The influence of sex and empathy on putting oneself in the shoes of others
Open accessAbstract
We tested whether putting oneself in the shoes of others is easier for women, possibly as a function of individuals' empathy levels, and whether any sex difference might be modulated by the sex of presented figures. Participants ( N =100, 50 women) imagined (a) being in the spatial position of front‐facing and back‐facing female and male figures (third person perspective (3PP) task) and (b) that the figures were their own mirror reflections (first person perspective (1PP) task). After mentally taking the figure's position, individuals decided whether the indicated hand of the figure would be their own left or right hand. Contrary to our hypothesis, results from the 3PP‐task showed higher rotational costs for women than men, suggesting that mental rotation rather than social strategies had been employed. However, faster responding by women with higher empathy scores would appear to indicate that some women engaged social perspective taking strategies irrespective of the figures' position. Figures' sex was relevant to task performance as higher rotational costs were observed for male figures in the 3PP‐task for both sexes and for female figures in the 1PP‐task for women. We argue that these latter findings indicate that performance was facilitated and/or inhibited towards figures associated with specific social and emotional implications.
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Human and non-human females are more empathic than males.
“Consistent with previous findings that human and non-human females are more empathic than males (5–7)”
From Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats (2011) · cites this paper as [7]
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Measuring empathy: reliability and validity of the Empathy Quotient
LAWRENCE, E. J., SHAW, P., BAKER, D., BARON-COHEN, S., & DAVID, A. S. (2004) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0033291703001624 · Cited by 1,014 · see citing works
Blanke, O., Mohr, C., Michel, C. M., Pascual-Leone, A., Brugger, P., Seeck, M., Landis, T., & Thut, G. (2005) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2612-04.2005 · Cited by 567 · cited 6× · see citing works
“Importantly, this task was found to dissociate neuronally from a task measuring mental rotation of objects (Blanke et al., 2005).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationBody Image among Adolescent Girls and Boys: A Longitudinal Study
Carlson Jones, D. (2004) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.5.823 · Cited by 537 · see citing works
Arzy, S., Thut, G., Mohr, C., Michel, C. M., & Blanke, O. (2006) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0745-06.2006 · Cited by 415 · see citing works
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Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats
Bartal, I. B.-A., Decety, J., & Mason, P. (2011) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1210789 · Cited by 934 · see citing works
Theodoridou, A., Rowe, A. C., & Mohr, C. (2013) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00197 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
“In study 2, we recorded reaction times in a computerized 3PP-task to assess empathy more implicitly (e.g., Thakkar et al., 2009; Mohr et al., 2010, in press) and to also avoid the response biases often associated with self-report measures (Kämpfe et al., 2009).”
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- Authors
- Mohr, C., Rowe, A. C., & Blanke, O.
- Affiliations
- University of Bristol (GB)
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
- Venue
- British Journal of Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-05
- Volume
- 101
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 277-291
- ISSN
- 0007-1269 (ISSN-L)
- 2044-8295
- OpenAlex
- W2117932980
- Cited by
- 97
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 49 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 6.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- infoscience.epfl.ch
- Locations
- British Journal of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Explore Bristol Research (publishedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Spatial Cognition and Navigation
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- perspective taking, empathy, sex differences, mental rotation, first-person perspective, third-person perspective, specular reflection, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Discrimination, Psychological, Empathy, Female, Gender Identity, Humans, Imagination, Functional Laterality, Male, Orientation, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Problem Solving, Reaction Time, Space Perception, Personal Construct Theory, Young Adult
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