Are there any proven, innate, psychological differences between the sexes?

Great Debates
1

This thread – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=297584 – got me to thinking that we need to frame the discussion in broader terms. Is there any hard scientific evidence of statistically significant innate psychological differences between men and women? I mean differences of any kind – in IQ, in ability in math and science, ability in other fields, personality types, introversion, extroversion, etc., etc. We think we see a lot of differences – where would stand-up comedy be without them? – but how many of these are determined by the X or Y chromosome, and how many result from cultural or environmental influences?

Also – are there any proven psychological differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals, other than sexual orientation itself?

2

No, there don’t appear to be. Dr Evelyn Hooker did a comprehensive study of gay men back in 1992 in which she matched a group of gay men with straight men in terms of age, IQ, education, etc and asked several distinguished professionals to identify which men were gay. They were unable to do so, apparently proving that there are no psychological differences between them. Her study was influencial on the APA decision to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders.

3

I thought that was removed around the early 70’s? Or am I thinking of a different book of disorders.

4

Female sexual arousal occurs in a different part of the brain than male sexual arousal, and is tied to different things.

5

Pinker asserts that different levels of sexual horomone correlate to different levels fo aptitude for quantitative and spatial skills. That would suggest that horomone differences (widest amonst men and women generally, but varying amonst them as well) have a role to play outside of just gender identity itself (i.e. since horomone levels are invisible to those that might be inclined to discriminate based upon them).

6

We probably shouldn’t use the word “proven.” There are definitely statistically significant differences in quite a few areas.

By taking the difference between the means of two samples (men vs. women, in this case) and then dividing by the pooled standard deviation one gets effect size (d ). A d of 0.1 or less is considered nonexistant or trivial. 0.2 is considered small. 0.5 is moderate. A moderate score would correspond to, for example, a physical difference evident to the naked eye, such as height difference between 14-year old and 18-year old girls. A d of 0.8 or greater is considered large. If d=0.4, the pooled standard deviation is 40 percent of the difference between the means of the samples.

In mental rotation tasks (mentally rotating 3D objects and selecting which images “match”) men outperform women. (d=0.6 Voyer et al., 1995)

Males have been shown to outperform females in some aspects of mathematical performance. Scores on the Math component of the SAT have consistently favored males (d=0.5, Reisberg, 1998)

Females have been shown to outperform men in some verbal skills. Tests measuring verbal fluency (rapidly naming things that start with ‘k’, or types of fruit, for example), spelling, grammar, and verbal memory produced d values between 0.1 and 0.4 favoring women.

Using factor analysis, researchers looked at test scores from 187,000 German medical students’ applications. Reporting on three factors - reasoning, perceptual speed, and memory - they found reasoning favored men (d=0.56), memory favored women (d=0.5), and no difference in perceptual speed.

Some of the most marked differences are found in aspects of sexuality. Men are more accepting of casual sex (d=0.81). There are large differences in what men and women seek in sexual partners. Women are attracted to older partners, men to younger (d=0.9). Men are more concerned with physical attractiveness (d=0.6). Women are more concerned with a partners status or wealth (d=0.5). One of the greatest sex differences is found in interest in visual sexual stimuli. Men score higher than women (d=1.3).

There are also emotional differences, such as aggression - d=0.5, favoring men.

On that note, I have to go to hockey practice. :smiley:

7

Now THAT’s a good GD post. Rare to see those.

Hm, maybe an interesting case study would be the transgendered, though this would be very difficult to do and maintain relevant statistics. (note that I hesitate to mention “transgendered” based on the past few weeks of GD posting, so don’t make too much of my wondering aloud).

8

But note that the question is not whether there are differences, but whether or not they are inate. Are they inate or the result of socialization? How early are psychocognitive differences likely to be the result of socialization vs inate tendencies? How early do differences show?

My sense, but without hard evidence to support the claim, is that inate differences do exist. A male toddler will more likely crash a toy bus; a girl will pick up passengers and make up stories. Boys seem to be attracted to block and puzzle play more than girls, and such is the precursor to math abilities. I do not believe that this is all from parental pressures.

