THE IMPORTANCE OF SEX-OF-STIMULUS OBJECT - AGE TRENDS AND SEX-DIFFERENCES IN EMPATHIC RESPONSIVENESS

The main goals of the study were to examine age trends and sex differe nces in empathic responsiveness. particularly empathic concern for oth ers in distress. It was based on four cohorts of Norwegian students ag ed 13 to 16, comprising a total of 1193 boys and 1093 girls. The key m easurement instrument was a partly new questionnaire on empathic respo nsiveness in which sets of items were differentiated according to sex- of-stimulus object. The empirical analyses showed convincingly that di fferentiation of the items,with regard to sex-of-stimulus object teas of critical importance for the discovery of the age trends that were p resent for boys and girls. Girls showed the most straight-forward deve lopment, with air increase over age in empathic concern towards both g irl and boy stimuli. The boys evinced a similar developmental pattern with regard to girls as stimuli but showed a clearly deviating, decrea sing trend in empathic concern for other boys in distress. Failure to consider sex-of-stimulus object is probably, the main explanation for the inconsistent results previously reported for developmental trends in empathic responsiveness from age 11. In addition, and in agreement with previous research, we found very marked sex differences, with a s trong predominance of low-empathic boys and a similarly marked predomi nance of high-empathic girls. Finally, the empirical analyses indicate d the meaningfulness of partly separating out another facet of empathi c responsiveness, ie, empathic distress in which the emotional reactio n is assumed to be more oriented toward the self than to the other, wh ile the opposite is true of empathic concern. The results ave discusse d within an evolutionary, perspective.