The presence of sex differences in social cognition is controversial; these authors found no significant sex differences in most of social cognition tasks; conversely, women reported higher scores on empathy

Social cognition and sex: Are men and women really different? Marialaura Di Tella, Francesca Miti, Rita B. Ardito, Mauro Adenzato. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 162, 1 August 2020, 110045. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110045

Highlights
• The presence of sex differences in social cognition is controversial.
• Several social cognition measures were administrated to 210 healthy participants.
• Participants were equally divided between men and women.
• No significant sex differences were found in most of social cognition tasks.
• Conversely, women reported higher scores on empathy than men.

Abstract: Social cognition includes the ability to represent other people's intentions and beliefs, and the ability to share and recognise the emotions of others. Here, the main aim was to assess the possible presence of sex differences across four aspects of social cognition: (1) recognition of dynamic facial expressions; (2) representation of other people's mental states (both affective and cognitive Theory of Mind, ToM); (3) empathy; (4) identification and regulation of one's own emotions. Measures assessing social cognition were administrated to two hundred ten participants equally divided between men and women. Results showed no significant sex differences in affective and cognitive ToM, in the recognition of emotional facial expressions (with the exception of anger: women were more accurate than men), and in the ability to identify and regulate one's own emotions. A different result was found for empathy, with women reporting higher scores than men. No significant differences between women during follicular vs. luteal phase of menstrual cycle for all the social cognition measures were found. These results are discussed in light of the existing literature. To our knowledge, this study represents one of the few attempts to analyse in a single work sex differences across multiple areas of social cognition.

Keywords: Emotion recognitionEmotional functioningEmpathySex differencesSocial cognitionTheory of Mind