Study finds women do better than men on 'theory of mind' test

Women, on average, are better than men at understanding someone else's mental state and imagining what the other person is thinking or feeling. This is according to a new study that analyzed data from more than 300,000 people in 57 countries.

Researchers have found that women generally score higher on an eye-reading mind-reading test that measures "theory of mind(also known as "cognitive empathy"). This finding was observed across all ages and in most countries.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the largest study of "theory of mind" to date. writes MedicalXpress.

For decades, researchers have studied the development of this theory from infancy to old age. One of the most widely used tests to evaluate it is the eye-reading test, in which participants are asked to choose which word best describes the person in the photo. And in the photo, usually only the eyes.

This test was developed in 1997 by Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen and his research group at Cambridge, and was revised in 2001 to become a well-established method for evaluating theory. mind. It is listed as one of two recommended tests to measure individual differences in "understanding mental states".

Many independent studies have shown that women, on average, score higher than men, but most of these studies were limited to relatively small samples without much diversity in terms of geography, culture and/or age.

To address these shortcomings, a group of interdisciplinary researchers led by the Cambridge University combined large samples from various online platforms for data analysis from 305,726 participants in 57 countries.

The results showed that on this test, women were more likely to score significantly higher than men (in 36 countries) or the same as men (in 21 countries). It is important to note that there was not a single country where men scored significantly higher on average. And these differences were observed throughout life, from 16 to 70 years.

Dr. David M. Greenberg, a leading scientist and honorary researcher at Cambridge, noted that these results allow to say with confidence that women are on average more empathic than men - regardless of country, age or language.

Such differences may result from both biological and social factors. Exactly which one remains to be seen in future studies.