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Correlation Between Masculinity And Empathy Essay, Research Paper

Correlation Between Masculinity and Empathy

Many psychological studies have been carried out over the years in the topic of personality, in aiming to grasp the type of factors that are involved in bestowing us the personalities that we hold. Most people will have probably come across various personality tests at some stage or another, which ask you lots of questions and then analyze your results in trying to categorize what kind of personality you’ve got.

One of the most fascinating aspects of personality is the issue of gender roles in our personalities. One would expect men generally have more masculine traits than feminine ones, and women tend to have more feminine traits than masculine ones. Sandra L. Bem (1974), a psychologist, developed a personality test known as the BSRI test (Bem Sex Role Inventory), which tries to separate the male and female aspects of your personality to see if your personality consists of predominantly masculine (instrumental), predominantly feminine (expressive), or androgynous (both instrumental and expressive). According to Taylor and Hall, masculinity is defined by instrumentality and femininity by expressiveness. Both variables have proved their validity in previous investigations (as cited by Schenk and Heinisch, 1985).

Coherently, empathy has been defined in many ways. In JPI-R’s emotional cluster, it is referred to a person’s emotional responsiveness toward other people (Jackson, 1994). A high scorer on this scale might be tended to identify closely with other people and their matters. He concerned with others and upset by other’s misfortunes. In contrast, a low scorer tended not to allow feelings to intrude on decision-making. He displayed little compassion, emotionally unresponsive to those around him.

In an empirical research, Watson, Biderman and Sawrie (1994) proposed that empathy is often considered as a feminine strength. Moreover, they stated that ” ?K?K(empathy) should be directly associated with socially undesirable femininity/immature dependency and should be compensated by and thus inversely related to the socially desirable aspects of masculinity” (Watson, Biderman and Sawrie, 1994, p.706). Moreover, the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Mehrabian and Epstein empathy measure were administered and found a significant negative correlation between empathy, an expressive attribute, and masculinity. Hence, between masculinity and empathy, there ought to be a negative correlation (as cited by Foushee, Davis and Archer, 1979).

However, many debates questioned on the negative correlation between masculinity and empathy, an analyses from Schenk and Heinsch (1985) found no significant correlation between empathy and masculinity and femininity to males and females. A research from Karniol, Gabay, Ochion and Harari (1998) even presented positive correlation between masculinity and empathy.

In light of the above, the purpose of the current study was to illustrate the relationship between masculinity and empathy, by rehypothesizing that both variables develop a positive correlation between them.

Method

Participants

Participants are one hundred and forty eight undergraduate students enrolled in introductory psychology course for course credit at University of Western Ontario. The sample represents Canadian multicultural population of age in 20’s. Of a hundred and forty eight participants, twenty of them did not complete the study and were dropped from all subsequent analyses. As a result, all the data we account were based on a hundred and twenty remaining participants.

Apparatus

In this study, BSRI scale was assessed on masculinity (instrumentality) and femininity (expressiveness); the JPI-R scale was assessed on personality traits.

The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), written by Sandra L. Bem (1974), was used to the masculinity and/or femininity of the participants using 20 items representing masculine traits, 20 items representing feminine traits, and 20 filler items which are considered neutral with respect to common stereotypes. Participants ranked each item on how closely each item related to them individually. The BEM ranked each item on a scale from 1 to 7, with a lower score indicating that the item was never or seldom true, and a higher score indicating the item was often or frequently true.

Sandra L. Bem (1974) administered the BSRI to two groups of college students: Stanford and Foothill Junior. She reported an internal consistency reliability coefficient in the Stanford sample (Masculinity a= .86; Femininity a= .80) and Foothill sample (Masculinity a= .86; Femininity a= .82) respectively for the Masculinity- Femininity scale. This constitutes a moderate or high reliability. Furthermore, the Stanford sample wore the BSRI twice, the second with four weeks interval from the first administration. The test- retest reliability revealed coefficients (Masculinity r= .90; Femininity r= .90), which represented a very high liability.

On the validity of the studies, methods of Criterion Validity and Convergent Construct Validity were administered in her studies. She obtained the criterion validity by differentiated by the relationship on personality characteristics from masculinity and femininity between the BSRI scale and her criterions. In addition, predicting and correlating with scores on BSRI scale showed its convergent construct validity. Hence, masculinity and femininity are independent variables empirically and logically.

The JPI-R, which was developed by D. N. Jackson (1994), is a revision of the original Jackson Personality Inventory. The JPI-R assesses personality variables relevant to the functioning of a person in a wide range of settings such as those involving work, educational/organizational behavior,

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