Gender empathy gap

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A gender empathy gap, sometimes referred to as an gender empathy bias, is a gendered breakdown or difference in empathy (the ability to recognize, understand, and share another's thoughts and feelings) where it might otherwise be expected to occur. Empathy gaps may occur due to a failure in the process of empathizing based on gender of either the person who should be empathizing or the person in need of empathy [1] or as a consequence of stable personality characteristics, [2] [3] [4] and may reflect either a lack of ability or motivation to empathize. Many studies show that females have an on-average advantage in empathic accuracy skills. [5] [6]

Contents

Empathy in different genders

According to some studies, females may be able recognize facial expressions and emotions more accurately and faster than males, especially some neutral body language. Additionally, females may recognize males' angry emotions better than males, while males may recognize females' happy emotions better than females. [7] Another systematic review on gender differences in empathy among medical students stands out for its robust analysis, encompassing thirty studies with diverse sample sizes and geographic distributions. This extensive scope enhances the reliability of the findings that female medical students exhibit higher empathy levels than males. [8] Researchers hypothesize that females' performance of recognizing emotion is driven by motivation. In other words, if females feel the work requires them to perform higher score empathy, they perform better; otherwise, they will perform no differently than males. [9]

From birth, male and female infants react to emotional stimulations differently. Experiments found that female infants are more likely to cry when they hear others crying. [10] In addition, they make more eye contact with people than male infants. [11] Scientists believe that those reactions of female neonates may give them more chances to feel others feeling, which may amount over the years to a sufficient difference that can explain some of the empathy scores gap of males and females. [10]

Gender empathy gap and sexism

Sexism

Two studies examined responses to sexual assault research, particularly focusing on how hostile sexism predicts skepticism. In the first study, U.S. men were surveyed about their sexism levels and then asked about their skepticism towards different research summaries. Hostile sexism was found to strongly correlate with doubt towards sexual assault statistics, more so than towards other topics like breast cancer or alcohol abuse. [12] The second study tested if self-affirmation could mitigate this skepticism but found it ineffective. This suggests that deeper educational strategies might be necessary to address biases that dismiss sexual assault research due to sexist views. [13]

Other literature also shows that both males and females can sometimes exhibit benevolent sexism. [14] When negative stereotypes are held on the basis of sex or gender this is known as hostile sexism.

Studies suggest that sexism and gender roles impact mental health outcomes as males are discouraged from appearing weak which impacts health seeking behaviour in males as they struggle to conform to gender roles where vulnerability is discouraged. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexism</span> Prejudice or discrimination based on a persons sex or gender

Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to gender roles and stereotypes, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Discrimination in this context is defined as discrimination toward people based on their gender identity or their gender or sex differences. An example of this is workplace inequality. Sexism refers to violation of equal opportunities based on gender or refers to violation of equality of outcomes based on gender, also called substantive equality. Sexism may arise from social or cultural customs and norms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prejudice</span> Attitudes based on preconceived categories

Prejudice being feature that can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perceived personal characteristics, such as political affiliation, sex, gender, gender identity, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, culture, complexion, beauty, height, body weight, occupation, wealth, education, criminality, sport-team affiliation, music tastes or other perceived characteristics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jealousy</span> Emotion

Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Empathy</span> Capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing

Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more definitions of empathy that include but is not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others. Often times, empathy is considered to be a broad term, and broken down into more specific concepts and types that include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy.

Sex differences in psychology are differences in the mental functions and behaviors of the sexes and are due to a complex interplay of biological, developmental, and cultural factors. Differences have been found in a variety of fields such as mental health, cognitive abilities, personality, emotion, sexuality, friendship, and tendency towards aggression. Such variation may be innate, learned, or both. Modern research attempts to distinguish between these causes and to analyze any ethical concerns raised. Since behavior is a result of interactions between nature and nurture, researchers are interested in investigating how biology and environment interact to produce such differences, although this is often not possible.

Sex differences in crime are differences between men and women as the perpetrators or victims of crime. Such studies may belong to fields such as criminology, sociobiology, or feminist studies. Despite the difficulty of interpreting them, crime statistics may provide a way to investigate such a relationship from a gender differences perspective. An observable difference in crime rates between men and women might be due to social and cultural factors, crimes going unreported, or to biological factors for example, testosterone or sociobiological theories). The nature or motive of the crime itself may also require consideration as a factor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual jealousy</span> Psychological concept

Sexual jealousy is a special form of jealousy in sexual relationships, based on suspected or imminent sexual infidelity. The concept is studied in the field of evolutionary psychology.

