Effects of Gender and Educational Background on Empathy Quotient

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1
PSYCHOLOGY
Background or definition of the study
The study is concentrated on the effects of gender and the educational background on
the quotient of empathy. This have been established through a research that has been
conducted of the females and the medical students. Empathy has different views and different
perspectives. While studying it in an individual manner empathy has been studied as a
personality indicator. It is defined as the ability of an individual to understand and most
importantly to share the feelings of others (Lyons, Brewer & Bethell, 2017). There is a huge
difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy is to sympathize with the individuals
who are suffering from a hard situation. Empathy is to feel the same for the person who was
going through the harsh situation. Empathy involves the response towards the identification
of the problems an individual goes through and respond to the same situation. It is evident
that the quotient of empathy was more in the females than the men and it was more in the
medical students than the others. Even in the medical field empathy was more evident among
the females than the males (Jacobs et al., 2016). The report constitutes the earlier research
that was conducted on this and it also includes the present research that was conducted on
this. The research showed that the students who preferred people-oriented specialties scored
higher on the empathy quotient. The research was conducted by applying the primary method
of research.
Previous Research on this topic
According to Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright (2004), this is not a contemporary
issue. The research on this topic has been done since a longer period of time. There is a
difference between the earlier research and the current research. The earlier research showed
that the females showed significant higher score on the Empathy quotient than the males.
According to Guilera, Batalla & Soler-González (2017), the medical students usually show