This exploratory study asks the question, 'How skilled are the adolescents of today at understanding the emotions of others'. A questionnaire was administered to 357 Christchurch High School students in Forms 3, 5 and 7. Five high schools donated their students'; time to the study. There were two public, two integrated and one private high school in the study. Five demographic dimensions were explored, namely: gender, age, Form level, income and race. The questionnaire presented 14 short scenarios, each followed by a question in the general form, 'What was the protagonist feeling and why'. Ten A Priori hypotheses were proposed and tested. The results indicate that for adolescents the general level of the emotional understanding of others is very low but that some groups performed remarkably well such as the Form 3 private girls school. The students' skill generally increased with age and Form level. Females scored significantly higher than males on all measures, namely at every age, Form level, income level, in every racial group, in the top end group and in the bottom end group. Form groups were found to be a better measure of skill growth than age groups presumably because Form groups represent clearer social groups than the age groupings. Scores by income groups showed the ability to understand the emotions of others was independent of income level. Generally Caucasians scored higher than non-Caucasians except in the top group where there was a slightly higher proportion of Polynesian / Maori and the Asian students in the group, however, the Asian group was very small. Implications for training students in the skills of understanding the emotions of others are presented.