  A very experienced Birkman consultant once explained "low Empathy Need" to a class I was in by telling us about the time she was asked to give a speech about Dr Birkman at the Birkman International 40th anniversary dinner. No sooner had she started speaking than she became choked up, starting crying uncontrollably and had to leave the stage.
On her return, Dr Birkman came over to her and said, "you low Empathy Need people are so sentimental..." She was a bit surprised by this - low Empathy scores are normally presented as being about objectivity over subjectivity - but she asked a few questions and came to realise that Empathy Need is fundamentally an indication of emotional capacity. High scores are those who not only need lots of outlets for their subjective feelings and will be very aware of the emotional climate around them, but also can cope with having a lot of raw emotion in the environment... and still keep functioning.
Low Needs on the other hand reach emotional overload much sooner; and emotional overload for many people converts to tears. So, she told us, low Empathy Need people are often the first to weep in a weepy movie - they just can't handle the emotional overload. The corollary to this of course is that very high Empathy Need people may well cry in movies as well. What's the difference? The Low Empathy Need folks hate the fact that they have started weeping; us High Empathy Needs people actually rather enjoy it! Elaura - take your people to the top 
