Should we research sex and gender differences

1
Should we research sex and gender differences?

• Miriam Zukas
• M.Zukas_at_leeds.ac.uk

2
A note on terminology

• One school of thought
• sex is biological in origin
• gender is social in origin
• BUT
• Is it possible for biology to exist without the
  social, and for the social to exist without the
  biological?

3
A popular topic!

• John Gray Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
  30 million copies translated into 40 languages
• Fundamental psychological differences
• Deborah Tannen You Just Dont Understand Women
  and Men in Conversation New York Times
  bestseller for 4 years translated into 24
  languages
• Different cultures hypothesis

4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
Whats the problem?

• PsycINFO - 2000-2006
• Human sex differences - used for gender
  differences and sex differences
• 1967-2006 63,099 studies
• 2000-2006 17,134 studies

7
Human sex differences

• Human Sex Differences 17115
• Used for
• Gender Differences
• Sex Differences (Human)
• Narrower terms
• Sex Linked Developmental Differences 48
• Related terms
• Androgyny 66
• Diversity in the Workplace 430
• Human Females 14942
• Human Males 4714
• Sex 459
• Sex Recognition 45
• Single Sex Environments 93

8
Human Females

• Human Females 14942
• Used for
• Females (Human)
• Girls
• Women
• Narrower Terms
• Battered Females 861
• Daughters 605
• Female Criminals 321
• Mothers 5313
• Sisters 110
• Widows 198
• Wives 470
• Working women 964
• Related Terms
• Female Attitudes 144
• Female Delinquency 108
• Human Sex Differences 17115
• Sex Linked Developmental Differences 48

9
Human Males

• Human Males 4714
• Used for
• Males (Human)
• Boys
• Men
• Narrower Terms
• Brothers 90
• Fathers 1585
• Husbands 333
• Male Criminals 332
• Sons 269
• Widowers 102
• Related Terms
• Male Attitudes 37
• Male Delinquency 163
• Human Sex Differences 17115
• Sex Linked Developmental Differences 48

10
Other databases

• EMBASE 1996-2006 57134
• Medline 1996-2006 15325
• British Nursing Index 1994-2006
• No results for sex difference
• Gender issues 708

11
PsycINFO examples

• Biological Sex, Adherence to Traditional Gender
  Roles, and Attitudes Toward Persons with Mental
  Illness An Exploratory Investigation.
• Perceptions of self among university students in
  two cultures The United States and the U.S.
  Virgin Islands.
• Sex differences in the perception of ethics? A
  comment on Robinson and Gross.
• Implications of gender differences for the
  development of animated characters for the study
  of bullying behavior.
• The Importance of Gesture in Children's Spatial
  Reasoning.
• Future Research on Gender Symmetry in Physical
  Assaults on Partners.
• Does Trust Beget Trustworthiness? Trust and
  Trustworthiness in Two Games and Two Cultures A
  Research Note
• Gender differences in automatic in-group bias
  why do women like women more than men like men?

12
Medline examples

• Establishing sexual dimorphism in humans.
• Sex determinants in the genome--lessons from the
  animal kingdom.
• Gender differences in determinants of smoking
  initiation and persistence in California twins.
• EEG alpha oscillations during the performance of
  verbal creativity tasks differential effects of
  sex and verbal intelligence.
• Facial and bodily correlates of family
  background.
• Evidence for a female-specific effect of a
  chromosome 4 locus on anxiety-related behaviors
  and ethanol drinking in rats.
• Hostility and sex differences in the magnitude,
  duration, and determinants of heart rate response
  to forehead cold pressor parasympathetic aspects
  of risk.
• Men and women show distinct brain activations
  during imagery of sexual and emotional
  infidelity.

13
Example 1

• Sex differences in means and variability on the
• progressive matrices in university students
• A meta-analysis. Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn
• British Journal of Psychology (2005), 96, 505524
• A meta-analysis is presented of 22 studies of sex
  differences in university students of
• means and variances on the Progressive Matrices.
  The results disconfirm the frequent
• assertion that there is no sex difference in the
  mean but that males have greater
• variability. To the contrary, the results showed
  that males obtained a higher mean than
• females by between .22d and .33d, the equivalent
  of 3.3 and 5.0 IQ conventional points,
• respectively.
• Why?
• Mens relative brain size

14
Example 2

• A female advantage in the recognition of
  emotional facial expressions test of an
  evolutionary hypothesis
• Elizabeth Hampson, Sari M. van Anders, Lucy I.
  Mullin, Evolution and human behavior 27(6) 2006
  401-416.
• A set of computerized tasks was used to
  investigate sex differences in the speed and
  accuracy of
• emotion recognition in 62 men and women of
  reproductive age. Evolutionary theories have
  posited
• that female superiority in the perception of
  emotion might arise from womens near-universal
• responsibility for child-rearing. Two variants of
  the child-rearing hypothesis predict either
  across-the board
• female superiority in the discrimination of
  emotional expressions (attachment promotion
• hypothesis) or a female superiority that is
  restricted to expressions of negative emotion
  (fitness threat
• hypothesis). Therefore, we sought to evaluate
  whether the expression of the sex difference is
• influenced by the valence of the emotional signal
  (Positive or Negative). The results showed that
• women were faster than men at recognizing both
  positive and negative emotions from facial cues,
• supporting the attachment promotion hypothesis.
  Support for the fitness threat hypothesis also
  was
• found, in that the sex difference was accentuated
  for negative emotions. There was no evidence that
  the
• female superiority was learned through previous
  childcare experience or that it was derived from
  a sex
• difference in simple perceptual speed. The
  results suggest that evolved mechanisms, not
  domain general
• learning, underlie the sex difference in
  recognition of facial emotions.

