A gendered light on empathy, prosocial behavior, and forgiveness

We discuss the role of gender in the empathic processes involved in prosocial behavior and the resolution of interpersonal and intergroup conflict. After defining empathy and addressing several theoretical issues, we discuss Gilligan's Ethic of Care, assessments of empathy and their relation to prosocial behavior, and gender and forgiveness in children's and adults' interpersonal relations. Finally, we discuss empathy in the resolution of intergroup and social conflicts, highlighting women's role conflict resolution.We conclude that girls and females evidence more empathy across a wide variety of measures, including behavioral measures, and that gender differences in empathic processes have a major impact on how women and men resolve moral dilemmas, how they behave in prosocial contexts, and how they react to and resolve interpersonal and intergroup conflict.