In non-competitive empathy tasks, women have typically performed better than men at accurately reading a partner. We proposed that gender-role specific motivations to understand others should qualify this general rule, and noted that the interpersonal accuracy of men and women has rarely, if ever, been tested in competitive tasks. This study measured a male-focused version of "empathic accuracy"
... [Show full abstract] in a mainly competitive task (ultimatum game). In line with expectations, men's accuracy performance was superior to women's in a low monetary incentive condition, but worst in the high monetary incentive condition (compared to all women and to the men in the low incentive condition). Women, in contrast, were relatively unaffected by the monetary incentives and moderately accurate. Results are discussed in terms of gender-specific motivations for interpersonal accuracy and the likelihood that interpersonal accuracy peaks at a moderate level of personal involvement.