Sex and gender differences in the development of empathy

Rochat, Magali Jane

doi:10.1002/jnr.25009

Cited by 39 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 214 publications

(226 reference statements)

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“…Our results are consistent with previous research that there are differences in the capacity for empathy between males and females [63,65]. Our results again proved that females have higher empathy levels than males [66,67]. Women are more emotionally responsive and more likely to care for others than males and show more empathic responses neurologically when seeing others suffer [68].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Gender differences in brain response to infant emotional faces

Zhang

Liu³

et al. 2022

BMC Neurosci

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Infant emotional stimuli can preferentially engage adults’ attention and provide valuable information essential for successful interaction between adults and infants. Exploring the neural processes of recognizing infant stimuli promotes better understandings of the mother-infant attachment mechanisms. Here, combining task-functional magnetic resonance imaging (Task-fMRI) and resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI), we investigated the effects of infants’ faces on the brain activity of adults. Two groups including 26 women and 25 men were recruited to participate in the current study. During the task-fMRI, subjects were exposed to images of infant emotional faces (including happy, neutral, and sad) randomly. We found that the brains of women and men reacted differently to infants’ faces, and these differential areas are in facial processing, attention, and empathetic networks. The rs-fMRI further showed that the connectivity of the default-mode network-related regions increased in women than in men. Additionally, brain activations in regions related to emotional networks were associated with the empathetic abilities of women. These differences in women might facilitate them to more effective and quick adjustments in behaviors and emotions during the nurturing infant period. The findings provide special implications and insights for understanding the neural processing of reacting to infant cues in adults.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Gender differences in brain response to infant emotional faces

Zhang

Liu³

et al. 2022

BMC Neurosci

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“…As expected, according to pre-existing literature, self-reported empathy toward humans ( Christov-Moore et al, 2014 ; Rochat, 2022 ) and toward animals ( Gómez-Leal et al, 2021 ) is more intense in females, and this occurs across all sampled age groups.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets

Gaspar

Esteves

2022

Front. Psychol.

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This research was conducted with two main goals—to contribute to knowledge on the development of empathy from early adolescence to adulthood, including its contribution to decoding emotion expression, and to improve the understanding of the nature of empathy by simultaneously assessing empathy toward two different targets—humans and animals. It unfolded into two cross-sectional studies: One (S1) obtaining measures of empathy toward humans and animals as targets across five age groups (from pre-adolescents to adults); and another (S2) where a subset of the adolescents who participated in S1 were assessed in emotion expression decoding and subjective and physiological responses to emotional video clips. The results of S1 showed that empathy toward animals and most dimensions of empathy toward humans increase toward adulthood, with important gender differences in empathy to animals and humans, and empathy levels in girls starting off in the age trajectory at higher levels, A moderate correlation between empathy toward human and toward animal targets was also found. S2 showed that the expression of positive emotion is better recognized than that of negative emotion, surprise, or neutral expression, and that the measure of human-directed empathy predicts successful decoding of negative emotion, whereas skin conductance responses (SCRs) and subjective valence ratings predicted successful identification of positive emotion. Gender differences emerged but not across all age groups nor all subscales. Results yield keys to the developmental “pace” and trajectory of the various dimensions of empathy and to how empathy relates to emotion decoding.

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“…The present findings suggest that females have higher ratings on the animal physical harm factor in both age groups. When ratings of animal physical harm are used as a proxy for empathy, the present findings are consistent with previous findings suggesting that sex-based differences in empathy peak during early adolescence with females being more empathic and showing greater concern for physical harm violations (Rochat, 2022). The present findings showed no significant age differences in animal physical harm ratings.…”

Section: Latent Factor Mean Differences Animal Physical Harmsupporting

confidence: 91%

Age- and sex-based differences in the moral intuitions of American early adolescents

Bretl

Goering

2022

Evolut. Hum. Sci.

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This study sought to explore the validity of a latent-factor model of moral intuition development during early adolescence. The 3-Factor Character Foundations Survey (CFS-3) was used to assess the moral intuitions of early adolescents (n = 850, M = 12.4 years old, SD = .96) under a moral foundations theory framework. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the psychometric validity of the three latent factor constructs (autonomy, loyalty, and empathy), and partial metric invariance was established to allow for the comparing of latent factor means between four age- and sex-based groups coinciding with averages for pubertal onset. Results support prior findings of greater latent factor means for females in all three factors when compared to males in the 11-12-year-old age group. Additionally, 13-14-year-old females exhibited lower latent factor means in autonomy and loyalty factors when compared to 11-12-year-old females. This resulted in 13-14-year-old females remaining higher in empathy and autonomy but showing no difference in loyalty when compared to 13-14-year-old males. Results are interpreted through the lens of attachment theory, socio-cultural influence, and certain limitations of the survey instrument itself. Suggestions for future studies are proposed.

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Sex and gender differences in the development of empathy

Cited by 39 publications

References 214 publications

Gender differences in brain response to infant emotional faces

Gender differences in brain response to infant emotional faces

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets

Age- and sex-based differences in the moral intuitions of American early adolescents

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