Doctoral Dissertation Research: How Power Affects Empathy
This study examines the relationship between power, gender, and the ability to predict human behavior, a phenomenon closely related to empathy. Specifically, this study answers the question: Is the ability to predict another person's behavior more affected by power, by gender, or a combination of both? The project is grounded in social psychological literature and interdisciplinary research on the role of non-verbal communication. Previous research has found that women are more empathetic and are better able to predict the behavior of others than are men. One possible explanation for these findings is that women are socialized how to be empathetic, whereas men are taught to devalue this ability. Alternatively, women may be better predictors because they usually hold less powerful positions. Thus, women learn that predicting the behavior of more powerful others can benefit them. Because men are, on average, more socially, economically, and physically powerful than women, men may learn that their own lives are not affected meaningfully by predicting the behaviors of others. This study will explore the effects of power and gender by conducting an experimental study of participants engaged in power-balanced and power-imbalanced tasks.
Broader Impacts This study informs our understanding of how power differentials shape interactions between people. Findings from this project may be of interest to the general public as well as employers and policy makers. Findings may also have implications for how men and women negotiate professional relationships. Findings will contribute to extant research by discerning whether accuracy in role-taking is a function of individual attributes or structural position.
This research investigated what factors might affect individuals’ ability to take the role of the other. To take the role of the other entails being able to predict what others’ might be thinking or feeling. The research first developed a method to measure role-taking ability. This measure was calibrated for a particular group of participants, in this case, college students. The measure was then used to determine initial variation by gender. As was suggested by some literature, other things being equal, women were better role takers than men. An important question, however, is whether the better role taking ability of women might be related to status. More often than not, women occupy lower status positions than men. In this research, we created different occupational positions and people were randomly assigned to these positions. In this way, we could examine how differences in occupational status alone affected role taking. We looked at different gender compositions and found that the status position of the person, irrespective of gender, affect role taking. Those with lower status were better role-takers than were people with higher status: they were better predictors of what others thought and did. The research, then, indicates that status positions, not necessarily gender, affects role taking ability.
