Women really are more empathetic than men, scientists find

In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, it is Atticus Finch who advises his children that they can never really know a person "until you climb into his skin and walk around in it".

Yet according to a new study by the University of Cambridge, it is women who are far better than men at putting themselves in the shoes of others.

The finding was based on testing of more than 300,000 people from 57 countries who were asked to look at pictures of the eye region of a face and pick a word that describes how the subject was feeling - such as "tentative" or "sarcastic".

Across the world, women on average scored higher on the assessment - known as The Eyes Test.

Dr David Greenberg, the lead scientist on the study, a Zuckerman Scholar at Bar-Ilan and Honorary Research Associate at Cambridge, said: “Our results provide some of the first evidence that the well-known phenomenon – that females are on average more empathic than males – is present in wide range of countries across the globe.

“It’s only by using very large data sets that we can say this with confidence.”

Study is the largest to date

The ability to interpret and understand another person's mind and see their perspective is known as the "theory of mind" or "cognitive empathy" and is thought to be crucial for leadership, communication and identifying the needs of others.

The new study, which is the largest to date looking into sex differences in cognitive empathy, showed that females on average scored significantly higher than males in 36 countries, and similar to males in 21 countries, on the Eyes Test.

There was no country where males on average scored significantly higher than females on the Eyes Test and the team found that globally performance increased through adolescence and declined slightly across adulthood for both sexes.

“This study clearly demonstrates a largely consistent sex difference across countries, languages, and ages,” said Dr Carrie Allison, director of Applied Research at the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University.

“This raises new questions for future research about the social and biological factors that may contribute to the observed on-average sex difference in cognitive empathy.”

UK had some of the smallest differences

Researchers did find that in more prosperous, free and individualistic societies, the female advantage declined, with men catching up slightly. For example, Britain, Switzerland, Australia and Denmark had some of the smallest differences between men and women.

In contrast, women consistently scored higher in countries which were more state-orientated and less individualistic, such as Saudi Arabia.

“We observed that the sex differences on the Eyes Test were more pronounced in some countries than others. Our exploratory analyses at the country-level suggested that the female advantage on the Eyes Test correlated with different country-level metrics such as collectivism,” added Dr Greenberg.

“We know from previous research findings that there are both biological and social factors that contribute to individual differences in scores on the Eyes Test.

“Our exploratory results also showed that there are some country-level correlations, which need to be investigated in future studies.”

Biological and social factors

The researchers say the sex differences in cognitive empathy may result from both biological and social factors.

The authors also point out that the results are only averages, with some men far better at empathising with others, and some women not having the skill.

People with conditions like autism often struggle to read facial expressions, for example.

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, who developed the eyes test, said: “Studies of on-average sex differences say nothing about an individual’s mind or aptitudes, since an individual may be typical or atypical for their sex.”

The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).