A study published in the journal Nature in 2006 recently generated debate on networks about how men and women react to situations of justice and injustice.
The research revealed that, while men tend to respond with a logic of punishment to dishonest behavior, women maintain levels of empathy even in the face ofthose who act unfairly.
On social networks, this marked difference was used to try to explain the reasons for, for example, the "empathetic behavior" that some women tend to have when they arrest a criminal, whom they try to victimize.
Tania Singer.
The scientific study The
work was developed 20 years ago by Tania Singer and Klaas Emmo Stephan, from University College London.
For the experiment, 16 men and 16 women participated in a game alongside actors, one of whom behaved fairly while the other was cheating
.
The participants then observed, while undergoing brain scans, how one of the players received a painful electric shock, similar to a bee sting. The brain reaction made it possible to identify how they perceived each of those involved
.
When the actor who had acted correctly received the shock, both men and women activated brain regions associated with empathy.
However, the differences appeared when analyzing the reaction to the actor who had cheated. According to the results, male brains stopped showing empathy signals and, instead, activated regions associated with pleasure and reward
. Brain.
This would indicate a response linked to the perception of justice, where the punishment ofthe offender is prosecuted
in a positive way.
In contrast, female brain scans failed to record that “justice” response. On the contrary, women continued to show activity in areas related to empathy, even in front of the individual who had acted
in a dishonest way.
The researchers suggest that these findings could have wider implications for the functioning of societies.
According to the study, the male reaction is more associated with the reinforcement of social norms and the punishment of those who deviate from correct behaviors, while the female response would remain focused on immediate suffering, regardless of the context.
In that regard, Singer pointed out that the results could be linked to traditional roles in social organization, where men would have had a greater participation in the imposition of norms and sanctions.
In this way, the study opened a discussion about how different approaches, one more oriented to empathy and the other to justice, can influence the way in which people react to those who break the rules or laws.