Emotional dysregulation is characterized by an inability in flexibly responding to and managing emotional states, resulting in intense and prolonged emotional reactions that deviate from social norms, given the nature of the environmental stimuli encountered. Such reactions not only deviate from accepted social norms but also surpass what is informally deemed appropriate or proportional to the encountered stimuli.

The empathising–systemising (E–S) theory is a theory on the psychological basis of autism and male–female neurological differences originally put forward by English clinical psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen. It classifies individuals based on abilities in empathic thinking (E) and systematic thinking (S). It measures skills using an Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemising Quotient (SQ) and attempts to explain the social and communication symptoms in autism spectrum disorders as deficits and delays in empathy combined with intact or superior systemising.

Sexual violence refers to a range of completed or attempted sexual acts in which the affected party does not or is unable to consent. Theories on the causes of sexual violence are numerous and have come out of many different disciplines, such as women's studies, public health, and criminal justice. Proposed causes include military conquest, socioeconomics, anger, power, sadism, traits, ethical standards, laws, and evolutionary pressures. Most of the research on the causes of sexual violence has focused on male offenders.

Feminist psychology is a form of psychology centered on social structures and gender. Feminist psychology critiques historical psychological research as done from a male perspective with the view that males are the norm. Feminist psychology is oriented on the values and principles of feminism.

Ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" (HS) and "benevolent sexism" (BS). Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender. Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive, but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly. For the most part, psychologists have studied hostile forms of sexism. However, theorists using the theoretical framework of ambivalent sexism have found extensive empirical evidence for both varieties. The theory has largely been developed by social psychologists Peter Glick and Susan Fiske.

The women-are-wonderful effect is the phenomenon found in psychological and sociological research which suggests that people associate more positive attributes with women when compared to men. This bias reflects an emotional bias toward women as a general case. The phrase was coined by Alice Eagly and Antonio Mladinic in 1994 after finding that both male and female participants tend to assign positive traits to women, with female participants showing a far more pronounced bias. Positive traits were assigned to men by participants of both genders, but to a far lesser degree.

Empathy quotient (EQ) is a psychological self-report measure of empathy developed by Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. EQ is based on a definition of empathy that includes cognition and affect.

Gender roles are culturally influenced stereotypes which create expectations for appropriate behavior for males and females. An understanding of these roles is evident in children as young as age four. Children between 3 and 6 months can form distinctions between male and female faces. By ten months, infants can associate certain objects with females and males, like a hammer with males or scarf with females. Gender roles are influenced by the media, family, the environment, and society. In addition to biological maturation, children develop within a set of gender-specific social and behavioral norms embedded in family structure, natural play patterns, close friendships, and the teeming social jungle of school life. The gender roles encountered in childhood play a large part in shaping an individual's self-concept and influence the way an individual forms relationships later on in life.

The study of the relationship between gender and emotional expression is the study of the differences between men and women in behavior that expresses emotions. These differences in emotional expression may be primarily due to cultural expectations of femininity and masculinity.

Emotional intelligence (EI) involves using cognitive and emotional abilities to function in interpersonal relationships, social groups as well as manage one's emotional states. It consists of abilities such as social cognition, empathy and also reasoning about the emotions of others.

Sex differences in cognition are widely studied in the current scientific literature. Biological and genetic differences in combination with environment and culture have resulted in the cognitive differences among males and females. Among biological factors, hormones such as testosterone and estrogen may play some role mediating these differences. Among differences of diverse mental and cognitive abilities, the largest or most well known are those relating to spatial abilities, social cognition and verbal skills and abilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gender discrimination in the medical profession</span> Gender discrimination against female clinicians within the health profession

Gender discrimination in health professions refers to the entire culture of bias against female clinicians, expressed verbally through derogatory and aggressive comments, lower pay and other forms of discriminatory actions from predominantly male peers. These women face difficulties in their work environment as a result of a largely male dominated positions of power within the medical field as well as initial biases presented in the hiring process, but not limited to promotions.

