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Empathizing, systemizing, and career choice in Brazil: Sex differences
and individual variation among areas of study
Marco Antonio Corrêa Varella ⁎, José Henrique Benedetti Piccoli Ferreira, Kamila Janaina Pereira,
Vera Silvia Raad Bussab, Jaroslava Varella Valentova
Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo, Av. Prof. Mello Moraes 1721, Sao Paulo 05508-030, SP, Brazil
abstractarticle info
Article history:
Received 30 October 2015
Received in revised form 10 March 2016
Accepted 18 March 2016
Available online xxxx
Individual variation in sexually dimorphic cognitive capacities for understanding people (empathizing) and
things (systemizing) is related to career choice: individuals in careers dominated by women tend to exhibit
higher empathy than individuals in male-dominated careers, who tend to score higherin systemizing. We tested
this pattern in a Brazilian population. In Study I, using University public data (1980–2015), we found that exact
sciences attracted significantly more males, whereas humanities and bio-sciences attracted more females
throughout the 35-year period. Further, during the time period studied, there wasa consistent growth of interest
in both men and women in studying bothexact sciences and humanities. In StudyII, using the GLM analysisof an
undergraduate sample of 248 men and 325 women, we replicated the sex differences in empathizing and sys-
temizing,and found that, regardless of sex,individuals in humanities and bio-sciences score higheron empathiz-
ing and lower on systemizing than those in exact sciences. These results corroborate the sexually dimorphic
pattern in career choice and in empathizing-systemizing, and show the importance of cognitive style as one of
the factors related to university majors.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Empathizing
Systemizing
Study area
Cognition
Sex differences
Career choice
1. Introduction
At least once in a lifetime most people make a study/career
choice and this decision has the potential to influence one's life
outcomes. Many factors are found to influence career choice, such
as competitiveness (Buser, Niederle, & Oosterbeek, 2014), accul-
turation, family background, the level of confidence and interest
in the given field (Tang, Fouad, & Smith, 1999), and sex (Halpern
et al., 2007).
In spite of intrasexual individual variation, men and women have, on
average, different occupational interests (Halpern et al., 2007). A recent
meta-analysis (Su, Rounds, & Armstrong, 2009) including more than
503 thousand individuals showed that on the things–people dimension,
men on average indicated higher preferences for working with things
than women, whereas women on average preferred more working with
people. The effect size of this difference was large (Cohen's d= 0.93).
This study also found that on the hexagonal RIASEC model (Holland,
1997), men showed stronger interests for Realistic (working with things
and gadgets or working outdoors; d= 0.84) and Investigative (interest
in science, including mathematics, physical and social sciences, and bio-
logical and medical sciences; d= 0.26) types of careers, whereas
women showed stronger interests in the dimensions of Artistic (interest
in creative expression, including writing and the visual and performing
arts; d= 0.35), Social (interest in helping people, d=0.68),andConven-
tional (interest in working in well-structured environments, especially
business settings; d= 0.33). Similar sex differences were found in a
world-wide BBC study sampling more than 255 thousand participants
online (Manning, Reimers, Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, & Fink, 2010).
One of the factors that has been found to influence both the sex
difference and the intrasexual individual variation in study/career pref-
erence/choice is the cognitive style related to empathizing and system-
izing abilities (e.g. Billington, Baron-Cohen, & Wheelwright, 2007;
Wright, Eaton, & Skagerberg, 2015). Every individual possesses some
degree of cognitive capacities for understanding both people/feelings
and things/systems. Empathizing is defined as an ability that enables
people to understand and better deal with a person's emotions and
thoughts (Baron-Cohen, 2002; Baron-Cohen, Knickmeyer, & Belmonte,
2005; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004), and it allows for compre-
hension and prediction of the social world (Baron-Cohen, Richler,
Bisarya, Gurunathan & Wheelwright, 2003). Systemizing permits
individuals to comprehend or construct systems (Baron-Cohen, 2002;
Personality and Individual Differences 97 (2016) 157–164
⁎Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: macvarella@gmail.com (M.A. Corrêa Varella),
jh.benedetti@gmail.com (J.H. Benedetti Piccoli Ferreira), kamilajpereira@gmail.com
(K.J. Pereira), vsbussab@gmail.com (V.S. Raad Bussab), jaroslava@usp.br (J. Varella
Valentova).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.03.058
0191-8869/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Baron-Cohen et al., 2005), and it enables understanding and foreseeing
the inanimate world (Baron-Cohen et al., 2003).
