Examining Gender Differences in Children’s Reasoning about Empathy

This study investigated whether children exhibit gendered expectations and evaluations of empathy, exploring the developmental origins of stereotypes observed in adults. A sample of 112 children (Mage = 6.02 years, SDage = 1.14, 54 girls) aged 4–7 years participated, recruited from Southern California. Participants were predominantly White (54%), with additional representation from Asian (20%), Black or African American (4%), Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (1%), multiracial (11%), and other (10%) backgrounds. Seventeen percent identified as Hispanic/Latinx, and 79% of participants had one or more parent with post-secondary degree(s). Using story-based tasks, children predicted girl and boy characters’ empathic responses and evaluated girl and boy characters’ niceness based on their empathic or counter-empathic responses. Findings revealed that children did not predict greater empathy from girls than boys, suggesting early childhood expectations of empathy are largely egalitarian. Niceness evaluations for empathizers and counter-empathizers were not measurably influenced by character gender, though the difference in ratings for empathizers versus counter-empathizers strengthened with age. Notably, female participants evaluated empathizers–of both genders–more positively than male participants, though they also gave slightly higher baseline niceness ratings of characters who had not had a chance to empathize. No differences by participant gender were observed in evaluations of counter-empathizers. Results suggest that societal stereotypes associating girls with greater empathy emerge later in development, potentially influenced by socialization processes. We discuss the role of socialization in developing gendered expectations of empathy and possible factors that may influence gender differences in the valuing of empathy.