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This self-assessment Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) , was originally developed by Nathan C. Spreng, Margaret C. McKinnon, Raymond A. Mar, and colleagues . TraitProfiler provides an interactive digital version for educational, informational, and self-exploration purposes only.

Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ)

Background

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) is a widely used self-report measure designed to assess emotional empathy, emotional responsiveness, compassion, interpersonal sensitivity, and emotional attunement to other people’s experiences.
The TEQ was developed by Nathan C. Spreng, Margaret C. McKinnon, Raymond A. Mar, and colleagues in 2009 as a concise and psychometrically reliable measure of empathy.
The questionnaire focuses primarily on emotional aspects of empathy including emotional contagion, sympathy, emotional concern, emotional responsiveness, and awareness of others’ emotional states.
Research studies have demonstrated strong internal consistency, reliability, and validity across personality psychology, social neuroscience, emotional functioning research, relationship studies, and mental health research.

Psychological Domains Measured

Emotional Empathy
Measures emotional resonance, emotional connection, and emotional responsiveness to other people’s experiences.
Emotional Responsiveness
Measures emotional reactions to distress, happiness, suffering, and emotional situations involving others.
Compassion and Sympathy
Measures concern for others, sympathetic emotional reactions, and compassionate interpersonal tendencies.
Emotional Awareness
Measures awareness of emotional signals, recognition of emotional states, and emotional attunement to others.
Interpersonal Sensitivity
Measures emotional sensitivity toward social situations, unfair treatment, emotional reactions, and interpersonal experiences.
Prosocial Concern
Measures protective behavior, helping tendencies, emotional care, and desire to support others emotionally.
The TEQ is commonly used in personality psychology, empathy research, social neuroscience, relationship studies, counseling research, and emotional functioning research. The questionnaire is intended for educational and research purposes and should not be used as a standalone diagnostic tool.

Procedure

This questionnaire is designed to evaluate emotional empathy, emotional responsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, and emotional awareness toward other people’s experiences.

Participants select the response option that best reflects how often they experience each emotional or interpersonal reaction in everyday life.

The assessment focuses on emotional concern, emotional resonance, sympathy, awareness of emotions, compassion, and emotionally responsive interpersonal behavior.

Participation

This assessment is intended for educational, personality, and research purposes only.

Results should not be considered a clinical diagnosis or substitute for professional psychological or psychiatric evaluation.

Empathy-related experiences may vary across emotional situations, relationships, social environments, and personality styles.

Scoring & Interpretation

Responses are scored according to the frequency and intensity of emotional empathy, emotional responsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, and prosocial emotional concern.

Higher scores generally indicate stronger emotional empathy, emotional attunement, compassionate concern, and emotional responsiveness toward others.

Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) Questionnaire

Instructions & Terms

Below is the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ), a digitally adapted 16- items self-assessment questionnaire. This assessment does not provide a clinical diagnosis, medical determination, or substitute for professional psychological evaluation.

Question 1 of 16 Emotional Responsiveness

When someone else is feeling excited, I tend to get excited too.


Question 2 of 16 Emotional Empathy

Other people’s misfortunes do not disturb me a great deal.


Question 3 of 16 Interpersonal Sensitivity

It upsets me to see someone being treated disrespectfully.


Question 4 of 16 Emotional Responsiveness

I remain unaffected when someone close to me is happy.


Question 5 of 16 Prosocial Concern

I enjoy making other people feel better.


Question 6 of 16 Compassion and Sympathy

I have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.


Question 7 of 16 Prosocial Concern

When a friend starts to talk about his/her problems, I try to steer the conversation towards something else.


Question 8 of 16 Emotional Awareness

I can tell when others are sad even when they do not say anything.


Question 9 of 16 Emotional Awareness

I find that I am “in tune” with other people’s moods.


Question 10 of 16 Compassion and Sympathy

I do not feel sympathy for people who cause their own serious illnesses.


Question 11 of 16 Emotional Responsiveness

I become irritated when someone cries.


Question 12 of 16 Emotional Empathy

I am not really interested in how other people feel.


Question 13 of 16 Prosocial Concern

I get a strong urge to help when I see someone who is upset.


Question 14 of 16 Interpersonal Sensitivity

When I see someone being treated unfairly, I do not feel very much pity for them.


Question 15 of 16 Compassion and Sympathy

I find it silly for people to cry out of happiness.


Question 16 of 16 Prosocial Concern

When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards him/her.




Psychometric Norms

1
Participants
63%
Community Mean
0%
Sample SD
63%
Highest Observed Score
63%
Lowest Observed Score
2026–2026
Collection Period

Current normative data for theCurrent normative data for the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) are derived from 1 anonymous participant responses collected through TraitProfiler between 2026 and 2026. All response data are collected anonymously and are intended exclusively for educational, psychometric, and non-commercial research purposes.

Sources
  1. Spreng, R. N., McKinnon, M. C., Mar, R. A., & Levine, B. The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire: Scale development and initial validation of a factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures.