Impact of Gender on Empathy

10/31/2018

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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