| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this thesis is to gain knowledge about different perspectives concerning the reason for a gender difference of empathy in humans, favoring women. Empathy involves recognition of and reaction on emotions of other individuals. Over the years, considerable research has pointed out that women outperform men in most aspects of empathy, which means that in general, women have a higher developed empathy than men. The question to be answered in this thesis is why this gender difference of empathy in humans exists. Tinbergen (1963) claimed that why-questions in the biology can be answered in four different ways. Each answer can be true, and the answers do not deny another.
The first type of answer on the question why women have a higher level of empathy than men, concerns the individual development. Are women born with an advanced in empathy compared to men, or is this gender difference socially learned, and does it originate from cultural rules? After reviewing several studies that do agree with one of the opportunities, but do not deny the other theory, the conclusion is drawn that it is probably a combination of both.
Another view on the reason why women outperform men on empathy can be found in proximate mechanisms of empathy, like endocrine and neural differences between men and women. The masculine hormone testosterone is shown to inhibit empathy, while the feminine hormone oxytocin promotes empathic reactions to others. Also on a neural level there are several examples of gender differences that are involved in empathy.
Subsequently, the evolution of the superiority of women in empathy, compared to men, is investigated. Therefore it would be interesting to compare various species on gender difference in empathy. Although, considerable research has been done on empathic abilities in animals, no gender differences have been investigated yet. This is why a theory is described about the evolution of empathy in general. De Waal (2006, 2008) compares the evolution of empathy with a Russian doll, where the core is developed first, and the outer layers are based on the inner ones. Emotional contagion is thought to be the primitive core of empathy. The next evolutionary step would be sympathic concern, followed by empathic-perceptive taking.
The last perception concerns the selection pressures that induced sexual selection of empathy in humans. There are several hypotheses described that are based on differences in reproductive strategies between men and women, on female-female competition, and on male-male competition. These are the Primary Caretaker Hypothesis, hypotheses about social relationships among females and relational aggression among another, theories about male-male competition, and a theory about the non-kin alliances that females are forced to make. Non of these hypotheses have proven to be true, however, they do have potential to be true. The theories do not exclude each other, a combination of hypotheses is a possibility. To learn more about the evolutionary history and the selection pressures concerning the gender difference of empathy, it would be interesting to do a comparative study with various species and various mating systems. | |
