I received a publicity package from Simon & Schuster informing me that America is suffering from more than an economic crisis. We are in an emotional recession as well.

The package featured a book called Emotional Intelligence 2.0. It also had a fact sheet that pointed out a prime example of the problem. Just 36 percent of people can accurately identify their emotions as they happen.

I like to think I am among them. For example, not long ago, I was watching Terminator 2, and when Arnold Schwarzenegger lowered himself into molten metal so Skynet couldn’t use his cyborg chips to make future terminators, I wept openly. And the other day, while my 17-year-old son was eating an oversized cheeseburger at Red Stripe, he asked for a napkin, something he had never done before. I was so touched I had to leave the table to collect myself.

Still, there are other signs that I might not be very evolved, such as the can-opener-gift incident on Valentine’s Day of 2001.

So I looked deeper into the Simon & Schuster offering, and saw that this book builds on an initial one that argued EQ is more important in success than IQ, being a measure of self-awareness, altruism, personal motivation and empathy. The “2.0” means the latest effort, by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, offers tools to analyze our own EQ and improve it. It comes with a pass-code to an online test.

I logged on and began, and right away, it made me feel bad. It asked my job level, including choices like CEO, VP, director, manager, supervisor and consultant. I had to admit to the rock-bottom level: “Employee, no supervisory responsibilities.”

I’m guessing this test is geared toward executives, but I continued anyway.

Right away, I was tempted to lie for a good score, which I sometimes do when I fill out doctors’ forms. I leave out family histories of illness. Why should I get a bad mark because a relative has heart problems?

But on this test, I vowed to be honest.

First question: Do I admit my shortcomings? No; I don’t believe it’s a shortcoming to flee the room after taking the last Kleenex.

Do I admit the impact of my behavior on others? (See above answer.)

Realize when others influence my emotional state? Sometimes. I am distressed, for example, that my sons still won’t friend me on Facebook because they say I’m “a huge tool.”

The survey asked how often: I handle stress well? Answer: Sometimes — though not including the day someone discarded a half-full McDonald’s shake in the household’s metal-screen wastebasket. Honestly — who does that?

Recognize other people’s feelings? I think my children would say “rarely,” based on the thousands of times they’ve told me, “That’s not fair,” and “I hate you.” They usually say these things after I respond to their pleas by saying, “A. No. And B., that would be, No.”

Do I directly address people in difficult situations? Well, sometimes. When my teenagers make daunting requests, like for later curfews, I boldly tell them, “Talk to your mother. She’s parenting tonight.”

Explain yourself to others. Well, yes, I often elucidate with, “When you’re a father, you can be mean, too.”

Show sensitivity to other people’s feelings. Not always. Were I a psychotherapist, my most frequent advice would be, “Get over it already.”

After a few dozen similar answers, I turned to the results page. They used “consultant-speak” rather than grades. The top grade, instead of an “A,” was “A Strength to Capitalize On.” A “D” was “Something you should work on,” and an “F” was, “A concern to be addressed.”

Fifty-nine or below was an F.

I got a 54.

Then it said this: “Your overall emotional intelligence score of 54 is higher than 2.0% of all people in the world.”

That low?

My “social awareness” was only higher than 1percent.

I was about to end this column having fun with my bad score, but something serious occurs to me.

Frankly, I knew I’d get a mediocre grade because I was being ruthlessly honest with myself. Each question had the same six answers, ranging from “Always” to “Rarely,” and I mostly gave myself a “Sometimes” — the third lowest choice.

I checked “Sometimes” for “Handles conflict effectively,” and the same for “Is Open to Feedback.” I checked it again for “Directly addresses people in difficult situations.”

That’s why I expected a mid-to-low grade — perhaps the bottom 40 percent. But the survey, it turns out, was graded comparatively. And oddly, all those “sometimes” answers put me in the 1 percent least-emotionally intelligent of people.

This means that almost everyone else, when pondering questions like, “Tolerates frustration without getting upset,” and “Considers many options before making a decision,” chose “Always,” or “Almost always.” Ask someone if they can be “counted on,” and of course they’re going to say yes.

It would be easy to say this proves people are untruthful, but I think it’s worse. Most believe they’re exemplary.

I’m now convinced that if you’d ask the most difficult person in the office whether he works well with others, he’d say, “Always.” That’s the main thing I learned from all this.

But it still doesn’t make me feel good about being in the bottom 1 percent.

I’m done being honest in surveys.

mpatinkin@projo.com