[Poster on] Psychometric properties of the Dutch Empathizing and Systemizing Quotient

Introduction: According to the male brain hypothesis [Baron-Cohen, S. (2009), Year in Cognitive Neuroscience], individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterized by a low empathizing cognitive style. Empathizing is “the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion”. Individuals with ASD, on the other hand may possess a relatively strong systemizing cognitive style, which drives them to analyse how systems work and behave, and to construct systems. This is regarded as an extreme male cognitive style. Internationally, the self-report questionnaires ‘Empathy Quotient’ (EQ) and ‘Systemizing Quotient’ (SQ) were developed to measure these cognitive styles. This study investigates the psychometric properties of the Dutch EQ and SQ.
Methods: A community sample of 685 participants (270 males, 415 females) completed the Dutch 40-item EQ and 75-item SQ-Revised (SQ-R) as well as the 35-item Friendship Questionnaire (FQ). Factor analysis was performed, and internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity were investigated. Sensitivity of the questionnaires was tested in a group of males with high functioning ASD (n = 22).
Results: A 3-factor structure of the shortened 28-item EQ was confirmed, with the scales: Cognitive Empathy, Emotional Empathy and Social Skills. The 1-factor structure of the SQ-R was replicated. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability was good, however the Emotional Empathy scale had low retest reliability. Convergent validity was demonstrated by 1) the typical sex differences on the EQ and SQ, and 2) positive correlations between the EQ scales and FQ as well as negative correlations between SQ-R and the EQ total and Emotional Empathy scales. The EQ scales and brain type, but not the SQ-R, discriminated males with ASD from males of the community sample with large effect size.
Discussion: The Dutch 28-item EQ and the SQ-R are reliable and valid tools to assess a person’s empathizing and systemizing cognitive style. For autism, these tools are helpful in describing the subjectively experienced difficulties and strengths of the patient in processing social and non-social information. Especially the EQ scales provide additional information on the specific aspects of social information processing that are disturbed.