Introduction
The study of differences between men and women includes biological, emotional, social, and cognitive variables. Cognitive psychologists study the ways in which people process information, including perceiving, attending, learning and memory, and thinking and language. A pioneer review of all the studies concerning gender differences by Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin, published in 1974, concluded that men and women are more alike than different. Published studies note that there is considerable overlap between men’s and women’s performances, no matter what is being measured. An individual man or woman may be much better than most of the opposite gender on any characteristic that is studied. The term “gender differences” refers to differences between groups, rather than between particular individuals. The degree of difference necessary to be considered significant does not have to be great, but the observed differences must be reliable.
Studies of cognitive abilities typically include assessments of verbal skills, including the ability to use and understand words and sentences; mathematical skills, including the ability to manipulate abstract symbols; and spatial skills or the ability to manipulate objects in space. Psychologists Janet Shibley Hyde, Nita McKinley, Paula and Jeremy Caplan, Mary Crawford, and Roger Chaffin have done extensive reviews of published studies on gender differences in cognition and have reported the following overall findings: there are no consistent gender differences in verbal abilities, except that women tend to perform better than men in speech production. Men tend to perform better on spatial abilities, but the sizes of these observed differences are highly dependent on what is required on each specific test. There are no consistent differences in mathematical abilities, with the exception that male adolescents tend to perform better than female adolescents on tests of mathematical problem solving. Finally, differences between men and women in science achievement are minute, and the sizes of such differences vary depending on the specific area of science being tested.
Many attempts have been made to determine whether gender differences are caused by biological or environmental factors. Traditionally, psychologists have referred to attempts to separate these causal factors as the “nature versus nurture” debate. However, biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling says that biological and environmental influences on human development are inseparable. Attempting to separate these effects “both oversimplify biological development and downplay the interactions between an organism and its environment.”
Educational Settings
In educational settings, infants and preschool children are typically tested and observed in the areas of verbal development and spatial ability. Differences before age six are relatively minor, but girls do have a slight advantage in verbal development. By age three, boys generally have somewhat better visual-spatial abilities than girls do. Differing rates of central nervous system maturation, differing prenatal exposures to sex hormones, and other theories to have been proposed to explain these phenomena. While it is accepted that girls' nervous systems mature earlier than boys' do, the role of sex hormones in cognitive development is not well understood and remains the subject of ongoing research.
In grade school, girls typically outperform boys. Girls do at least as well at mathematics and usually better in verbal activities, such as reading, writing, and spelling. Boys’ relatively poorer performance has been attributed to the predominantly feminine atmosphere of the early school years and to their somewhat slower rate of neurological development. Boys may also be more vulnerable to conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that may interfere with their academic achievement.
In adolescence, gender differences are at their most extreme. Girls who did quite well in school before adolescence often show a drop in grades as well as in standardized test performance. Boys seem to do much better, particularly in the areas of mathematics and science. A few researchers have suggested that increased amounts of testosterone, a male sex hormone, may be related to the teenage boy performing better. Hyde has emphasized that cultural pressure to conform to traditional gender roles becomes stronger in adolescence. The female adolescent is socialized to believe that achievement, particularly in male-dominated disciplines such as math and science, is gender inappropriate. This culturally imposed belief in “femininity-achievement incompatibility” puts girls “in a situation in which two equally important systems of value are in conflict.” Thus, for girls to continue to achieve in traditionally masculine disciplines is unfeminine. When they are younger, girls may be encouraged to get good grades and excel academically in all subjects, but this reward system may change abruptly when they reach adolescence and societal pressure to conform to the traditional feminine role gets stronger.
In adulthood, test-score differences tend to diminish. Hyde concluded that there are no verbal differences between the genders. There seems to be a difference in performance rather than ability, which is caused by social expectations of appropriate gender roles.
Sex differences in cognitive ability can reemerge in late adulthood, as women tend to be at greater risk for cognitive impairment and dementia. Estrogen decline in postmenopausal women appears to be linked to diminished cognitive ability. In studies done in the late 1990s, women receiving estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) tested better for short-term memory and visual perception than those who were not receiving ERT. Preliminary data also appeared to show a decreased risk for Alzheimer disease among ERT users; however, a controversial 2003 study by the Women's Health Initiative suggested the reverse, spurring further study of estrogen and Alzheimer disease development. Estradiol, produced from testosterone, may play a similar protective function in the male brain, but the research lags.
