The Impact of Socio-Economic Status, Life-History, and Biological Sex on Affective Empathy

The current study examined a gap in prior research by examining the interaction between socioeconomic status, life-history, biological sex, and affective empathy. Participants (N = 504; Mage = 37; 64% biological sex male; 69% White/Caucasian) were recruited using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and completed an online survey to assess the main variables of interest. Two 2x2x3 factorial ANOVA(s) were conducted. Significant main effects and interactions were found; however, the findings were qualified by a significant three-way interaction [F (2, 491) = 3.18, p = .04, partial η2 = .01]. Participants who reported being biological sex male as well as having a high-income level and slower life-history (more social support) reported slightly more affective empathy (M = 3.65, SE = .08) than male participants reporting a high-income level but faster life-history (M = 3.22, SE = .08). However, there were no significant differences when comparing biological sex female participants across levels of SES and life-history. Implications of the current findings are discussed.