9

I’m not sure how well-established it is, but most people seem to have the idea that back in our hunter-gatherer days, men did the hunting and women did the gathering. Obviously, being skilled at your role would translate into a better chance of living to reproduce, so there is a possibility that men’s brains are hard-wired for hunting and women’s for gathering. Some of the differences listed by smeldmf do kinda correspond to that split.

10

If only there were scientific measurement instruments for fashion sense and decorating talent . . . :wink:

11

I remember a standup comic explaining the difference between men’s and women’s shopping habits in those terms. For a woman it’s like gathering, she has to cover every store to find just the right items. For a man it’s like, “Shirt! [puts shirt in bag] Shirt dead now!” :smiley:

12

This is why the sex horomone level differences are important. You can’t SEE what level of sex horomone someone has in anything as grossly obvious as gender. While they do effect body shape and charactersitics to some degree (hairy manly men vs. hairless girlie men), these physical differences wouldn’t really show up before puberty in most cases and so its hard to see how socialization would have effected them: how would the horomone sexists know who to be sexist TO? Daily blood samples?

13

If you’re testing men and women, all the conditioning has already happened. All the attempts to belittle girls who aren’t interested in dollies, all the urging for boys to go out and roughhouse rather than reading a book, they have already happened.

I think all of us would agree that practice improves ability, and if men and women get different amounts of practice in skills, they should show different levels of ability.

I’ve read, though I don’t know trustworthy the statistics are, that women read much more than men. But is that because women want to read more, women are allowed culturally to read more, women have more time to read more, or women are expected to read more?

More reading would likely increase fluency with language. But is that innate? Do women who don’t read score as high as women who do?

There’s lots of baggage with being a member of a sex, and I don’t think a study in this culture can control for it.

14

Taking Sex Differences Seriously by Steven Rhoads

I saw Professor Rhoads speak on C-SPAN’s BookTV.

A sample: Women contract HIV at a rate six times that of males. (Actually it may have been eight times). :frowning:

15

I’ve heard that the target demographic for fiction is women. Supposedly 80% of fiction sales are to women. But when I stop to think about it, how the hell do they track that?

I’ve heard numerous times, (widespread hearsay is always a great source) that women have better innate language skills, which would lead me to conclude that women do indeed read more than men. After all, girls do learn to talk before boys do, so the premise isn’t completely absurd.

I think it was the Naked Ape series that outlined the differences, but it might have been another one. Men are better at spatial relationships, math, and concentration on a specific task. Women are better at language, reading facial expressions, and multi-tasking.

It seems to me that some of these differences could not have been brought about through social conditioning. It’s not like we don’t bother to try to teach boys how to talk, and yet they lag behind the girls. (How old are kids when they learn to talk, anyway? Is it around 2?)

16

Again, that’s what’s compelling about measuring sex horomone levels within sexes as opposed to just comparing the sexes. Those differences could be accounted for by conditioning between males and females… but if it varies by levels of sex horomone, that’s a lot harder to credit to any sort of gender-role assignment.

17

Does Rhoads have any theory to explain that? It can’t be a result of psychological differences, surely, and I’ve never heard even a rumor that women have weaker immune systems than men.

18

I thought The fact that gender isn’t just social is kind of old news, at least as far back as the John/Joan story.

19

But perhaps we talk to girls more and play (without talking) with boys more.

I’m not saying it is true, but it could be true. I’m not saying it would change their development, but I’m suggesting that perhaps it could.

20

According to this paper (granted, written in 1995), gender differences regarding ability in math and science are often overstated. A woman’s perceived inferiority with regard to those subjects is often socialized, and not enough of a difference exists for it to be “innate:” link

Women are taught that they’re not as good in science and math, and therefore, they perform at inferior levels than men.

Here’s another link, this one from Stanford, discussing the problem of gender bias in education: link

And another from Psychology Today: link

While it should be assumed that there are “innate” differences between men and women (hell, we women even get heart disease differently from men), I think a lot of gender differences in perceived mental ability has to do with culture rather than actual ability.

That said, there are psychological differences among women and men - regarding how they handle anger confrontations, etc.; however, many of these are also socialized, not necessarily innate. yet another link