An empathy gap, sometimes referred to as an empathy bias, is a breakdown or reduction in empathy where it might otherwise be expected to occur. Empathy gaps may occur due to a failure in the process of empathizing or as a consequence of stable personality characteristics, and may reflect either a lack of ability or motivation to empathize.

References

  1. ↑ Epley, Nicholas; Keysar, Boaz; Van Boven, Leaf; Gilovich, Thomas (2004). "Perspective Taking as Egocentric Anchoring and Adjustment". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 87 (3): 327–339. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.3.327. ISSN   1939-1315. PMID   15382983. S2CID   18087684.
  2. ↑ Hogan, R. (1969). Development of an empathy scale. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 33(3), 307.
  3. ↑ Mehrabian, A., & Epstein, N. (1972). A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of personality.
  4. ↑ Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy.
  5. ↑ Greenberg, David M.; Warrier, Varun; Abu-Akel, Ahmad; Allison, Carrie; Gajos, Krzysztof Z.; Reinecke, Katharina; Rentfrow, P. Jason; Radecki, Marcin A.; Baron-Cohen, Simon (2023-01-03). "Sex and age differences in "theory of mind" across 57 countries using the English version of the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 120 (1): e2022385119. Bibcode:2023PNAS..12022385G. doi:10.1073/pnas.2022385119. ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   9910622 . PMID   36584298.
  6. ↑ Nitschke, Jonas P.; Bartz, Jennifer A. (2020-03-01). "Lower digit ratio and higher endogenous testosterone are associated with lower empathic accuracy". Hormones and Behavior. 119: 104648. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.104648. ISSN   0018-506X. PMID   31785282. S2CID   208515606.
  7. ↑ Christov-Moore, Leonardo; Simpson, Elizabeth A.; Coudé, Gino; Grigaityte, Kristina; Iacoboni, Marco; Ferrari, Pier Francesco (October 2014). "Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior". Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 46 (Pt 4): 604–627. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.09.001. ISSN   0149-7634. PMC   5110041 . PMID   25236781.
  8. ↑ Andersen, Freja Allerelli; Johansen, Ann-Sofie Bering; Hvidt, Elisabeth Assing (2020). "Revisiting the trajectory of medical students' empathy, and impact of gender, specialty preferences and nationality: a systematic review". BMC Medical Education. 20 52. doi: 10.1186/s12909-020-1964-1 (inactive 2024-05-07). PMID   32066430.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of May 2024 (link)
  9. ↑ Klein, Kristi J. K.; Hodges, Sara D. (June 2001). "Gender Differences, Motivation, and Empathic Accuracy: When it Pays to Understand". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 27 (6): 720–730. doi:10.1177/0146167201276007. ISSN   0146-1672. S2CID   14361887.
  10. 1 2 Hoffman, Martin L. (1977). "Sex differences in empathy and related behaviors". Psychological Bulletin. 84 (4): 712–722. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.84.4.712. ISSN   1939-1455. PMID   897032.
  11. ↑ Carlson, Stephanie M.; Taylor, Marjorie (2005). "Imaginary Companions and Impersonated Characters: Sex Differences in Children's Fantasy Play". Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. 51 (1): 93–118. doi:10.1353/mpq.2005.0003. ISSN   1535-0266. S2CID   14359259.
  12. ↑ Betz, Diana E.; Deegan, Kelly; Gomes, Alex (2024). "Men's Hostile Sexism Predicts Skepticism of Sexual Assault Science". Psychology of Women Quarterly. 48 (2): 195–208. doi:10.1177/03616843231215373.
  13. ↑ Betz, Diana E.; Deegan, Kelly; Gomes, Alex (2024). "Men's Hostile Sexism Predicts Skepticism of Sexual Assault Science". Psychology of Women Quarterly. 48 (2): 195–208. doi:10.1177/03616843231215373.
  14. ↑ Eagly, Alice H.; Mladinic, Antonio (January 1994). "Are People Prejudiced Against Women? Some Answers From Research on Attitudes, Gender Stereotypes, and Judgments of Competence". European Review of Social Psychology. 5 (1): 1–35. doi:10.1080/14792779543000002. ISSN   1046-3283.
  15. ↑ "The Gender Gap in Mental Health". News-Medical.net. 2022-01-31. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
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