Empathy: It's Contagious
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 3
Here's a really interesting study showing that proximity to women appears to shape male views on policy. I recently wrote about a study showing the influence of female judges on their male counterparts in gender discrimination cases. Courtesy of FiveThirtyEight, here's a bunch of fascinating studies showing that fathers of daughters tend to support more liberal programs, ranging from reproductive rights to affirmative action to working families' flexibility and tax-free education. It's not all that surprising that men who invest a lot of time and energy in raising daughters will come to support programs that help women succeed. But I'll score this one as yet more evidence for the manly virtues of "empathy."
Dahlia Lithwick Slate contributor, mom, wife, currently drinking coffee
Comments
This week was a perfect time to discuss this
By: Chris L. | Thu, 05/21/2009 - 18:48
.. with three potential Supreme Court women in Washington at the same time. I'd almost forgotten the 2008 judges' study until the Christian Science Monitor reminded me of it as we all envisioned Justice Wood or Kagan or Granholm (or Sotomayor or Sullivan or Karlan or...)
I am wondering, however, how much of the "daughters" study is generational. Did they include older dads whose ideas might be more Jurassic?
Imagine...
By: geml | Thu, 05/21/2009 - 17:48
As one of three girls, my father was hopelessly outnumbered at our house. But if men with daughters are more liberal, how conservative was Dick Cheney before his daughters were born???
EQ
By: WickedRB | Thu, 05/21/2009 - 16:48
I'm sure you've read or heard of the book EQ (about emotional intelligence.) I think empathy is extremely, but I know plenty of people who have a harder time with it than others. I think that empathy is probably linked to emotional intelligence in some way--so maybe the causal relationship is in the fact that men who are around women develop better EQ, and thus empathy?