Posted by Ted on February 18, 2012, 9:25 am, in reply to "Re: Extreme Male Brain Model"
Empathy has two aspects. First, there is the perceptual aspect that is linked to reading other people. The second aspect is the cognitive processing that goes on after the perceptions are read. Psychopaths read people very well, but don't react in a nuturing/agreeable way to the perceptions. Instead, they use the perception to dominate and exploit. There is an estimated 4% incidence of psychopathy in the business world--probably about the same in the law. I think that the current corporate and legal world select for low empathy and low agreeableness and opt for more of the extreme male model of lower than average empathy and agreeableness. This is because winning and dominating is still valued more than collaboration and pro-social behaviors. When one is playing zero sum games, a bias towards empathy and Agreeableness is does not give one an advantage.
I think that surgery is more likely to attract folks who are towards the systemizer pole of the Baron-Cohen continuum. They have a lot of hunter behaviors--keen observation, pleasure in cutting, prodigious memory, superior focus. Pediatricians on the other hand test the highest for empathy.
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