More than Maths and Mindreading: Sex Differences in Empathising/Systemising Covariance

Jeffrey M Valla
Barbara L Ganzel
Keith J Yoder
Grace M Chen
Laura T Lyman
Anthony P Sidari
Alex E Keller
Jeffrey W Maendel
Jordan E Perlman
Stephanie KL Wong
Matthew K Belmonte

This is a preprint of an article published in Autism Research 3(4):174-184 (August 2010).
Copyright © 2010 INSAR/Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACT
Empathising-Systemising (E/S) theory posits a continuum of cognitive traits extending from autism into normal cognitive variation. Covariance data on empathising and systemising traits have alternately suggested inversely dependent, independent, and sex-dependent (one sex dependent, the other independent) structures. 144 normal undergraduates (65 men, 79 women) completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes, Embedded Figures, and Benton face recognition tests, the Autism Spectrum Quotient, and measures of digit length ratio and field of study; some also completed tests of motion coherence threshold (64) and go/no-go motor inhibition (128). Empathising and systemising traits were independent in women, but largely dependent in men. In men, level of systemising skill required by field of study was directly related to social interactive and mindreading deficits; men's social impairments correlated with prolonged go/no-go response times, and men tended to apply systemising strategies to solve problems of empathising or global processing: rapid perceptual disembedding predicted heightened sensitivity to facial emotion. In women, level of systemising in field was related to male-typical digit ratios and autistic superiorities in detail orientation, but not to autistic social and communicative impairments; and perceptual disembedding was related to social interactive skills but independent of facial emotion and visual motion perception.

LAY ABSTRACT
Empathising is the ability to make sense of people in terms of their thoughts, beliefs, and changeable states of mind, whereas systemising is the ability to make sense of objects in terms of their absolute and deterministic rules of behaviour. Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) confer remarkable superiorities at systemising, and at the same time deficits in empathising. The genetic and environmental factors underlying ASC are many, and probably every human being carries some of these factors. Autistic empathising and systemising traits, therefore, are likely to be present throughout the population, to one degree or another. In the general population, though, does strong systemising necessarily come along with weak empathising as it does in autism, or are there many people who are good at both empathising and systemising simultaneously? Knowing the answer to this question can tell us whether it might be possible for therapies to preserve ASC's cognitive strengths in systemising at the same time as they ameliorate the deficits in empathising. We find that the answer depends on sex: men who are good systemisers tend to be poor empathisers, whereas many women are strong at both empathising and systemising independently. Men seem to compensate for such deficits in empathising by applying systemising skills to problems of empathy — for example, in men but not in women, the ability to analyse a geometric figure in detail is associated with the ability to recognise faces. Furthermore, in men, being in a highly systemizing field of study (e.g. maths or physics as opposed to government or literature) is more closely related to weak empathising skills than to strong systemising skills, whereas in women, systemising fields are more related to strong systemising abilities — so it seems that when it comes to selecting an occupation men's choices may be determined more by their weaknesses than by their strengths. It's crucial to note that all these relationships exist not necessarily for individual men and women, but rather describe the whole population of men and the whole population of women: these results for groups of women and groups of men do not allow inferences about a particular man's deficit in empathising or a particular woman's strength in empathising.

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CITED BY:

  1. Valla JM, Ceci SJ. Can sex differences in science be tied to the long reach of prenatal hormones? Brain organization theory, digit ratio (2D/4D), and sex differences in preferences and cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6(2):134-146 (March 2011).
  2. Durdiakova J, Ostatnikova D, Celec P. Testosterone and its metabolites — modulators of brain functions. Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis 71(4):434-454 (2011).
  3. Hirosawa T, Kikuchi M, Higashida H, Okumura E, Ueno S, Shitamichi K, Yoshimura Y, Munesue T, Tsubokawa T, Haruta Y, Nakatani H, Hashimoto T, Minabe Y. Oxytocin attenuates feelings of hostility depending on emotional context and individuals' characteristics. Scientific Reports 2:384 (26 April 2012).