Impact of Gender on Empathy

This study examines the effect of gender on empathy levels. The results show that there is no difference in empathy scores between males and females. The research methodology involved a survey of 192 participants from Murdoch University. The study used primary data that was collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-tests. The study found that females did not score higher than males in terms of empathy levels.

10/31/2018
IMPACT OF GENDER ON EMPATHY

Executive summary
A lot of previous research have shown that there is a difference between male and female
empathy levels. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of gender on
empathy levels to look at the validity of the existing researches.
192 participants from Murdoch University completed self-report measures of empathy. The
present results showed that there is no difference in the empathy scores between males and
females. Empathy was not found to be higher among females than among males.

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................1
Research question...................................................................................................................................2
Hypothesis...............................................................................................................................................2
Research Methodology................................................................................................................................3
Participants..............................................................................................................................................3
Materials/apparatus................................................................................................................................3
Procedure................................................................................................................................................3
Results.........................................................................................................................................................5
Test for normality and measures of dispersion.......................................................................................5
Descriptive statistics................................................................................................................................6
Inferential statistics.................................................................................................................................7
Discussion....................................................................................................................................................7
Limitations...................................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Empathy refers to the capacity to understand and being sensitive to and sharing in the feelings
and emotions of other people (Philip E. Varca, 2014). These feelings and emotions could be
resultant of either the past or present conditions the person is going through (Schumann, 2014).
Empathy enables people to imagine themselves in the conditions or emotions of others so that
they can understand what they are feeling or experiencing.
Being empathetic, we can behave in more compassionate manner towards others. We can share
through their thoughts and experiences. Though in a society people could prefer to be
individualistic, such traits are overruled by neurological sensations which provide us with ability
to understand other people’s emotional reactions through facial expression and other body
languages (Throop, 2013).
Previous empirical research has suggested that there exists a relationship between gender and
empathy (Hojat, 2002). It has been suggested that females tend to have more empathy towards
others compared to their male counterparts (Toussaint, 2005). Commonly held believes and
prejudices point out to the fact that women have greater ability to understand others than their
male counterparts. Genetic composition could be thought to be an attribute to this condition but a
research conducted by Cambridge University found out that there was no genetic basis to the
difference in the empathy scores for female and male people. Further, research indicates that the
differences in empathy levels between male and females could possibly be resultant of
motivation rather than ability (Argo, 2008). This is an implication that regardless of the cause of
this difference, females tend to be more empathic than males.
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Research question
The research questions for our study are;
i) Is there a difference between male empathy levels and female empathy levels? And more
specifically;
ii) Are the empathy levels of females greater than the empathy levels of males?
Hypothesis
Based on the research question, the following hypothesis shall guide us through the study?
(i) H0: There is no difference between male empathy levels and female empathy levels.
H1: There is a difference between male and female empathy levels.
(ii) H0: Female empathy levels are not greater than male empty levels.
H1: Female empathy levels are greater than male empathy levels.
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Research Methodology
Participants
The participants were a sample of 192 people from Murdoch University. Of the 192 participants,
were female representing 68.2%, 57 representing 29.7% were male and 4 representing 2.1 %
responded to “other” gender.
The participants reported to be of ages between 17 to 60 years and their average age was 25.51.
In terms of citizenship, 73(38.1%) were from Singapore, 103(53.6) were from Australia and
16(8.3%) were of other citizenships.
Materials/apparatus
The research made use of primary data that was collected and analyzed. Descriptive statistics and
t-tests were used for analyzing the data. Descriptive statistics were used to measure mean,
minimum and maximum values, standard deviation and frequencies for our data.
T-tests were used to test the comparison between the empathy score means between males and
females. Independent t-tests were used as the means to be compared were of two different
groups; male and female.
Procedure
The study employed a quantitative research approach. The quantitative research technique used
for obtaining data was a survey. In the survey, data was collected by administering
questionnaires to the participants. Respondents were required to fill the questionnaires and
submit them. Questionnaires were the preferred tool for data collection since respondents had
privacy while filling the forms. Responses from the survey formed the data variables that were
used in the analysis stage of the research.
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Respondents provided responses on their gender and empathy scores. The Balanced Emotional
Empathy Scale was used to measure the respondents’ empathy scores. It is a self-report measure
