Empathising–systemising theory

Theory on the psychological basis of autism

The empathising–systemising (E–S) theory is a theory on the psychological basis of autism and male–female neurological differences originally put forward by English clinical psychologist Simon Baron Cohen. It classifies individuals based on abilities in empathic thinking (E) and systematic thinking (S). It measures skills using an Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemising Quotient (SQ) and attempts to explain the social and communication symptoms in autism spectrum disorders as deficits and delays in empathy combined with intact or superior systemising. According to Baron Cohen, the E–S theory has been tested using the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemising Quotient (SQ), developed by him and colleagues, and generates five different 'brain types' depending on the presence or absence of discrepancies between their scores on E or S. E–S profiles show that the profile E>S is more common in females than in males, and the profile S>E is more common in males than in females. Baron Cohen and associates assert that E–S theory is a better predictor than gender of who chooses STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The E–S theory has been extended into the extreme male brain (EMB) theory of autism and Asperger syndrome, which are associated in the E–S theory with below average empathy and average or above average systemising. Baron Cohen's studies and theory have been questioned on multiple grounds. In the first chapter of his 2003 book The Essential Difference, The Essential Difference had a second edition published in 2009. The 2003 edition of The Essential Difference discusses two different sources of inspiration for Baron Cohen's E S theory. This was part of the positivism dispute in Germany from 1961 to 1969 where the human sciences and natural sciences (Geisteswissenschaften and Naturwissenschaften) disagreed on how to conduct social science. The second source of inspiration was interpreting gender essentialism from Charles Darwin's seminal book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. According to The Guardian regarding the publication's 2003 edition:

quote = The book [The Essential Difference] has been five years in the writing, partly because he deemed its subject too politically sensitive for the 1990s, and partly because he first wanted to float his ideas about autism [E S theory] at scientific conferences, where he says reaction has been largely supportive. Prior to the development of E S theory, Baron Cohen had previously proposed and studied the mind blindness theory in 1990, which proposed a homogenous (single cause) explanation of autism as due to either a lack of theory of mind, or developmental delay in theory of mind during childhood. Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states to themselves or others. The mind blindness theory could explain social and communication difficulties, but could not explain other key traits of autism including unusually narrow interests and highly repetitive behaviors. Mind blindness was later largely rejected by academia in response to strong evidence for the heterogeneity of autism, although some proponents in academia including Baron Cohen existed as of March 2011.

According to Baron Cohen, females on average score higher on measures of empathy and males on average score higher on measures of systemising. This has been found using the child and adolescent versions of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the Systemising Quotient (SQ), which are completed by parents about their child/adolescent, and on the self report version of the EQ and SQ in adults. Baron Cohen and associates say that similar sex differences on average have been found using performance tests of empathy such as facial emotion recognition tasks and on performance tests of systemising such as measures of mechanical reasoning or 'intuitive physics'. He has also argued that these sex differences are not only due to socialization. FT levels are positively correlated with scores on the Systemising Quotient and are negatively correlated with scores on the Empathy Quotient A new field of research has emerged to investigate the role of testosterone levels in autism. Correlational research demonstrated that elevated rates of testosterone were associated with higher rates of autistic traits, lower rates of eye contact, and higher rates of other medical conditions. Furthermore, experimental studies showed that altering testosterone levels influences the maze performance in rats, having implications for human studies. The fetal testosterone theories posit that the level of testosterone in the womb influences the development of sexually dimorphic brain structures, resulting in sex differences and autistic traits in individuals.

Baron Cohen presents several possible evolutionary psychology explanations for this sex difference. For example, he says that better empathising may improve care of children, and that better empathy may also improve women's social network which may help in various ways with the caring of children. On the other hand, he says that systemising may help males become good hunters and increase their social status by improving spatial navigation and the making and use of tools.

