Obviously I can't say for sure, but it seems more genetic.
In my family my mother and one of my brothers is this way, and my daughter didn't have much chance of not being this way (since my wife is such as well).
Excluding the ladies for the sake of discussion, my brother and I would be the targets of your question.
Neither of us would have resisted such societal pressure as we don't have any reason to. Although we were both in the gifted program, so we had enough confidence to not really care what society thinks :)
Also, I don't know that we necessarily expressed emotions any more than our peers. The social sharing of emotions seems to be more a female role in society, but our social handling of emotions would be considered normal.
The difference between the men in the women who are like this is quite interesting. While I feel others' emotions strongly, it doesn't affect my thinking. Whereas with my wife we she feels someone else's emotions it clouds her thinking.
I don't have the citation off-hand, but this aligns with several studies of how men and women's brains are wired a little differently.
The nuance between feeling others' emotions strongly (or not) and having emotions affect your thinking (or not) is probably where the line between the autism spectrum and gender differences lies, although of course, there are exceptions.
In my family my mother and one of my brothers is this way, and my daughter didn't have much chance of not being this way (since my wife is such as well).
Excluding the ladies for the sake of discussion, my brother and I would be the targets of your question.
Neither of us would have resisted such societal pressure as we don't have any reason to. Although we were both in the gifted program, so we had enough confidence to not really care what society thinks :)
Also, I don't know that we necessarily expressed emotions any more than our peers. The social sharing of emotions seems to be more a female role in society, but our social handling of emotions would be considered normal.
The difference between the men in the women who are like this is quite interesting. While I feel others' emotions strongly, it doesn't affect my thinking. Whereas with my wife we she feels someone else's emotions it clouds her thinking.
I don't have the citation off-hand, but this aligns with several studies of how men and women's brains are wired a little differently.
The nuance between feeling others' emotions strongly (or not) and having emotions affect your thinking (or not) is probably where the line between the autism spectrum and gender differences lies, although of course, there are exceptions.