Empathy is generally known to be the ability to synthesize someone else’s emotions or experience. This not only involves the inferred experience of another’s emotional state but also a degree of recognition and understanding of this emotional state (Andréasson 2010). This recognition is done through discriminating between different emotions and labeling them correctly and has somewhat to do with the individuals emotional intelligence (Andréasson 2010). This ability to recognize emotion from facial expressions is partially inborn and serves an important social function and it has been theorized that empathy is an important factor in the moral development and reasoning of an individual (Hoffman 2000). It has also been suggested that humans are biologically disposed not only to sending emotional messages through the facial expression, but also to receiving them (Andréasson 2010). Some find this easier to do than others and past studies have shown that higher empathetic people have a greater sensitivity to facial expressions as opposed to people with low empathy who were unable to differentiate between happy and sad faces (Dimberg, Andréasson & Thunberg 2011). Furthermore, it has been shown that empathetic levels determine someone’s emotional recognition capabilities but not the driving factors behind this. Many studies have noted that there is a distinct difference between sex and empathy. Across many cultures it is scientifically proven that females have a greater ability than males to perceive facial expressions. This is linked with women’s greater empathy, greater expressiveness, greater practice and greater tendency to accommodate others (Hoffman 1997). Past research has also shown that women have an advantage in interpreting and decoding verbal information as opposed to men (Hall, Hutton, & Morgan 2009). This is said to do with the idea that women pay more attention to the eyes
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