Sex Differences in Empathy Quotient - Report Example

Sex Differences in Empathy Quotient Name Institution Abstract This research on sex differences in empathy quotient was carried out to investigate whether differences in gender differences replicate the variations in self-rated emotion and to test who scored higher between male and female on the empathy quotient. 60 participants were tested and this included 31 males and 29 females aged between 18 and 70 years. The participants were told to respond by giving a rating of the emotions they would feel according to a certain scenarios presented to them. A self-report questionnaire with 40 questions was used with a scoring sheet, consent form and a debriefing form. As projected, there were considerably higher scores from the female participants on the empathy quotient than the men under every given scenario. This shows that the differences in gender in self-reported empathy could be as a result of overall emotional sensitivity differences. The scores were calculated by deducting the rating for the other person for each scenario from the rating of the person himself or herself. Introduction In the recent years, studies addressing empathy have been on the rise; the capability of understanding and feeling the emotions and thoughts of others. The most likely reason for this is the advancements in technology which allow for the extensive study of the neural basis of empathy that was not possible in the past. The constantly developing field of social neuroscience is also a motivating factor to these studies in empathy quotient. Until recently, there have been no studies of gender differences in empathy through neuroimaging. There was no indication of overall gender differences in a recent investigation of empathy for pain (Lamm, Decety, & Singer, 2011). There have been nevertheless some studies that found substantial differences in gender under some particular conditions. A lot of psychologists distinguish between emotional empathy (the predisposition to feel the similar emotion to another individual) and cognitive empathy (the awareness and understanding of other people’s emotions and feelings without essentially having the same emotion). The main purpose of this research paper was to assess these sex differences on empathy skills. Review of past studies A common method used to measure empathy is self-report questionnaire. This method was used by Davis (1983), Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004) and Mehrabian and Epstein (1972). Gender difference was the most reliable and strongest result attained from these studies, where the female participants reported a higher level of empathy than the male participants. This dominance shown by the females has however not been attained recurrently using other empathy processes which are assumed to be more neutral. This has led to Eisenberg and Lennon (1983) suggesting that demand characteristics may be the reason why differences are reported when self-report is used. Still, similar gender differences have been reported from other studies which used more objective measures. It was also discovered that women express more facial impressions to photos of emotional faces as measured by electromyogram (Dimberg and Lundquist, 1990). Fukushima and Hiraki (2006), found that men exhibit medial-frontal negativity when they lost a game while women also showed it when their opponent experienced the same loss. Other investigations found noteworthy gender differences within specific conditions. Functional MRI was used to take into account the brain activities of the participants while they witnessed an ally receiving shock or they themselves received the same shock. They manipulated the feelings of the participants towards the friends where they played a ‘prisoner dilemma’ kind of game. One played the game unfairly while the other was fair. The results were both the males and females displayed activation on two sides of the brain which were pain related when they received a shock or saw a friend receive the same shock. It was only women however, who displayed this type of activation when the shock was administered to the prejudiced ally. The notion that empathic reactions may vary based on who is receiving the empathy was also supported by Chen et al. (2010) but they did not examine this based on gender differences. This study was done to research gender differences in empathy in more detail. The study was done especially to determine whether the variation could be as a result of levels of reported emotion. This was done by having the sixty participants to answer the Empathy Quotient questionnaire. The men scored significantly lower than the female participants on the questionnaire. Method Participants The research used 60 participants where 31 of them were male and 29 were female. They ranged between ages 18 to 70. Their overall mean age was 25.36 while the mean age for the females was 24.27 and that for the male participants was at 26.38. An approved Informed Consent form was signed by all the participants before taking part in the research. Design The design of the study was that of a self-report questionnaire where sex differences (males and females) were tested on the empathy quotient. There were no time limitations in so that the participants could clearly answer the questions. There were four 7-item subscales in the self-report questionnaire which evaluate various aspects of empathy. The scores for the items range from 0 to 4, with the higher score representing a higher level of empathy. These subscales include the Fantasy subscale, Perspective Taking (PT), the Empathetic Concern, and the Personal Distress subscale. The first scale assesses the understanding of the point of view of others i.e. cognitive empathy. The second scale assesses provocation psychologically to a recorded depiction of fictional characters in cinemas, books and plays. The third one examines the feelings of sympathy and concern towards other people, i.e. emotional empathy. The fourth subscale examines personal anxiety feelings in relation to other people’s emotions in intense social settings. Each subscale has a maximum score of 28. Materials A self-report questionnaire was used with precisely 40 questions was used for this research. There was also the consent form, the debriefing form and a scoring sheet (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004). The respondents were able to read the questions by themselves and select responses without interference from the researcher. The questionnaire required responses for queries on their attitudes, beliefs and feelings about different experiences that could happen to others or themselves. The participants were asked to rate scenarios on a Likert scale after reading through them. They were to rate the extent to which they would feel each of the emotions. The same ratings were to be done if the same scenarios affected a friend of the same gender or a person they do not like of the same gender. Some of the set-ups were selected with the prospect of getting different results depending on sex. Procedure The participants were given the instructions and procedure to be followed before they could fill the questions in the self-report questionnaire after they had filled the informed consent form. They were then given the debriefing form and the reason for conducting this study was clearly explained to them. Results The final score was calculated for every condition i.e. friend, enemy or self and for the three emotions i.e. happy, sad, angry. An analysis of the results was done in order to determine whether any differences existed in the strength of the emotions reported by both genders. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted with gender as the main variable between subjects. The tests to emotion (happy, angry and sad) and person (self, ally and foe) were repeated measures. There was a trend towards an emotion because of the fact that only the happy and sad emotions for women got higher rates than those for men. The same empathy scores were used to calculate an ANOVA as the dependent variable. The graph shows that men scored much less than women on the empathy scale. The figures below show the overall results. Empathy Score Sex Mean N Std. Deviation Male Female Total 35.4839 45.5517 40.3500 31 29 60 11.68153 11.05372 12.37287 Figure 1: The Bar Chart shows the results of male and female empathy quotient Discussion There is a very little support for differences in gender in the empathy quotient from these results. They however suggest that the variation is not universal but occur within certain conditions. It was established that women recorded higher ratings on the empathy scale but the dissimilarity was significant under varied situations. These results suggest that emotional empathy may restrict the difference in gender and eventually come up with the probability that it is as a result of the different emotional reactions. The fact that women stated that they would feel happier or more sadness if the event happened to either themselves or others. This research is similar to other studies carried out that established that women report higher ratings of sadness and happiness than the males. From these outcomes it is revealed that variances in emotional reactivity may are reflected if not in part by gender differences in empathy. The significant connection between the ratings of the participants for themselves or other people also supports this interpretation. The relationship between the woman and the other person largely affected their empathy score; the empathy levels towards friends was more than that towards enemies or people they don’t like. As much as this outcome has not been previously reported, it is compatible with other studies done on people’s behavior when it comes to helping others. In an analysis of studies that measured how willing individuals were to give aid to others in real life scenarios, it was found that men were more likely to help than women (Eagly & Crowly, 1986). It was nevertheless learnt that most of the research involved assisting people they were not familiar with. This situation may be perceived as threatening for the women and as such the results may not be accurate. Studies carried out recently with less threatening circumstances resulted in no difference between the two genders, more help would even be given if it was to an ally (Reysen & Ganz, 2006). Conclusion Many of the past studies have assessed empathy towards other people but have not actually specified the target. As witnessed from the results of the current study, one very important variable to be considered is the nature of the person that is to be empathized with. The results of this study suggest that the nature of the person to be empathized with is a very important variable to take into consideration. This study agrees with other recent studies that the differences in empathy as a result of gender are more varied and depend on context than past research that utilized self-report questionnaires. The nature of the demand and the disposition to concede to feelings of empathy or sadness are reflected on the tallies on self-report. A better understanding of gender differences and overall empathy would need the utilization of different methods under various conditions. References Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The Empathy quotient: An Investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning Autism, and normal sex differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34, 163-175. Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113- 126. Dimberg, U., & Lundquist, L. (1990). Gender differences in facial reactions to facial expressions. Biological Psychology Journal, 30, 151-159. Eagly, A. H., & Crowley, M. (1986). Gender and helping behavior: A meta-analytic review of the social psychological literature. Leiden: Cambridge University Press Eisenberg, N., & Lennon, R. (1983). Sex differences in empathy and related capacities. Leiden: Cambridge University Press Fukushima, H., & Hiraki, K. (2006). Perceiving an opponent’s loss: gender-related differences in the medial-frontal negativity. London: Routledge. Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. London: Routledge. Mehrabian, A., & Epstein, N. (1972). A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of Personality, 40, 525-543. Reysen, S. & Ganz, E. (2006). Gender differences in helping in six U.S. cities. North American Journal of Psychology, 8, 63-68. Singer, T., Seymour, B., Doherty, J. P., Stephan, K. E., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2006). Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons. Read More