Empathizing and systemizing differ, on average, between men and
women: women tend to score higher on empathizing than men (d=
.55; Wright et al., 2015), and men tend to score higher on systemizing
than women (d= .50; Baron-Cohen, 2002; Wakabayashi et al., 2007;
Wright et al., 2015). Therefore, individuals with more empathic cogni-
tive style are supposed to prefer career areas that have proportionally
more women, and generally require understanding of other people.
On the other hand, individuals higher on systemizing are supposed to
prefer careers that have high proportion of men, and require compre-
hension of inanimate systems.
Billington et al. (2007) replicated sex differences in areas of study,
showing that 70.1% of the humanities students in the UK were
women and 59.1% of the science students were men. They also repli-
cated the sex differences in empathizing and systemizing, with
women scoring, on average, higher on the first, and men on the lat-
ter. Moreover, this study reported that, regardless of sex, individuals
higher on systemizing were more likely to enter physical sciences,
and individuals higher on empathizing had higher probability of
choosing to study humanities. In thesameline,twostudiescarried
out in the UK (Wheelwright et al., 2006) and Belgium (Focquaert,
Steven, Wolford, Colden, & Gazzaniga, 2007) also found that individ-
uals in the humanities possessed a cognitive style that is more
empathizing-driven than systemizing-driven, while individuals in
sciences possessed rather the systemizing-driven cognitive style.
Finally, Manning et al. (2010) reported that in a cross-cultural sam-
ple of mostly white North American and Western European popula-
tions both men and women who scored higher on systematizing
compared to empathizing tended to work in occupations with
lower proportion of females.
However, there is still lack of evidence as to whether empathizing-
systemizing and study/career choice are related with each other
in other than North American and Western European populations.
A few studies on a Portuguese speaking population (Brazil and
Portugal) reported sex differences in empathy and/or systemizing
similar to the previous research (e.g., Milfont, Coelho, Pessoa, &
Gouveia, 2012; Rodrigues, Gonçalves, Lopes, & Santos, 2010). We
might thus expect that there would be a similar link between
empathizing-systemizing and career or study choice in this popula-
tion. Interestingly, for socio-historical reasons, the areas of studies
in Brazil are divided differently than in the previously studied coun-
tries. In particular, humanities and social sciences are treated togeth-
er as humanities, whereas sciences are divided into bio-sciences and
exact sciences. Little is known about how bio-sciences fit into the
systemizing-empathy cognitive model. Brazil thus offers a unique
opportunity to investigate this question.
1.1. Aims
The main aim of this study was to test whether individual variation
in empathizing and systemizing cognitive styles would be related to
choice of study area, that have, on average, different frequency of male
and female students. Here we focused not only on humanities and
hard sciences, but also on biology. To do this, we firstly tested frequency
of men and women applyingfor undergraduate study areas divided into
three main areas —humanities, biological and exact sciences —on two
Brazilian samples. To obtain representative data, we analyzed a large
public dataset containing information about the number of male and fe-
male applicants for thethree study areas between 1980 until 2015. On a
smaller sample of men and women, we further replicated this aim using
a questionnaire method, and tested further for sex differences in empa-
thy and systemizing. Finally, we tested whether students from human-
ities, biological and exact sciences differ in their self-reported empathy
and systemizing, irrespective of their sex.
