Empathy refers to the capacity to experience emotions similar to those observed or imagined in another person, with the full knowledge that the other person is the source of these emotions. Awareness of one's own emotional states is a prerequisite for self-other differentiation to develop. This study investigated gender differences in empathy during adolescence and tested whether emotional self-awareness explained these differences. Two-hundred-eleven adolescents (108 girls and 103 boys) between 14 and 19 years completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) to assess empathy and emotional self-awareness, respectively. Overall, girls obtained higher scores than boys on IRI subscales like emotional concern, personal distress, and fantasy. Regarding emotional self-awareness, we found gender differences in TAS-20 scores, with girls reporting greater difficulty identifying feelings and less externally oriented thinking than boys. Difficulty identifying feelings explained the greatest personal distress experienced by girls. Lower externally oriented thinking accounted for girls’ greater emotional concern and fantasy. These findings offer an insight into the role of emotional self-awareness–which is essential for self-other differentiation–as an account for gender differences in empathic abilities during adolescence. In girls, difficulty identifying feelings can impair the ability to differentiate between ones’ and others’ emotions, leading them to experience self-focused and aversive responses when confronted with others’ suffering. Conversely, in boys, externally oriented thinking can mitigate personal distress when faced with others’ discomfort.

同理心是指体验与在另一个人身上观察或想象的情绪相似的情绪的能力，并且完全知道另一个人是这些情绪的来源。意识到自己的情绪状态是发展自我-他者分化的先决条件。这项研究调查了青春期同理心的性别差异，并测试了情绪自我意识是否解释了这些差异。211 名 14 至 19 岁的青少年（108 名女孩和 103 名男孩）分别完成了人际反应指数（IRI）和多伦多述情障碍量表（TAS-20），以评估同理心和情绪自我意识。总体而言，在情感关注、个人痛苦和幻想等 IRI 分量表上，女孩的得分高于男孩。关于情绪的自我意识，我们发现 TAS-20 分数存在性别差异，女孩报告说比男孩更难识别感受，外向思维更少。难以识别感受解释了女孩所经历的最大的个人痛苦。较低的外部导向思维解释了女孩更多的情感关注和幻想。这些发现提供了对情绪自我意识的作用的洞察——这对于自我-他者的分化至关重要——作为青春期移情能力的性别差异的解释。在女孩中，难以识别感受会削弱区分自己和他人情绪的能力，导致她们在面对他人的痛苦时体验到以自我为中心和厌恶的反应。相反，在男孩中，