Student Research Report: Gender and Empathy- Are Women Naturally More Empathic?
In Spring 2022, students in Dr. Emily Stark’s Research Methods and Design course completed multiple hands-on data collection projects. They were also assigned a blog paper where they discussed one of the topics they chose to research and explained their findings to a general audience. The goal of this assignment was to give students an opportunity to explore a different form of writing from APA-style research papers. Some of these blog papers will be featured here to showcase the students’ findings. Please feel free to contact Dr. Stark through the contact form on this site for additional information about this course or the assignments used.
By Kami Bird
Women are societally seen as more empathetic and nurturing compared to males. Are these implications true or are they pure assumptions due to women’s biological capability to bear children? Past research on empathy by Christov-Moore et al. (2014) suggests that empathy contains the ability to share internal states of emotion with one another. They also suggest that empathy is a complex subject with many subfields including culture, functional processing, emotional intelligence, and emotional priming. This research used an environmental approach, in other words, humans are shaped and developed uniquely based on their experiences. The environmental approach says the psychosocial, emotional, and even biological aspects of us are shaped by experiences and outer stimuli. People may display empathy differently because of their experiences. If this is true, does gender really matter?
So, are women actually more empathetic because of their biological gender, or does society play a role in empathy? Nicklin (2021) compares empathy to the ability to connect and relate to others. She also adds that empathy is innate to all humans and can possibly be improved with practice. Nicklin suggests the highest influences of empathy are gender-specific hormones, society, and culture. Nicklin suggests women may be more genetically disposed to empathetic behavior, but that doesn’t mean men cannot be empathetic. Researchers were highly transparent; empathy is a very complex topic, but factors of curiosity do not stop at gender.
An experimental survey was conducted through a course (Research Methods and Design) at Minnesota State University Mankato in an attempt to better understand the role of empathy in men and women, as well as how men and women’s empathetic response (or not so empathic in some cases) varies in cases of children and elderly people. Myself and one of my colleagues, Emily Placido, conducted a survey with 12 different scenarios. There were 6 scenarios involving interaction with children and 6 involving interaction with elderly people. There were three response choices for each question. The first choice was minimal to no interaction in the scenarios, the second choice was a sympathetic response (helping without emotional consolement), and the third choice was an empathetic response. The empathic responses involved interaction, a form of helping, and emotional intelligence or emotional consolement. The scores ranged from 1-3, with 3 being the highest score for empathy. Participants were also asked their gender, age, and ethnicity. The goal of the study was to understand gender differences in gender empathy to use for future implications for improving empathy. For example, if men are found to be less empathetic, what are some intervention techniques to improve emotional response? This research could also be used for adults that work in childcare, teaching, or geriatrics.
Our research did in fact find women scored higher in empathic response. These results agree with past research on empathic scores. Although men did score lower than women in empathic response, they did not dominantly score on the low spectrum for the scenario response. Although some men chose no interaction and an empathetic response, it seems that many men tend to choose a sympathetic response to the situations. According to Miller (2022), the difference between sympathy and empathy is sympathy involves understanding another person’s situation, while empathy involves experiencing what another person is feeling like it is your own emotions. This suggests men have emotional capabilities to express empathy, but other factors may be holding them back. According to Kamas and Preston (2021), there are many operational definitions of empathy. They found there is a philosophical belief of prosocial behavior relating to empathy. This poses future questions about men possibly displaying empathy in the same frequency as women, but through actions.
As for age, it didn’t seem like the age of the person in need of help or consolement mattered to either gender or mattered in general. Men and women were not more likely or less likely to interact with someone in a certain way based on their age. This contradicts some traditional arguments that women may be more likely to display prosocial behavior when it comes to children because of the notion that women are more biologically nurturing. So, women may score higher in empathy, but it may have nothing to do with the argument of a woman's nurturing nature. Gender differences are often discussed with empathy, but how to improve empathy is not.
Nicklin (2021) offers many ways to integrate empathy into daily life. These tips are emotion-based and can be helpful if one desires to be more empathetic. She says that truly listening to the person talking and not search for an answer to every problem is the first step to becoming more empathetic, unless of course the person you are speaking to asks for advice. Listening involves good body language. Look the other person in the eyes, stand facing the person you are talking to, uncross your arms, nod your head, and react facially. Body language can create a sense of safety and lead to deeper conversations. Nicklin says, “this is a huge step towards reducing the gap between ‘you and me’ and creating far more ‘us’” (para. 6). She also claims that empathy is instinctive and becoming comfortable with improving empathic response skills is vital. Nicklin also suggests using repeating and rephrasing what the other person has told you. This helps reassure understanding and helps the other person feel heard.
Although empathetic response improvement is not necessarily at the top of some people’s priority list, it is a useful skill to consider. Think of who you feel the most comfortable around. Do they make you feel heard and listen when you need to talk? Good emotional intelligence and empathy skills are also desirable for many employment positions. The topic is often overlooked in daily life but can make an impactful difference!
References
Christov-Moore, L., Simpson, E. A., Coudé, G., Grigaityte, K., Iacoboni, M., & Ferrari, P. F. (2014, October). Empathy: Gender Effects in Brain and Behavior. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5110041/
Kamas, L., & Preston, A. (2021). Empathy, gender, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 92, 12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2020.101654
Miller, M. (2022, February 23). Empathy vs. sympathy: What's the difference? Six Seconds. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.6seconds.org/2021/01/20/empathy-vs-sympathy-what-the-difference/
Nicklin, M. (2021, May 10). Do women really have more empathy than men? MOJEH. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://mojeh.com/beauty-health/mimi-nicklin-softening-the-edge-empathy/