Cognitive style, or the way in which people solve problems, represents another area of gender differences. Jean Piaget studied cognitive development in children and noted that male adolescents used more formal operational thinking than did female adolescents. In formal operational thinking, people approach problems in a precisely logical way. In 1970, William Perry published a study of the cognitive development of undergraduates at Harvard, beginning at the time they entered college until graduation. Although his study included few women, he found the intellectual development of both genders was fairly similar. In the mid-1980s, Mary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule did a similar study based on personal interviews with 135 women, 90 of whom were college students. These researchers were able to identify five “ways of knowing” among these women; however, they were careful to point out that these categories are not necessarily fixed, exhaustive, or universal and that they are similar to categories seen in men’s thinking. They concluded that any gender differences observed were due to socialization and experiences in traditional educational institutions.
Testing Differences
Male and female differences have been noted in achievement tests
such as the SAT Reasoning Test and the ACT. The tests are designed not to benefit one gender more than the other, but gender differences are still found. Men are more likely to have extremely high scores and to do better in mathematics. For example, a study of mathematically precocious youths surveyed forty thousand seventh-graders who scored extremely well on the SAT, a test usually taken by college-bound eleventh- and twelfth-graders. Of the 280 children who scored above 700, only twenty were female. However, some researchers have found that, when the number of advanced math classes taken in high school is taken into account, such differences diminish. In 1991, the American Association of University Women released a report titled Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America, which stated that gender inequities in the classroom contribute to gender differences in academic achievement. For example, in male-dominated disciplines, such as math and science, girls were often discouraged from taking advanced courses. Teachers called on boys to answer questions more often and challenged them more in class.
Differences in mathematics ability have been used to explain why some occupations are male dominated and others female dominated. Both men and women are largely unaware of the many accomplishments of high-achieving women in traditionally male-dominated fields. An example of such invisible contributions include those of scientist Rosalind Franklin to the discovery of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which is widely associated with Francis Crick and James Watson. Educators and school counselors should emphasize the merits of all career opportunities. For example, boys can be encouraged to explore traditionally female professions, such as nursing and elementary education, while girls can be encouraged to pursue careers in traditionally male professions, such as engineering and computer science.
Differences in male and female abilities have interested educators as they try to maximize the potential of all their students. It is vitally important that both boys and girls receive encouragement to excel in all areas. For example, in grade school, boys need male teachers to imitate, and girls need to have contact with female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Counselors should be especially aware of the need to allow adolescents to explore various careers. Training is an important factor in gender differences. Mathematics scores are directly related to the number of mathematics classes a person has taken. Gender differences on tests of spatial perception can also be eliminated by training. Paul Tobin used the embedded figures test, which requires people to pick out a drawing hidden within another drawing. He gave the test to teenage boys and girls, finding that boys performed better. After one practice session, however, the gender differences were eliminated.
Family and sociocultural contexts also influence cognitive abilities. In their study of women’s cognitive styles, Belenky and associates did intensive interviews with women of various backgrounds and ages. They found that some women did not believe that they could think things out. One group of women was called “silent” and had typically been physically or emotionally abused. These “silent” women did not believe that they could understand anything. In addition, both Perry, who studied mostly male undergraduates, and Belenky and her colleagues observed a stage in which some young women and men look to external sources, such as experts and authorities, for “right answers” and “truth.” However, many of the men seemed to identify with the experts and authorities in a way that women did not. It was as though the men saw themselves as “potential future experts.”
Conclusions
Interest in gender differences is common to most societies, but only recently have scientists begun to ask about the origins of such differences. Many researchers are questioning the usefulness of the study of group comparisons in general. Such studies of “difference” are often based on a dominant “standard” group that is then used as a frame of reference to assess how other groups deviate from this standard.
An increased demand for social justice arose during the 1960s and renewed interest in the question of gender differences. Maccoby and Jacklin surveyed every research report on male and female cognitive differences up to 1970 and concluded that the research supported very few real differences. Further studies have suggested that social influences are at least as important as biological influences.
One reason that women have been judged to be inferior to men is that male success has traditionally been used as the standard by which women are measured. If women behaved differently from men, they were thought to be inferior. In the area of personality, Sigmund Freud came to the mistaken conclusion that women are innately psychologically inferior. Karen Horney's psychology of women considers the role of culture in shaping perceptions of women, pointing out that women’s perceived weaknesses were based on the experiences of men.
Overall, research shows that there is much more variability in cognitive performance within each gender. All social groups, such as men and women, are heterogeneous. Individual differences within such groups are caused by the continuous interplay between the biology of the organism and its experiences with its environment.
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