2. Study I
2.1. Methods
To test for differences in frequency of men and women applying for
undergraduate study areas, we gathered public data available online
from the website of the University Foundation for University Entrance
(Fundação Universitária para o Vestibular, FUVEST). FUVEST is a Brazilian
autonomous institution connected to the University of Sao Paulo (USP),
that runs the entrance examinations to USP, and in the eighties also the
entrance examinations for University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and Sao
Paulo State University (UNESP), two other public Sao Paulo State univer-
sities. The foundation possesses statistics about the number of men and
women who applied for each undergraduate course and each grand
study area from 1980 until 2015, except between 1986–87 and 1991–
94 when the sex of the students was not recorded. By this method, we ob-
tained data from 30 years, for a total of 4,046,205 undergraduate appli-
cants (Table 1,Fig. 1).
FUVEST divides the undergraduate programs into humanities (such
as history, arts, music, law, economy, journalism, pedagogy, languages,
tourism, philosophy, geography, etc.), bio-sciences (such as sports,
psychology, pharmacy, veterinary, medicine, odontology, biology,
phonoaudiology, nursing, nutrition, etc.), and exact sciences (such as
civil, electric, mechanic engineering, statistics, computation, geology,
mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc.). Thus, the applicants were divid-
ed into these 3 main study areas (Table 1,Fig. 1).
The demographic data of students applying for undergraduate
courses offer a powerful measure of motivation and capability to follow
an area of career, given that it is data about real-life choices. FUVEST's
exam is considered the most competitive entrance examination in the
country, and one of the most demanding, usually lasting several days.
In Brazil, the best and most important universities, such as the universi-
ties included in this study, are public, either federal or state, the offered
education is of high quality, and no tuition is charged.This explains why
these universities are the most desired places to study and hence, it is
very difficult to be admitted.
2.2. Analyzes and results
Spearman's non-parametric correlations showed a positive correla-
tion between year and number of female applicants in humanities
(ρ= .698, N = 30, p b.001) and exact sciences (ρ=.709,N=30,
pb.001), while there was no correlation in bio-sciences (ρ=.313,
N = 30, p = .092). Similarly, in men year positively correlated with
number of applicants in humanities (ρ= .442, N = 30, p = .014) and
exact sciences (ρ= .411, N = 30, p = .024), but negatively in bio-
sciences (ρ=−.433, N = 30, p = .017). Thus, year entered into the
subsequent analyses as a covariate. To further explore these results,
we computed percentages of male and female applicants for each
year, and ran non-parametric correlations between the year and sex
proportion. The correlations were significant and positive for percent-
age of female applicants (and thus negative for percentage of male
applicants) in all three areas, namely Humanities (ρ= .436, N = 30,
p = .016), Bio-sciences (ρ=.723,N=30,pb.001) and Exact sciences
(ρ=.826,N=30,pb.001).
To analyze the possible differences between men and women ap-
plying for different study areas, we performed a multivariate General
Linear Model (GLM) with number of male and female applicants for
each study area as dependent variables, sex as a factor (coded as 1 =
males, 2 = females), and year as a covariate. The test of Between-
Subject Effects revealed strong effect of sex in all three areas, namely
humanities (F = 32.065, df = 1, 59, p b.001, η
p
2
= .360), bio-sciences
(F = 256.705, df = 1, 59, p b.001, η
p
2
= .818), and exact sciences
(F = 217.776, df = 1, 59, p b.001, η
p
2
= .793). Exact sciences
attracted significantly more males, whereas humanities and bio-
sciences attracted more females throughout the 35 years period.
158 M.A. Corrêa Varella et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 97 (2016) 157–164
3. Study II
3.1. Methods
3.1.1. Participants
Two hundred and forty eight men (mean age, 21.6 years, SD = 4.16)
and 325 women (mean age, 21.2 years, SD = 4.58) were recruited for
this study from students at the University of Sao Paulo (USP). Men
and women did not differ in age (t = 1.201, df = 571, p = .23), and
were recruited from different faculties with the aim to acquire a broad
sample across various study fields, in order to test the main hypothesis.
