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The researchers found that, although women scored, on average, 10 points higher in the "Emotional Quotient" (EQ) test than men, there doesn't appear to be a genetic basis for those differences, said lead study author Varun Warrier, a doctoral student in neuroscience at the University of Cambridge in England. "Genetically, [men and women] seem identical, but there is a difference in the empathy score, which is quite significant," Warrier told Live Science. "The [highest possible] score in the EQ test is 80. We saw that men score, on average, 40, and women score, on average, 50." The 60 questions that made up the EQ test focused on various aspects of empathy, including cognitive empathy (the ability to understand others' states of mind) and affective empathy (the ability to react appropriately to others).The former is known to be impaired, for example, in people with autism. In the study, the researchers looked for variations in a single building block of DNA, the nucleotide. These variations, called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, are the most common type of genetic variation. An example of an SNP would be the nucleotide cytosine (C) randomly replaced with the nucleotide thymine (T) in a certain stretch of DNA, Warrier explained. Need Assignment Help?