Abstract
Empathy is sharing and understanding others’ emotions. Recently, researchers identified a culture–sex interaction effect in empathy. This phenomenon has been largely ignored by previous researchers. In this study, the culture–sex interaction effect was explored with a cohort of 129 participants (61 Australian Caucasians and 68 Chinese Hans) using both self-report questionnaires (i.e., Empathy Quotient and Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and computer-based empathy tasks. In line with the previous findings, the culture–sex interaction effect was observed for both trait empathy (i.e., the generalized characteristics of empathy, as examined by the self-report questionnaires) and state empathy (i.e., the on-spot reaction of empathy for a specific stimulus, as evaluated by the computer-based tasks). Moreover, in terms of state empathy, the culture–sex interaction effect further interacted with stimulus traits (i.e., stimulus ethnicity, stimulus sex, or stimulus emotion) and resulted in three- and four-way interactions. Follow-up analyses of these higher-order interactions suggested that the phenomena of ethnic group bias and sex group favor in empathy varied among the four culture–sex participant groups (i.e., Australian female, Australian male, Chinese female, and Chinese male). The current findings highlighted the dynamic nature of empathy (i.e., its sensitivity toward both participant traits and stimulus features). Furthermore, the newly identified interaction effects in empathy deserve more investigation and need to be verified with other Western and Asian populations.
Highlights
Empathy is the sharing and understanding of others’ emotions (Cohen and Strayer, 1996; Eslinger, 1998; Zhao et al, 2019) and is an essential social skill (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004)
The participant sex effect was found in Australian participants (i.e., Australian female > Australian male; p < 0.001, d = 0.69, 95% CI = [5.95, 18.36], for the Empathy Quotient (EQ); p = 0.010, d = 0.47, 95% CI = [0.63, 4.56], for the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)-PT; and p < 0.001, d = 0.67, 95% CI = [1.94, 6.33], for the IRI-EC) but not Chinese participants
The current findings suggest that culture– sex interaction effects in empathy are not restricted to trait empathy (e.g., Zhao et al, 2019) but can expand to state empathy
Summary
Empathy is the sharing and understanding of others’ emotions (Cohen and Strayer, 1996; Eslinger, 1998; Zhao et al, 2019) and is an essential social skill (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004). Among the previous publications, researchers have primarily made comparisons of empathy between Western and Asian cultures (Tables 1–3) These two cultures present a sharp contrast of self-construal (Singelis, 1994; Zhao et al, 2019). Zhao et al (2019) proposed that one’s cultural background and biological sex might interact to determine the participant’s empathy They found that cultural differences in trait empathy (i.e., Australian > Chinese participant) were only significant with the female but not male participants (Zhao et al, 2019). They found that the sex difference (i.e., female > male participant) in trait empathy was only significant for the Australian but not Chinese participants (Zhao et al, 2019) They reported that the above culture–sex interaction effect was significant on all forms of trait empathy (i.e., emotional, cognitive, and overall empathy) (Zhao et al, 2019). If the culture–sex interaction effect in trait empathy is largely due
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