that they did?

Re: Does Not Compute

[elfric.livejournal.com]

As an INTP who is also ADD, I totally agree with your assessment. I have actually spent time thinking about how people interact, why they do what they do, why they think what they do, etc. From what I can tell, that sort of thing is intuitively obvious to most people.

Re: Does Not Compute

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I score low for Empathy and high for Autism, and yet people seem to think that I can write about the state of a protagonist's mind and emotions. I hadn't seen a theory to account for this until now.

That's a very helpful analysis, thank you.

(I'm INTP, occasionally INTJ)

Typo!

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I'm ISTP, occasionally ISTJ. Oops.

Re: Does Not Compute

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I'm an INTJ (I saw your later post, so I know it's an S), but only weakly J, ocassionally sliding in P depending on the day I take the test. As a writer, I sometimes have characters who don't introspect and I have problems writing them. I know there are people like that, but how do you deal with someone who seems to have little or no inner life? I have a serious problem empathising with and making seem human those kinds of people.

Re: Does Not Compute

[dougs.livejournal.com]

Ah, it looks like I don't write characters who don't introspect. I don't write them in detail anyway -- bit players who aren't core to the piece don't count.
Because I'm a slash writer and very rarely produce original characters, as a result I very rarely have to build a character from scratch. Even so, if I place a canonically non-introspective character at the centre of one of my pieces, you can bet I'll have plenty of introspection going on.

Sometime I might raise this question in my own journal. (Not now -- bedtime UK time).