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Article Excerpt
Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues have recently proposed an 'empathizing-systemizing' theory of psychological sex differences (Baron-Cohen, 2003; Baron-Cohen, Richler, Bisarya, Gurunathan, & Wheelwright, 2003; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). Empathizing and systemizing are two individual-difference dimensions that can be measured by self-report questionnaire, the former being defined as the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts and the latter as the drive to analyse or construct systematic relationships in non-social domains. Both sexes show a range of variation on both dimensions, but on average women are higher than men in empathizing, and men higher than women in systemizing, as measured by the empathy quotient (EQ) and systemizing quotient (SQ), respectively (Baron-Cohen et al., 2003; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004).
The intellectual origins of the empathizing and systemizing dimensions lie in research on autism spectrum disorders (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985; Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001). In such conditions, social reasoning and theory-of-mind are strongly impaired, but there can be islands of ability in non-social domains. Autism spectrum disorders are much more common amongst men than women, and autistic traits are common amongst mathematicians, scientists, engineers and their families (Baron-Cohen et al., 1998, 2001). Such evidence has led Baron-Cohen and colleagues to suggest that high-functioning autism is simply the high-systemizing, low-empathizing extreme of the population distribution for the two traits.
This paper presents a series of investigations of the empathizing and systemizing dimensions, using the empathizing quotients (EQ) and systemizing quotients (SQ) questionnaires (Baron-Cohen et al., 2003). The purposes are several-fold. First, as empathizing and systemizing are such new concepts, they have not been extensively assessed for reliability and validity. The current studies therefore seek to replicate the sex differences observed by Baron-Cohen et al., and moreover to examine the validity of the dimensions by them relating to patterns of interests and social behaviour which their formulation suggests they should predict.
Second, empathizing and systemizing are presented by Baron-Cohen et al. without reference to well-established notions within differential psychology, such as the Big Five personality factors. The Big Five framework is the most widely used and validated general framework in personality psychology, and has been shown to capture the majority of the variation recorded by a large number of alternative personality taxonomies (Costa & McCrae, 1992a, 1992b; De Raad & Perugini, 2002; Saucier & Goldberg, 1998). Given that there are sex differences in several of the big five (Costa, Terraciano, & McCrae, 2001), it remains to be established that empathizing and systemizing are measuring something new. The second aim of this paper is therefore to relate empathizing and systemizing to the existing constructs of the five-factor model.
Third, in his book The essential difference, Baron-Cohen argues that the empathizing-systemizing model has the explanatory power to explain most if not all psychological sex differences (Baron-Cohen, 2003). Many psychological sex differences have been documented and an investigation of all of them would be beyond the scope of any single paper. This paper therefore focuses on one domain--the domain of interests--where clear sex differences have been observed, and can plausibly be related to sex-typed patterns of cognition and affect (Twenge, 1999). I investigate the extent to which the observed sex differences can be explained by differences in empathizing and systemizing. This is a strong test of whether empathizing and systemizing really constitute the essential difference between men and women or merely one difference amongst many.
Finally, homosexual males have been found to have higher levels of empathy than heterosexual males by two studies (Salais & Fischer, 1995; Sargeant, Dickins, Davies, & Griffiths, 2006), the second of which uses Baron-Cohen's EQ scale as its empathy measure. The interpretation given for this difference is that, first, empathizing and systemizing are organized by sex-patterned developmental factors, principally exposure to prenatal androgens; and second, that exposure to prenatal androgens is sex-atypical in those who will go on to develop a same-sex sexual preference. There is a fair amount of indirect evidence for the first proposition. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders have digit ratio patterns suggestive of elevated levels of prenatal testosterone (Manning, Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, & Sanders, 2001). Moreover, a recent study by the same group measured prenatal testosterone levels by amniocentesis and correlated them with measures of social communication and restricted interests when the children were 4 years old (Knickmeyer, Baron-Cohen, Raggatt, & Taylor, 2005). Foetal testosterone levels were positively associated with restricted interests, which is a possible childhood marker for systemizing and autistic traits, and negatively associated with social communication abilities, which are a possible indicator of empathizing. As for the second proposition, it too is supported by a large quantity of mainly indirect evidence (see Rahman & Wilson, 2003, for a review). A further aim of the present research was therefore to seek to replicate the homosexual-male advantage in empathizing found by Sargeant et al. (2006), and moreover, to extend the analysis to cover systemizing, and also homosexual females, neither of which are included in their study.
The three studies reported herein investigate the issues outlined in the foregoing paragraphs. Study 1 relates the EQ and SQ to the dimensions of the five-factor model of personality. Study 2 relates the EQ and SQ to patterns of interests and social behaviour, both as a validity check for the measures and to examine whether observed sex differences in interests are reducible to differences in empathizing and systemizing. Finally, Study 3 looks at the EQ, SQ, interests and social behaviour in groups of non-heterosexuals as opposed to heterosexuals. All of the research reported here uses data gathered via the internet. Previous personality studies have shown that data gathered in this way can have satisfactory reliability and validity (Buchanan, Johnson, & Goldberg, 2005), and that internet and pencil-and-paper administrations of the same questionnaires produce very similar norms and factor structures (Gosling, Vazire, Srivastava, & John, 2004; Salgado & Moscoso, 2003).
STUDY 1
Empathizing is described by Baron-Cohen et al. as 'the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond with the appropriate emotion' (2003, p. 361). There are some potentially similar constructs within personality theory. The dimension of agreeableness in the five-factor model is a continuum of prosociality, with facet descriptors including trust, altruism and tender-mindedness (Costa & McCrae, 1992b). Agreeableness is higher in women than men (Budaev, 1999; Costa et al., 2001), just as the EQ is. Several of the items from the IPIP five-factor inventory agreeableness scale (Goldberg, 1999) closely resemble items found in the EQ (e.g. agreeableness: 'Am interested in other people's problems', 'Feel others' emotions', EQ: 'Friends usually talk to me about their problems as they say that I am very understanding', 'I tend to get emotionally involved with a friend's problem').
Extraversion could also be related to empathizing. Though the extraversion dimension may ultimately be explained in terms of sensitivity to reward (Depue & Collins, 1999), it has a facet to do with sociality and the enjoyment of social interactions (Costa & McCrae, 1992b). Thus we can hypothesize that the empathizing quotient will be positively correlated with five-factor agreeableness and extraversion. Some support for this hypothesis came from an earlier study of professional actors, who completed a battery of psychometric instruments include the EQ, SQ and a five-factor personality inventory (Nettle, 2006). Agreeableness and extraversion were indeed correlated positively and significant with EQ. However, actors, who as a group are high in agreeableness and extraversion, represent a restriction of sampling range, and thus the correlations need replicating with a general population sample.
Systemizing is defined as 'the drive to analyse the variables in a system, to derive the underlying rules that govern the behaviour of a system' (sic, Baron-Cohen et al., 2003, p. 361). There is no immediately obvious candidate counterpart of such a tendency in the five-factor model. Openness has been related to intellectual interests and interest in abstraction, whereas conscientiousness has a desire for order as one of its components. Thus, it is possible that there will be positive relationships between the SQ and five-factor openness and conscientiousness, though examination of the items in the SQ and five-factor model suggest a weaker or less obvious relationship than for EQ. The...
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