Sex & Gender Are Men From Mars and Women From Venus?

[Angela]

See:


"In an impressive new study, Zell, Krizan, and Teeter (2015) reviewed 100s of past research findings and came to the conclusion that men and women are not very different psychologically. They came to this conclusion using a form of meta-analysis called "metasynthesis."

"Meta-analysis is extremely useful for determining if, and by how much, men and women actually differ. Any single research study probably misses the mark at least a little bit in estimating the “true” size of psychological sex differences. Meta-analysis, in contrast, is when researchers simultaneously look across many studies and estimate the overall sex difference quantitatively, often expressed in terms of a “d” metric. A positive d value such as +0.50 typically indicates men are moderately higher on a psychological measure, a negative value like -0.50 indicates women are moderately higher. Below are some dvalues of varying strengths that have been observed in studies on human sex differences."

I'm not sure that I agree with their conclusion. Some of these look rather significant to me, although some of them are not a matter of "psychology". Still, I get their point that there is overlap.

"A d value of -0.20 has been observed for sex differences in trust (Feingold, 1994). The size of this sex difference is considered “small” and indicates 58% of women are higher than average man in trust (based on Cohen's U3).A d value of +0.50 has been observed for sex differences in spatial rotation skills (Silverman et al., 2007). The size of this sex difference is considered “moderate” and indicates 69% of men are higher than average woman in spatial rotation skills.
A d value of +0.80 has been observed for sex differences in physical aggression (Archer, 2004). The size of this sex difference is considered “large” and indicates 79% of men are higher than average woman in physical aggression.
A d value of -1.00 has been observed for sex differences in tender-mindedness (Feingold, 1994). The size of this sex difference indicates 84% of women are higher than average man in tender-mindedness.
A d value of +2.00 has been observed for sex differences in throwing distance among children (Thomas & French, 1985). The size of this sex difference indicates 98% of boys throw farther than the average girl."

 

[bicicleur 2]

there a plenty of differences between men and women, and it's a good thing
vive la différence

 

[Maciamo]

You didn't post the link to the study, Angela.

I read the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus some 15 years ago, followed by Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps or other in the series, and I have to say that most of their observations are spot on. There are always exceptions, but men who behave too much like women are more likely to be gay (or bisexual) and vice versa.

It's important to know in which country studies are conducted too, as women in Nordic countries (+ other northern European countries to a lower extent) tend to be more masculine than in Mediterranean countries, and much more masculine than in East Asian countries. In fact, I have noticed that the psychological gender gap was smallest in Nordic countries and biggest in East Asia. That's probably why gender equality rights and laws emerged from northern Europe, and that gender roles are still deeply entrenched in equally developed countries like Japan or Singapore. Culture usually follows genetic predispositions. You can't fight nature with nurture that goes in the opposite direction.

 

[Angela]

Sorry, Maciamo, I've been distracted this week.

This is the article:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...502/how-big-are-psychological-sex-differences

There's a list of other publications on the subject.

This is the paper being analyzed:
Zell, E., Krizan, Z., & Teeter, S. R. (2015). Evaluating gender similarities and differences using metasynthesis. American Psychologist, 70, 10-20.

This is the author's take on the Zell et al meta-analysis:
"First, the Zell et al. (2015) study was very limited in scope. They only looked at areas where researchers have actively questioned the existence of sex differences, likely limiting their findings to psychological sex differences so contentiously slight that they have been frequently and repeatedly subjected to meta-analyses. Conclusions about the “real” degree of psychological sex differences should evaluate a much wider range of variables. "

I'm not sure about what he says below:
"Second, Zell et al. (2015) did not address the very informative cross-cultural variations in the size of many psychological sex differences. Zell et al. reported that the sex differences they did find were "largely constant across age, culture, and time period" (p. 17). However, sex differences in many aspects of personality, sexuality, and cognition are actually much larger in cultures with more egalitarian sex role socialization and greater sociopolitical gender equity. This includes sex differences in extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, Machiavellianism, Narcissism, psychopathy, social dominance orientation, dismissing attachment, intimate partner violence, spatial location ability, spatial rotation ability, crying behavior, depression, benevolence values, love, empathetic occupational preferences, enjoying casual sex, mate preferences for attractiveness, self-esteem, and subjective well-being (Schmitt, 2014). Even sex differences in physical traits such as height, obesity, and blood pressure are conspicuously larger in cultures with more egalitarian sex role socialization and greater sociopolitical gender equity. This suggests it is unlikely that larger psychological sex differences are due to more traditional sex role socialization or patriarchy. Again, evolutionary theories involving life history strategies and ecological factors may be better at explaining the size of psychological sex differences, in this case how and why sizes vary across cultures."

"Third, Zell et al. (2015) did not utilize informative multivariate approaches that previously have revealed very large psychological sex differences (Del Giudice, 2009; Del Giudice, Booth, & Irwing, 2012). Rather than taking the average sex difference across each psychological dimension on its own, Del Giudice et al.’s multivariate method is to examine all psychological dimensions under consideration simultaneously (controlling for collinear overlap among dimensions). "

Overall, I don't think the differences are trivially small, and I would agree that there are differences by ethnic group. It's certainly true for me and for the other women I know of southern European background.

This also popped up just today. I'm not quite sure how to integrate it...

View attachment 9015

 

[Diomedes]

Based on my own experience, I can say that there are distinct differences between men and women regarding behavior. I believe this makes sense, as the sexes are not expected to have only phenotype differences. Nature is wise.