Baron Cohen's work in systemising empathising led him to investigate whether higher levels of fetal testosterone explain the increased prevalence of autism spectrum disorders among males in his theory known as the "extreme male brain" theory of autism. A review of his book The Essential Difference published in Nature in 2003 summarizes his proposals as: "the male brain is programmed to systemize and the female brain to empathize   Asperger's syndrome represents the extreme male brain". Baron Cohen and colleagues extended the E–S theory into the extreme male brain theory of autism, which hypothesizes that autism shows an extreme of the typical male profile. Baron Cohen's research on relatives of people with Asperger syndrome and autism found that their fathers and grandfathers are twice as likely to be engineers as the general population. A follow up study by David A. Routh and Christopher Jarrold found disproportionate numbers of doctors, scientists, and accountants were fathers of autists, while "skilled and unskilled manual workers are less common as fathers than would be predicted". They hypothesized that this observed overrepresentation of science and accounting among autism fathers could be due to a sampling bias. Another similar finding by Baron Cohen in California has been referred to as the Silicon Valley phenomenon, where a large portion of the population works in technical fields, and he says autism prevalence rates are ten times higher than the average of the US population. These data suggest that genetics and the environment play a role in autism prevalence, and children with technically minded parents are therefore more likely to be diagnosed with autism. Another possibility has been proposed that spins the perspective of the extreme male brain. Social theorists have been investigating the concept that females have protective factors against autism by having a more developed language repertoire and more empathy skills. Female children speak earlier and use language more than their male counterparts, and the lack of this skill translates into many symptoms of autism, offering another explanation for the discrepancy in prevalence. The extreme male brain theory (EMB), put forward by Baron Cohen Individuals with ASD were found to have widespread interconnectivity abnormalities in specific brain regions. This could explain the different results on empathy tests between men and women as well as the deficiencies in empathy seen in ASD as empathy requires several brain regions to be activated which need information from many different areas of the brain. A further example of brain structures relating to ASD is that children with ASD tend to have a larger amygdala, this is another example of being an extreme version of the male brain which generally has a larger amygdala. These were present in both sexes. This suggests that fetal testosterone (fT) is the cause of sex differences in the brain and that there is a link between fT levels and ASD. In general females with autism have a higher rate of medical conditions which are related to high androgen levels and both males and females with autism have higher than average androgen levels. Males have higher fT levels naturally meaning that there is less of a change required in the hormone levels to reach a point high enough to cause the developmental changes seen in autism. This is a possible cause for the male prevalence seen in autism.

Empathising Systematising theory has also been criticised, from various points of view. A 2004 review of Baron Cohen's book The Essential Difference by Neil Levy in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences characterized it as "very disappointing" with a "superficial notion of intelligence", concluding that Baron Cohen's major claims about mind blindness and systemizing–empathizing are "at best, dubious". In a 2011 article in Time magazine, Judith Warner wrote that Baron Cohen "most dramatically wandered into fraught territory in 2003, when he published the book The Essential Difference, which called autism a manifestation of an extreme 'male brain'—one that's 'predominantly hard wired for understanding and building systems,' as opposed to a 'female brain,' one that's 'predominantly hard wired for empathy'—and ended up on the wrong side of the debate on science and sex differences." In a 2003 book review published in the journal Nature, Joyce Benenson wrote:"The idea that males are more interested in systemizing than females merits serious consideration   It is unquestionably a novel and fascinating idea that seems likely to generate a rich empirical body of literature as its properties are tested. The second part of the theory—that females are more empathic than males—is more problematic Other measures, however, show that males are highly socially skilled." In a 2003 Wall Street Journal article, Robert McGough wrote about responses to the theory by Isabelle Rapin and Helen Tager Flusberg:
Some research in systemizing and empathizing in early life indicates that boys and girls develop in similar ways, casting doubt on the theory of sex differences in these areas. A cognitive style that more naturally opposes empathizing, which has been given the name Machiavellianism, emphasizes self interest and has been shown to be strongly correlated with competitiveness. Evolutionary theory predicts that typical males will be more competitive than typical females. In contrast, research has generally shown a weak negative correlation between empathizing and systemizing. Some critics have said that because Baron Cohen's work has focused on higher functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders, his work requires independent replication with broader samples. In a 2003 article in The Spectator, Hugh Lawson Tancred wrote "The emphasis on the ultra maleness approach is no doubt attributable to the fact that Baron Cohen works mainly with higher functioning autism and Asperger's syndrome." As a basis for his theory, Baron Cohen cited a study done on newborn infants in which baby boys looked longer at an object and baby girls looked longer at a person. However, Elizabeth Spelke's 2005 review of studies done with very young children found no consistent differences between boys and girls. In a Nature article published in 2011, Lizzie Buchen wrote "Some critics are also rankled by Baron Cohen's history of headline grabbing theories—particularly one that autism is an 'extreme male' brain state. They worry that his theory about technically minded parents may be giving the public wrong ideas, including the impression that autism is linked to being a 'geek'." Neuroscientist Gina Rippon criticized Baron Cohen's theories in her 2019 book The Gendered Brain: The new neuroscience that shatters the myth of the female brain. Speaking in 2020, she called his book The Essential Difference "neurotrash", and characterized his research methods as "weak". Rippon has also argued against using "male" and "female" for describing different types of brains which do not correspond to genders. Reviewing her work for Nature, neuroscientist Lise Eliot supported Rippon's point of view, and wrote "The hunt for male and female distinctions inside the skull is a lesson in bad research practice".