of the degree to which the respondents felt empathy towards others. The Balanced Emotional
Empathy Scale has 16 subscales and 64 score items with 0 being low and 64 being high. The
degree of empathy increased as the scores increased. The higher the empathy score, the higher
the degree of empathy, and the lower the empathy score then the lower the degree of empathy.
Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
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Results
Test for normality and measures of dispersion
Results from analysis conducted showed that the respondents responded to empathy scores
between 35.0 and 59.0. The mean empathy score was 45.89 and the standard deviation was 5.04,
implying that the empathy scores lied within about 2.5 standard deviations on either side of the
empathy scores mean.
The bar graph shows that the
empathy scores are normally
distributed as there is no
skewness, implying that the
distribution of the data is
mesokurtosic. The scores
displayed no outliers.
The empathy scores of females are normally distributed with a standard error mean of 0.42 while
the empathy scores of males are skewed to the right with a standard error mean of 0.71.
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Descriptive statistics
To answer the research question on whether there was a difference in the empathy scores of
males and females and to test the hypothesis that there is a difference in male and female
empathy scores, descriptive statistics analysis was carried out on the sympathy scores sorted
gender-wise.
Females were found to have a mean sympathy score of 46.13 and a standard deviation of 4.83.
Males were found to have a mean sympathy score of 45.00 and a standard deviation of 5.35.
These results show that females had higher empathy scores compared to males. The empathy
scores of females less deviated from the mean compared to the empathy scores of males. In
agreement with our alternative hypothesis, there was found a difference between male empathy
scores and female empathy scores and therefore we rejected the null hypothesis that there was no
difference in empathy scores as exhibited by females and males.
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Inferential statistics
Independent t-test was used to answer the research question on whether females scored higher
than males in terms of empathy scores and to test the hypothesis that females have higher
empathy scores compared to their male counterparts. Independent t-test examined the possible
difference in the means of the two genders.
The t-test was not significant, t (186) = 1.43, p=0.16. Therefore the group means are not
statistically significantly different because the p-value is greater than 0.05. We therefore lack
sufficient evidence against the null hypothesis that female empathy scores are not greater than
male empathy scores. Contrary to our previous studies, we fail to justify that female empathy
scores are higher than male empathy scores.
Discussion
The goal of our research was to investigate whether there are differences in the empathy scores
of males and females. This was achieved by carrying out descriptive statistics and independent t-
test analyses. The hypothesis that females would score higher than males on empathy levels was
not supported by our study.
Contrary to our expectations, t-test performed showed no statistically significant difference in the
means of empathy scores between males and females. We failed to prove the alternative
hypothesis that there exists a statistically significant difference between the male and female
empathy score means and we therefore cannot conclude that females score higher compared to
their male counterparts in terms of empathy levels. These results were in disagreement with
previous works which suggested that women were found to score higher than males in terms of
empathy levels.
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However, our results are in agreement with previous studies which suggested that genetic
composition of humans has no influence on empathy levels. The difference in chromosal
composition between males and females cannot be thought to be a factor affecting empathy
levels.
Limitations
Empathy was not defined to the respondents. The respondents could therefore have possibly
easily confused the term with other emotions such as sympathy. Provision of the definition of
empathy could therefore eliminate any chance of the participants responding to a question they
did not understand.
The average age of the participants was found to be about 25.51 implying that majority of the
respondents were young people. The respondents admitted into the study were therefore not a
representative of the whole population. In future researches, consideration should be put on age
of the participants to ensure that both the young and the elderly population groups shall
participate in the study.
Recommendations
Since our study failed to justify a statistically significant difference between empathy scores of
females and males, more participants to represent the whole population should be employed into
the study.
While majority of the participants were found to be young people, more older people should be
employed into the study to investigate the effect of cross-sectional relationships between age and
gender on empathy levels.
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Further research should be conducted to assess the impact of factors such as citizenship and age
on empathy.
Conclusion
The ability to being sensitive and sharing in other people’s emotions and feelings is important as
it makes people aspire to live for each other. It is crucial that people understand what factors
affect empathy levels. Previous studies had been done to investigate the impact of gender on
empathy levels. It was found out that empathy levels are higher in females than in males.
However, our research has failed to justify these claims from previous researchers.
Likely, there are factors that indeed affect empathy levels. Lack of relationship between gender
and empathy as outlined in this study proves that there is still need to conduct more research on
the same topic.
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References
Argo, J. J. (2008). An Investigation of Empathy Differences in Response to Emotional Melodramatic
Entertainment. Journal of Consumer Research, 10.
Hojat, M. G. (2002). Physician Empathy: Definition, Components, Measurement, and Relationship to
Gender and Specialty. American Journal of Psychiatry, 7.
Philip E. Varca, T. L. (2014). Emotional Empathy during service encounters: the price for caring. 21.
Schumann, K. Z. (2014). Addressing the empathy deficit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 19.
Throop, D. W. (2013). The Anthropology of Empathy. Anthropology in Action, 9.
Toussaint, L. W. (2005). Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Empathy and Forgiveness. The
Journal of Social Psychology, 13.
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