We used the FUVEST 2014 handbook (2013) for applicants to divide
the undergraduate programs into humanities, bio-sciences, and exact
sciences. The distribution of men and women in the three main study
areas is given in Table 2.
3.1.2. Procedure and questionnaires
Participants answered a questionnaire containingbasic demograph-
ic data (such as sex, age, undergraduate course studying) and the full
version of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the Systemizing Quotient
(SQ) questionnaires (Baron-Cohen et al., 2003). We used the Brazilian
Portuguese version of the questionnaires (Baron-Cohen, 2004). Both
the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the Systemizing Quotient (SQ) ques-
tionnaires have 60 statements each, 40 of them are experimental (an
example of the EQ “I easily perceive when someone wants to participate
in a conversation”, an example of the SQ “The functioning of machines
fascinates me”), and 20 items are controls (e.g., “I dream in the majority
of nights”). The answers are given on a verbally described scale, from
strongly disagree, partially disagree to partially agree, and strongly
agree. We scored the questionnaires as suggested by Baron-Cohen
et al. (2003), so that the higher the score on Systemizing quotient the
higher the cognitive capacity of systemizing, and the higher the score
on Empathy quotient, the higher the cognitive capacity for empathy.
The data were gathered between 2005 and 2006 by distributing printed
questionnaires to students in their classrooms after approval of the
teaching professor. Participants voluntarily signed the consent term
and filled in the anonymous questionnaire, which took approximately
20 min. When finished, they put the questionnaires into a sealed box.
3.2. Analyses
A Kolmogorov–Smirnov test showed violations from normality in
the scores of systemizing and empathy in women (K–S = .08, df =
392, p b.001; K–S = .06, df = 392, p = .004, respectively), while the
data were normally distributed in men (K–S = .05, df = 314, p =
.200; K–S = .05, df = 314, p = .074, respectively). In women, the sys-
temizing scores were mildly positively skewed (skewness = .69,
SE = .12), while the empathy scores were mildly negatively skewed
(skewness = −.36, SE = 12). Therefore, we used non-parametric corre-
lations to test a possible relationship between age and Empathy and
Systemizing quotient scores. Because in both men and women, age pos-
itively correlated with the Systemizing score (Spearman's rho = .20,
N=310,pb.001; Spearman's rho = .22, N = 389, p b.001, respective-
ly), we controlled for age in the subsequent analysis of the Systemizing
score. There was no significant correlation between age and Empathy
score (Spearman's rho = −.10, N = 311, p = .09, Spearman's
rho = −.06, N = 387, p = .24), and we have thus not controlled for
age in this analysis. To test the main hypothesis, we ran two separate
Generalized linear models (GZLM), that is considered a robust test to-
wards mild violations of normality (Ng & Cribbie, 2016). The scores of
Systemizing and Empathy entered as dependent variables, sex and
area of study as factors,and age as a covariate in the case of Systemizing
score.
3.3. Results
The GZLM for Empathy quotient score was significant (Likelihood
Ratio Chi-Square = 109,185, df = 5, p b.001) (Fig. 2). The test of
model effects showed significant influence of sex (Wald Chi-
Square = 5.09, p = .024), area of study (Wald Chi-Square = 84.33,
pb.001), and also interaction between sex and area of study (Wald
Chi-Square = 12.80, p = .002). Estimated marginal means with
Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons showed that
women scored significantly higher on Empathy (mean = 39.5,
SE = .69, 95% CI: 38.19–40.89) than men (mean = 37.3, SE = .725,
95% CI: 35.86–38.70) (Mean difference: 2.26, SE = 1.00, p = .024).
