Empathy Movement Magazine

Gender stereotypes presume that men are less emotionally intelligent than women; research has found that the truth is not so simple. Yet a new study suggests that when it comes to empathy, gender might matter.

Dutch neuroscientist Erno Jan Hermans and his colleagues set out to test whether testosterone directly inhibits a person’s ability to empathize with someone else—that is, whether it makes him less prone to take another person’s perspective and understand what she is thinking or feeling.