Still, similar gender differences have been reported from other studies which used more objective measures. It was also discovered that women express more facial impressions to photos of emotional faces as measured by electromyogram (Dimberg and Lundquist, 1990). Fukushima and Hiraki (2006), found that men exhibit medial-frontal negativity when they lost a game while women also showed it when their opponent experienced the same loss. Other investigations found noteworthy gender differences within specific conditions.

Functional MRI was used to take into account the brain activities of the participants while they witnessed an ally receiving shock or they themselves received the same shock. They manipulated the feelings of the participants towards the friends where they played a ‘prisoner dilemma’ kind of game. One played the game unfairly while the other was fair. The results were both the males and females displayed activation on two sides of the brain which were pain related when they received a shock or saw a friend receive the same shock.

It was only women however, who displayed this type of activation when the shock was administered to the prejudiced ally. The notion that empathic reactions may vary based on who is receiving the empathy was also supported by Chen et al. (2010) but they did not examine this based on gender differences. This study was done to research gender differences in empathy in more detail. The study was done especially to determine whether the variation could be as a result of levels of reported emotion.

This was done by having the sixty participants to answer the Empathy Quotient questionnaire. The men scored significantly lower than the female participants on the questionnaire. Method Participants The research used 60 participants where 31 of them were male and 29 were female. They ranged between ages 18 to 70. Their overall mean age was 25.36 while the mean age for the females was 24.27 and that for the male participants was at 26.38. An approved Informed Consent form was signed by all the participants before taking part in the research.

Design The design of the study was that of a self-report questionnaire where sex differences (males and females) were tested on the empathy quotient. There were no time limitations in so that the participants could clearly answer the questions. There were four 7-item subscales in the self-report questionnaire which evaluate various aspects of empathy. The scores for the items range from 0 to 4, with the higher score representing a higher level of empathy. These subscales include the Fantasy subscale, Perspective Taking (PT), the Empathetic Concern, and the Personal Distress subscale.

The first scale assesses the understanding of the point of view of others i.e. cognitive empathy. The second scale assesses provocation psychologically to a recorded depiction of fictional characters in cinemas, books and plays. The third one examines the feelings of sympathy and concern towards other people, i.e. emotional empathy. The fourth subscale examines personal anxiety feelings in relation to other people’s emotions in intense social settings. Each subscale has a maximum score of 28.

Materials A self-report questionnaire was used with precisely 40 questions was used for this research. There was also the consent form, the debriefing form and a scoring sheet (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004). The respondents were able to read the questions by themselves and select responses without interference from the researcher. The questionnaire required responses for queries on their attitudes, beliefs and feelings about different experiences that could happen to others or themselves.

The participants were asked to rate scenarios on a Likert scale after reading through them. They were to rate the extent to which they would feel each of the emotions. The same ratings were to be done if the same scenarios affected a friend of the same gender or a person they do not like of the same gender.

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