Wizblog

Test Your Brain Quotient

Simon Baron-Cohen, who directs the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, has posited a theory about the differences between the male and female brains, including the ways those differences may help us better understand autism. That men and women are simply "wired" differently seems blindingly obvious to most of us unscientific observers. (Just don't mention it in the Social Sciences faculty lounge at your local university.)

Baron-Cohen's theory, explained in more detail here, and here, is summarized as follows:

the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy, and that the male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems. He calls it the empathising-systemising (E-S) theory.

Empathising is the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion. The empathiser intuitively figures out how people are feeling, and how to treat people with care and sensitivity.

Systemising is the drive to analyse and explore a system, to extract underlying rules that govern the behaviour of a system; and the drive to construct systems.

Now Baron-Cohen has devised two questionnaires to test your own "empathising-systemizing" quotient, and then to plot your "brain type" based on your scores. Take the two tests here.

Turns out I'm atypical. I scored a 49 on the empathising test, well higher than the average score for men (42), and a 29 on the systemizing test, just below the mens' average (30), neither of which surprises me in the least. My work is consultative and requires the ability to listen, empathise, filter out the B.S., and negotiate emotionally complicated job-change issues for strangers. On the other hand, my technical know-how, mechanical aptitude and math skills may yet cause me to lose my Guy Card altogether.

Check it out. It's an interesting exercise.

Here's a previous Wizblog post on Baron-Cohen.

(via aldaily.com)

Posted by dan at June 4, 2005 12:38 AM | TrackBack