Universität zu Köln

Loeffler, Charlotte S. and Greitemeyer, Tobias . Are women the more empathetic gender? The effects of gender role expectations. Curr. Psychol.. NEW YORK: SPRINGER. ISSN 1936-4733

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Abstract

The present research aimed to extend the state of knowledge regarding the relationship between self-perceived empathy and traditional gender roles and placed particular focus on the contextual conditions under which gender differences in empathy are present, can be created, or eliminated. Across two studies, women rated themselves higher in empathy than men in all experimental conditions, whereas an objective female superiority in emotion recognition was only evident in one condition. In Study 1 (n = 736), using the term 'social-analytic capacity' instead of 'empathic capacity' increased gender differences in self-reported empathy and resulted in women performing better in the Eyes-test than men. In a neutral task (verbal intelligence), gender differences (in this case, a male superiority), were only found when participants believed that this task had an association with empathy. In Study 2 (n = 701), gender differences in self-reported empathic capacity, but not in performance in emotion recognition, increased when motivation for empathy was raised. Further, gender-role orientation mediated the association between gender and self-reported empathic capacity, whereas it did not account for the association between gender and emotion recognition. Overall, the present studies provide strong support for the idea that empathy is influenced by contextual factors and can be systematically biased by gender roles and stereotypical beliefs.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Loeffler, Charlotte S. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Greitemeyer, Tobias UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-574911
DOI:	10.1007/s12144-020-01260-8
Journal or Publication Title:	Curr. Psychol.
Publisher:	SPRINGER
Place of Publication:	NEW YORK
ISSN:	1936-4733
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Psychology, Multidisciplinary Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/57491