Further, individuals from humanities (mean = 41.0, SE = .82, 95%
CI: 39.4–42.6) as well as from bio-sciences (mean = 42.6, SE = .81,
95% CI: 41.0–44.2) scored higher on Empathy than those from
exact sciences (mean = 31.6, SE = .96, 95% CI: 29.77–33.53)
(p's b.001) (Mean difference: 9.34, SE = 1.26, p b.001; Mean differ-
ence: 10.94, SE = 1.26, p b.001, respectively). There was no differ-
ence in Empathy score between bio-sciences and humanities
(Mean difference: 1.60, SE = 1.15, p = .50). Interaction between
sex and area of study showed that women scored higher on Empathy
thanmenintheareaofbio-sciences (Mean difference: 5.06, SE =
1.62, p = .026), but there was only a trend in the same direction in
humanities (Mean difference: 4.77, SE = 1.64, p = .054) and no dif-
ference between men and women in exact sciences (Mean differ-
ence: 3.07, SE = 1.91, p = 1.000). Further, men from exact sciences
scored significantly lower on Empathy than men from both human-
ities (Mean difference: 5.41, SE = 1.70, p = .022) and bio-sciences
(Mean difference: 6.87, SE = 1.79, p = .002). Men from bio-
sciences and humanities didn't differ from each other (Mean differ-
ence: 1.45, SE = 1.83, p = 1.000). Similarly, women from exact
sciences scored significantly lower on Empathy than women from
both humanities (Mean difference: 13.27, SE = 1.86, p b.001) and
bio-sciences (Mean difference: 15.01, SE = 1.75, p b.001), and
women from bio-sciences and humanities didn't differ from each
other (Mean difference: 1.74, SE = 1.40, p = 1.000).
The GZLM for Systemizing score was also significant (Likelihood
Ratio Chi-Square = 110.3, df = 6, p b.001) (Fig. 3). The test of model
effects showed significant influence of sex (Wald Chi-Square = 68.5,
pb.001), area of study (Wald Chi-Square = 9.1, p = .01), age (Wald
Table 1
Total number (N) of applicants and mean number of applicants per year (Mean N) divided by sex and study area.
Humanities Bio-sciences Exact sciences Total
Total N of applicants Mean N (SD) Total N of applicants Mean N (SD) Total N of applicants Mean N (SD) Total N of applicants Mean N (SD)
Men 765,884 25,529
(5625)
449,121 14,971
(2136)
681,492 22,716
(4965)
1,896,497 63,217
(7826)
Women 974,903 32,497
(6759)
929,308 30,977
(5099)
245,497 8183
(3204)
2,149,708 71,657
(12,453)
Cohen's d1.121 4.095 3.478 .812
% of overlap 57.51% 4.06% 8.20% 68.47%
Total 1,740,787 29,013 1,378,429 22,974 926,989 15,450 4,046,205 67,437
159M.A. Corrêa Varella et al. / Personalityand Individual Differences 97 (2016) 157–164
Fig. 1. Number of male and female applicants for humanities (a), bio-sciences (b), and exactsciences (c) between 1980 and 2015.
160 M.A. Corrêa Varella et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 97 (2016) 157–164
Chi-Square = 16.9, p b.001). There was no significant interaction be-
tween sex and area of study(Wald Chi-Square = .41, p = .81). Estimat-
ed marginal means with Bonferroni correction for multiple
comparisons, controlled for age, showed that men scored significantly
higher on Systemizing (mean = 33.1, SE = .71, 95% CI: 31.8–34.5)
than women (mean = 25.1, SE = .67, 95% CI: 23.8–26.4) (Mean differ-
ence: 8.06, SE = .97, p b.001). Further, individuals from humanities
(mean = 27.5, SE = .80, 95% CI: 26.0–29.1) scored lower on Systemiz-
ing than those from exact sciences (mean = 31.2, SE = .94, 95% CI:
29.4–33.0) (Mean difference: 3.68, SE = 1.23, p = .008). There was
no difference between bio-sciences (mean = 28.6, SE = .80, 95% CI:
27.1–30.2) and humanities (Mean difference: 1.12, SE = 1.13, p =
.96) or exact sciences (Mean difference: 2.57, SE = 1.24, p = .12).
