Men really are less empathetic than women.

 

Genes Can't Explain Why Men Are Less Empathetic Than Women

I do care about your feelings just not as much as you do.

Babies come into the world prepared to be empathic. Very young infants cry in response to the distress of others, and as soon as they can control their bodies, they respond to those in need, to comfort or offer a Band-Aid. Kids vary in the degree to which they are empathic; there seems to be a genetic component and a hormonal basis to empathy. While progesterone boosts empathy, testosterone does not. But there are no clear gender differences in empathic ability early in life.

Empathy is the ability to recognize and relate to what’s going on in another person’s mind, but scientists still know very little about what makes some people more attuned to someone else’s feelings than others.

In the new study, published yesterday (March 11) in the journal Translational Psychiatry, the researchers turned to genetics for an answer. To do so, they combed through data on nearly 47,000 people who had used 23andMe, an at-home DNA testing kit, for links between how well they performed on an empathy test and genetic variatons. (23andMe's research team was involved with the study.) [10 Things You Didn't Know About You]

The researchers found that, although women scored, on average, 10 points higher in the "Emotional Quotient" (EQ) test than men, there doesn’t appear to be a genetic basis for those differences, said lead study author Varun Warrier, a doctoral student in neuroscience at the University of Cambridge in England.

Genetically, [men and women] seem identical, but there is a difference in the empathy score, which is quite significant.The [highest possible] score in the EQ test is 80. We saw that men score, on average, 40, and women score, on average, 50.

The 60 questions that made up the EQ test focused on various aspects of empathy, including cognitive empathy (the ability to understand others’ states of mind) and affective empathy (the ability to react appropriately to others).The former is known to be impaired, for example, in people with autism.

In the study, the researchers looked for variations in a single building block of DNA, the nucleotide. These variations, called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, are the most common type of genetic variation. An example of an SNP would be the nucleotide cytosine (C) randomly replaced with the nucleotide thymine (T) in a certain stretch of DNA.

We know that there are strong social factors that shape how empathetic we are or how we perceive ourselves to be empathetic, adding that traditionally, society has higher expectations of female children to be understanding of others' feelings. However, non-genetic biological factors could also play a role.

Biologically, there are clear differences between men and women — things like hormones and hormone levels. It could be possible that some of these hormones that are present in greater levels in women can drive some of the higher empathetic scores.

Oxytocin, which is found in higher levels in women, can make people more empathic, while Testosterone, present in higher concentrations in men, could do the opposite.

We can also note that the current study only looked at the contribution of SNPs, but there are other types of genetic variations that could also play a role, and more research is needed. Previous studies on identical twins, for example, suggest that genes account for about 30 percent of a person's overall empathy.

Well here we have it. Empathy is something that all women possess, but not so much in men... men want empathy from women not Sympathy. make sure you understand that there is a difference. Men don't want sympathy or pitty  from their woman unless they are dying.

So if a man bangs his head against an open kitchen cabinet door... he wants empathy and maybe a bandage. But if his woman calls him a cluts for hitting his head because she left the door open he is not seeking anything that will irritate him,  from her, like sympathy or pitty.   

So what's the difference Empathy means experiencing someone else's feelings. ... ' It requires an emotional component of really feeling what the other person is feeling. Sympathy, on the other hand, means understanding someone else's suffering.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Sympathy is similar and easy to confuse, but not half as useful- sympathy is the feeling of pity or sorrow for someone else.

 In fact, giving—and getting—empathy is essential in intimate adult relationships. ... Where sympathy is the act of feeling for someone (“I am so sorry you are hurting”), ... Men who have been encouraged to “stand up” to conflict may become overly ...Ladies, suppose your partner comes home irritated with his boss. It is normal and necessary to be tuned in to someone else’s feelings, especially when one is very close to that person. In fact, giving—and getting—empathy is essential in intimate adult relationships. The empathic understanding of the experience of other human beings is as basic an endowment of man as his vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell, observed. The desire to be heard, known, and felt deeply never disappears. But when empathy becomes the default way of relating, psychological well-being is impoverished.

Where sympathy is the act of feeling for someone (“I am so sorry you are hurting”), empathy involves feeling with someone (“I feel your disappointment”). It also differs from compassion, which is a caring concern for another’s suffering from a slightly greater distance and often includes a desire to help.  Empathy involves not just feelings but thoughts, and it encompasses two people—the person we are feeling for and ourself.

He gave me this card for emergency, but here are the shoes I've always wanted, so it's an emergency, he will understand.. when we get the bill next month.

To put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we must strike a balance between emotion and thought and between self and other. Otherwise, empathy becomes a trap, and we can feel as if we’re being held hostage by the feelings of others. The art of empathy requires paying attention to another’s needs without sacrificing one’s own. It demands the mental dexterity to switch attunement from other to self. What turns empathy into a true high-wire act is that its beneficiaries find the attention deeply rewarding. That puts the onus on us to know when to extract ourselves from someone else’s shoes—and how.