Putting yourself in the other person’s place helps to understand how they feel and what are their reasons for acting in a certain way; It is what is known as empathy, a fundamental quality to improve human relations and strengthen affective ties, and which seems to be more common in the female sex, according to a new study in which 305,726 people in 57 countries have participated.
The results show that women, on average, are better than men at putting themselves in other people’s shoes and imagining what another person is thinking or feeling, as they scored higher than men on the test ‘reading minds in the eyes’, which is widely used and measures ‘theory of mind’ (also known as ‘cognitive empathy’). This was observed at all ages and in most countries.
The ‘theory of mind’ or ‘cognitive empathy’ is part of human social interaction and communication and consists of putting yourself in another person’s place and imagining the thoughts and feelings they have. The development of the theory of mind from childhood to old age has been studied for years and for this purpose the ‘reading of the mind in the eyes’ (Eyes Test, in English) has been used, in which students are asked to the participants who choose the word that best describes what a person is thinking or feeling just by looking at photos of the eye area of their face.
“The results provide some of the first evidence that the phenomenon of women being on average more empathetic than men is present in countries around the world.”
The Eyes Test was first developed in 1997 by Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen and his research team at Cambridge, and is considered one of two recommended tests for measuring individual differences in ‘Understanding Mental States’ by the US National Institute of Mental Health. Although previous research has found that, on average, women score higher than men on theory of mind tests, most included relatively small samples, without much geographic, cultural, or age diversity.
The new work is the largest theory of mind study to date, has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and has been conducted by a team of multidisciplinary researchers led by the University of Cambridge and with collaborators at the universities of Bar-Ilan, Harvard, Washington and Haifa, as well as IMT Lucca. These scientists merged large samples from various online platforms to analyze data from 305,726 participants in 57 countries.
Biological or social factors could explain female empathy
The results reveal that in all 57 countries, women on average scored significantly higher than men (in 36 countries), or similar to men (in 21 countries) on the eye test. One relevant fact is that men on average did not score significantly higher than women on the eye test in any of these countries. The average sex difference was seen in people aged 16 to 70, and this average sex difference was confirmed in three independent data sets and in non-English versions of the Eyes Test, spanning eight languages.
Dr. David M. Greenberg, the study’s principal investigator, a Zuckerman Fellow at Bar-Ilan and an honorary research associate at Cambridge, said: “Our results provide some of the first evidence that the well-known phenomenon that women are on average more empathic than men is present in a wide range of countries around the world. Only by using very large data sets can we say this with confidence.”
Researchers have not been able to determine the cause of this average sex difference, but, based on previous research, they suggest that it may be the result of both biological and social factors. Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study, explained that “studies of average sex differences say nothing about an individual’s mind or abilities, since an individual can be typical or atypical for its sex. The eye test reveals that many people have difficulty reading facial expressions, for a variety of reasons. Support must be available to those who seek it.”
Dr Carrie Allison, Director of Applied Research at the University of Cambridge Autism Research Center and a member of the team, concludes: “This study clearly demonstrates a largely consistent sex difference across countries, languages and ages. This raises new questions for future research on the social and biological factors that may contribute to the observed average sex difference in cognitive empathy.”
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