Non-parametric correlations showed a positive association between
Systemizing and Empathy scoresin men (Kendall's tau= .173, N = 244,
pb.001), but not in women (Kendall's tau = .074, N = 325, p = .052).
When age was controlled for, this association was even strongerin men
(r = .275, N = 237, p b.001), and reached significance also in women
(r = .117, N = 318, p = .04). One-way Fisher r-to-z transformation
showed a significant difference between these two correlation coeffi-
cients (Fisher's Z = 1.91, p = .03), which suggests that reports on
Empathy and Systemizing are more disparate in women than in men.
To investigate this result in more detail, we subtracted the Systemizing
score from the Empathy score for each participant. The significant
difference between men and women in the absolute differences (U =
54.29, N = 569, p b.001) suggested that the relative Empathy versus
Systemizing difference is higher in women than in men. Further, to
test the difference and direction in reported Empathy and Systemizing,
we ran a non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank tests for men and
women separately. In women, the Empathy score was significantly
higher than Systemizing (W = 2 728.0, N = 325, p b.001), and the
same was truefor men (W = 9 693.5, N = 244, p b.001). Thus, although
women scored, on average, higher on Empathythan men, both sexes re-
ported higher Empathy compared to Systemizing. This result applied to
most of the sub-groups, namely for men from humanities (W = 592.0,
N=82,pb.001), men from bio-sciences (W = 606.0, N = 69, p b.001),
men from exact sciences (W = 2 335.500, N = 90, p = .045), women
from humanities (W = 179.5, N = 108, p b.001), and women from
bio-sciences (W = 139.0, N = 160, p b.001). The only group, where
the mean score of Systemizing did not significantly differ from the
mean score of Empathy, were women from the exact sciences (W =
532.0, N = 54, p = .22).
4. Discussion
This studyaimed to explore how sex and the chosen area of study re-
late to the cognitive style of empathizing and systemizing in a Brazilian
population. First,we have shown that women more frequently apply for
and are enrolled in studies of humanities and bio-sciences areas than
men, whereas men more frequently apply for and study exact sciences.
Further, in line with previous studies (e.g., Baron-Cohen et al., 2003;
Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004), Brazilian women scored, on aver-
age, higher than men in Empathy, while the opposite pattern appeared
in Systemizing. Finally, irrespective of sex, individuals higher on empa-
thy and lower on systemizing are more frequently enrolled in humani-
ties and bio-sciences, while individuals higher on systemizing more
frequently study exact sciences. Interestingly, besides replicating the
findings of previous literature on different populations (e.g. Billington
et al., 2007; Focquaert et al., 2007; Manning et al., 2010; Wheelwright
et al., 2006), we showed that in at least one scientific area, here bio-
sciences, women and individuals higher on empathizing over-
represent men and individuals higher on systemizing.
In Study I, using a non-obtrusive method based on a public database
of a representative long-term sample mostly from the University of Sao
Paulo (USP), we showed a consistent sex difference between men and
women in the choice of study area. In particular, women applied
significantly morefrequently than men for undergraduate majors in hu-
manities and bio-sciences, while men applied more than women for
exact sciences. The effect sizes for all three areas were large, and in
Exact sciences and Bio-sciences there was a very small percentage of
overlap between the sexes. Also, we found that over the last 35 years,
number of both men and women applying for humanities and exact sci-
ences grew, while the interest for studying biological sciences dropped
in male applicants, andstayed relatively stable in female applicants. Fur-
ther, against a stereotypical opinion that women are not interested in
sciences, we clearly showed that women are indeed interested, and
their interest is growing throughout the decades (see Fig. 1). However,
despite the continuous increase of women in exact sciences, the predict-
ed sex difference remains. Interestingly, interest of both men and
women in studying humanities also grew over time, which can be
given by the fact that the field of humanities grew itself, and thus con-
tinually offers a growing number of its sub-areas.
