Toronto Empathy Questionnaire
Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) · Also known as: TEQ, Toronto Empathy Scale
The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) is a 16-item self-report measure of empathic ability and emotional responsiveness to others' emotions. Developed by Randy Spreng and colleagues in 2009, the TEQ captures affective empathy—the capacity to feel and share another person's emotions—rather than cognitive perspective-taking. The scale has become widely used in social, clinical, and neuroscience research examining individual differences in emotional empathy and its correlates with mental health, prosocial behavior, and brain structure.
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When to use it
The TEQ is appropriate for research examining individual differences in empathy and their associations with mental health, prosocial behavior, interpersonal relationships, and neurobiology. It is valuable in clinical assessment, training evaluation for helping professions, and studies of personality and social functioning. It is less suitable for assessing cognitive perspective-taking or general social competence; other measures capture those constructs.
Strengths & limitations
- Brief, unidimensional structure focusing specifically on affective empathy rather than conflating it with cognitive empathy or general social skills
- Strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.80–0.87) and stable factor structure across samples
- Validated across diverse populations (clinical, community, student, international)
- Predictive validity for prosocial behavior, relationship satisfaction, and mental health outcomes
- Available in multiple languages with good cross-cultural equivalence
- Unidimensional structure may not distinguish affective empathy from emotional contagion or emotional sensitivity to distress
- Self-report bias: respondents may over- or under-report empathic feelings depending on social desirability or current mood
- Does not measure cognitive empathy or perspective-taking, which are distinct from affective empathy
Frequently asked
What is the difference between affective and cognitive empathy?
Affective empathy (measured by TEQ) is the capacity to feel and share emotions with others—emotional resonance. Cognitive empathy is the intellectual ability to understand another's perspective and mental states without necessarily feeling their emotions. Both are important; optimal social functioning requires both dimensions.
Can empathy be too high?
In extreme cases, yes. Very high empathy can lead to emotional overwhelm, vicarious trauma, or poor boundaries—people with very high empathy sometimes struggle to maintain self-care or professional distance. Empathy is most adaptive when paired with perspective-taking, emotion regulation, and clear boundaries.
Is empathy innate or learned?
Both. There is genetic influence on empathic capacity, but empathy is also substantially shaped by early relationships, cultural values, and life experience. Cross-cultural research shows variation in empathy expression. Empathy can be enhanced through practice, perspective-taking exercises, and certain therapeutic approaches.
Do people with autism have low empathy?
Not necessarily. People on the autism spectrum typically show intact or heightened affective empathy but may have differences in cognitive empathy or social empathy expression. The TEQ and other self-report empathy measures show variable patterns in autism; this reflects differences in how empathy is expressed, not absence of empathic capacity.
How stable is the TEQ over time?
Test-retest reliability over 2–4 weeks is high (r > 0.80), indicating good short-term stability. Over longer intervals (months to years), correlations are moderate (r = 0.50–0.70), reflecting both trait stability and responsiveness to significant life events, relationships, and emotional state.
Sources
- Spreng, R. N., McKinnon, M. C., Mar, R. A., & Levine, B. (2009). The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire: Scale development and initial validation of a factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(1), 62–71. DOI: 10.1080/00223890802484381 ↗
- Eerland, A., Engelen, J. A., & Zwaan, R. A. (2016). The influence of body posture on affective memory. Cognition & Emotion, 30(2), 228–237. link ↗
- Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10, 85. link ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 3). Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ). ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/social-psychology/toronto-empathy-questionnaire
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