In Study II, we have replicated the sex differences on a smaller sample
of actual students of different areas at USP. Further, in line with previous
studies, we have encountered sex differences in cognitive styles defined
as systemizing-empathizing: women scored higher on Empathy than
men, while the opposite applied to Systemizing. These differences had
medium and large effect sizes, and overlap of more than 80% and more
than 70% between the group distributions, respectively. These find-
ings add cross-cultural support for the theory of cognitive sex differ-
ences in empathizing-systemizing (Baron-Cohen et al., 2003).
Moreover, we showed that individuals who study humanities and
bio-sciences show higher empathizing and lower systemizing cogni-
tive styles than individuals who study exact sciences. This is in line
with the few previous studies investigating whether the cognitive
style influences choice of study area (Billington et al., 2007;
Focquaert et al., 2007; Manning et al., 2010; Wheelwright et al.,
2006). Interestingly, women in bio-sciences scored higher on Empa-
thythanmeninthesamearea,whilewehavenotencountereddif-
ferences between men and women in the exact sciences and
humanities. This is probably because men in the humanities are rel-
atively higher on Empathy, while women in the exact sciences are
relatively lower on Empathy, and the sex difference thus diminishes.
Further, we showed that most participants scored higher on
Empathy than Systemizing. This is in line with previous studies
(e.g., Billington et al., 2007), and can be interpreted within the
evolutionary frame of a highly social species. Arguably, intra-
species selective pressures are usually stronger than inter-species
Table 2
The mean scores (and SD) of Empathy and Systemizing of men and women in the three
main study areas, humanities, bio-sciences and exact sciences.
Nof
participants
Mean Empathy
score (SD)
Mean Systemizing
score (SD)
Humanities Men 82 38.82 (12.20) 31.07 (12.73)
Women 107 43.30 (11.85) 23.82 (11.28)
Cohen's d−.373 .654
% of overlap 85.21% 74.37%
Total 189 41.36 (12.17) 26.97 (12.43)
Bio-sciences Men 66 39.92 (10.01) 32.77 (12.80)
Women 158 45.16 (9.63) 23.92 (9.69)
Cohen's d−.534 .780
% of overlap 78.95% 69.65%
Total 224 43.62 (10.01) 26.53 (11.41)
Exact sciences Men 90 33.46 (11.49) 35.96 (10.66)
Women 53 30.36 (14.45) 27.87 (10.54)
Cohen's d.237 .763
% of overlap 90.57% 70.28%
Total 143 32.31 (12.71) 28.33 (12.03)
Total Men 314 37.39 (11.23) 34.25 (11.79)
Women 392 42.51 (12.02) 25.99 (11.40)
Cohen's d−.440 .713
% of overlap 82.59% 72.15%
Total 706 40.23 (11.94) 29.66 (12.27)
161M.A. Corrêa Varella et al. / Personalityand Individual Differences 97 (2016) 157–164
or ecological pressures, and thus in highly social species, such as
most primates including humans, it is expected that understanding
other conspecifics rather than objects might have led to higher re-
productive success and survival. For example, as shown by Seyfarth
and Cheney (2013), perception of others' internal states and the
more complex Theory of Mind are adaptive in a wide array of
non-human and human primates, because such abilities support
formation and maintenance of social bonds, leading to higher
Fig. 2. Differences in Empathy scores between men and women, and individuals from different study areas (error bars: +/−2SE).
Fig. 3. Differences in Systemizing scores between men and women, and individuals from different study areas (error bars: +/−2SE).
162 M.A. Corrêa Varella et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 97 (2016) 157–164
reproductive success. Moreover, seeing into other's individual
head facilitates anticipating social dangers, such as expulsion
from a social group, or direct attacks from other group members,
thus increasing chances of survival and, consequently, chances for
reproduction.
Furthermore, although both men and women tend to have higher
empathy than systemizing, we showed that the discrepancy between
systemizing and empathizing cognitive styles is greater in women
than in men, which is in linewith a recent study based on Chinese pop-
ulation (Zheng & Zheng, 2015). This can be partly caused by prenatal
hormonal action. On average, males experience higher levels of prenatal
testosterone than females (Beck-Peccoz et al., 1991), and levels of fetal
testosterone were shown to be positively linked to systemizing capaci-
ties (Auyeung et al., 2006), while negatively to empathizing capacities
(Knickmeyer, Baron-Cohen, Raggatt, Taylor, & Hackett, 2006). Despite
higher levels of fetal testosterone, males have relatively high empathiz-
ing capacities. From the evolutionary perspective, increased empathy in
males is connected to many human-specific social skills, such as rela-
tively high paternal care (Fernandez-Duque, Valeggia, & Mendoza,
2009), tendency to monogamy and pair-bonding (Fletcher, Simpson,
Campbell, & Overall, 2015), among others, that are characteristics
connected to an overall decrease of sexual dimorphism in modern
humans compared to its ancestor species (Grabowski, Hatala, Jungers,
&Richmond,2015).
We also showed that systemizing tends to increase with age in
both sexes, while empathy remains more stable throughout the
lifespan. An increase in systemizing with age might indicate training
in scientific and analytic thinking among students at university, who
start their studies with intuitions and later develop their critical and
analytical thinking. This would need to be tested on a non-university
population, and in particular within a more age heterogeneous pop-
ulation, because both men and women studying science can be rela-
tively more competitive, which can be connected to higher levels of
actual testosterone. Higher testosterone leads to higher competitive-
ness and higher competitiveness increases testosterone (e.g. Booth,
Granger, Mazur, & Kivlighan, 2006).
Although this study used two different methods, it was not a longi-
tudinal study, and we thus cannot say whether individuals higher on
Systemizing seek to studyexact sciences, and people higheron Empathy
seek to study humanities and biology, or whether individuals develop
such cognitive styles as a consequence of the area they study. On the
other hand, our first study showed sex differences among people who
applied for the given study area, and since sex differences between
men and women in Systemizing and Empathy have been reported
consistently across studies and samples, we can conclude that the first
explanation is likely the case.
A limitation is that we did not have information about applicants' or
our questionnaire participants' sexual orientation. Sexual orientation of
the participants might interfere with the results, because previous studies
showed that homosexual men and womenare,onaverage,moreinterest-
ed in professions mostly preferred by heterosexual individuals of the op-
posite sex (Ellis, Ratnasingam, & Wheeler, 2012). Similarly, homosexual
men score higher on empathy and lower on systemizing than heterosex-
ual men (Zheng & Zheng, 2015). We might thus expect that, for example,
there would be a higher percentage of homosexual men in humanities
and bio-sciences than in exact sciences, while the opposite might be
true for homosexual women. Future studies should thus control for sexual
orientation, and other factors, such as for how long participants have been
studying, and sample different populations from different cultures.
5. Conclusions
To conclude, women's and men's interests and participation in uni-
versity studies is growing, and there are still clear differences between
men and women in their interests. Women have more widespread
cognitive styles and academic interests, ranging from humanities to
bio-sciences, while men focus more on exact sciences. Most important-
ly, it seems that it is not only the sex of the individuals, but also intra-
sexual variance in cognitive tendencies that influences the choices of
studies, and consequently careers, as demonstrated in previous studies
(Billington et al., 2007; Focquaert et al., 2007; Manning et al., 2010;
Wheelwright et al., 2006).
Acknowledgments
We thank to Nathalia Nabor and other undergraduate students for
their help with data collection and transcription, and to the workers of
FUVEST who kindly helped us to find and sort the oldest public data
on entrance exams. We owe our great thanks also to Jerry A. Hogan
(University of Toronto) for English proofreading and valuable
comments.
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