15
Example 3

• Doctors' professional values results from a
  cohort study of United Kingdom medical graduates
• Lorelei Cooke Mandy Hutchinson, Medical
  Education, Volume 35, 8, pp 735-742
• Objectives
• To examine young doctors' views on a number of
  professional issues including professional
  regulation, multidisciplinary teamwork, priority
  setting, clinical autonomy and private practice.
• Method
• Postal survey of 545 doctors who graduated from
  United Kingdom medical schools in 1995.
• Results
• Questionnaires were returned by 95 of the cohort
  (515/545). On issues of professional regulation,
  teamwork and clinical autonomy, the majority of
  doctors held views consistent with current
  General Medical Council guidance. The majority
  supported the right of doctors working in the NHS
  to engage in private practice. Most respondents
  thought that public expectations of doctors,
  medicine and the NHS were too high, and that some
  form of rationing was inevitable. On many issues
  there was considerable variation in attitudes on
  the basis of sex and intended branch of medicine.

16
Example

• Conclusions
• The results highlight the heterogeneity of the
  profession and the influence of specialty and
  gender on professional values. Doctors' attitudes
  had also been shaped by broader social changes,
  especially debates surrounding regulation of the
  profession, rising public expectations and the
  need for rationing of NHS care.
• Explanation
• Sex differences are considered to have roots in
  early socialisation. Differences between branches
  of medicine are due to a combination of
  pre-existing inclinations that attract
  individuals to different specialties, as well as
  the orientation of the curriculum of their chosen
  field. The results from the cohort study
  illustrate how these factors interact to produce
  pluralism in attitudes.

17
Why the obsession?

• Bem (1993) Lenses of gender
• Gender polarisation as one of the lenses
  through which we view the world constructs and
  naturalises the link between the sex of ones
  body and the character of ones psyche by
  defining mutually exclusive scripts for men and
  women, and by defining anyone deviating as
  problematic.
• Biological essentialism.
• Androcentrism - privileging of male experience
  and otherising of female experience.

18
Two camps which split down further!

• Yes we should study difference using science
  better research gives better answers gender
  defined as individual quality with
  similarities/differences in traits/abilities
  within individuals (NB studying difference and
  not similarities).

19
Potential biases

• Hare-Mustin and Maracek (1988) - Alpha bias
• Men and women are fundamentally different in
  their natures
• Emphasises sex differences (man is the norm
  women are the problem)
• OR valorises women (man is the norm, women are
  better - Gilligan, Jean Baker Miller)
• Ignores intragroup diversity
• Leads to essentialism (see evolutionary theories,
  for example)
• Assumes that women and men operate in similar
  contexts or that social context is irrelevant

20

• Beta bias
• Men and women are fundamentally similar in their
  natures
• Minimises sex differences men are the norm,
  women are the same
• Supports identical, invariant treatment of women
  and men
• Also assumes that women and men operate in
  similar contexts

21
Alpha bias?

• Yes, we should study sex differences (eg Halpern,
  1994 Eagly, 1994 Hyde, 1994) but problems with
  existing studies
• bias against non-significant findings
• failure to replicate findings of difference
• failure to report effect sizes
• interpret findings to harm women
• assume biological basis in absence of biological
  data
• Ultimately good science leads to understanding of
  true gender differences/similarities

22
Beta bias?

• Hyde (2005) Gender similarities hypothesis
• Males and females are similar on most, but not
  all, psychological variables.
• Use meta-analyses to explore this.
• a) Cognitive variables such as abilities
• b) Verbal or nonverbal leadership
• c) Social or personality variables
• d) Measures of psychological well-being, such as
  self-esteem
• e) Motor behaviours such as throwing distance
• f) Miscellaneous including moral reasoning

23
Sex differences?
24

25

• 78 gender differences close-to-zero (d lt 0.10)
  or small (0.11 lt d lt 0.35)
• Some debate about what small means beta bias?

26

• Largest differences
• Motor performance such as throwing velocity
  (d2.18) and throwing distance (d1.98)
  particularly after puberty.
• Some measures of sexuality masturbation
  attitudes about sex in a casual, uncommitted
  relationship but d in reported sexual
  satisfaction is close to zero.
• Gender differences in aggression are moderate
  differences for physical aggression particularly
  reliable.

27
Developmental issues

• Eg mathematics (Hyde, Fennema and Lamon, 1990)
• Small gender difference in computation favouring
  girls in elementary and middle school no
  difference in high school.
• No difference in complex problem solving in
  elementary and middle school small difference
  in high school (d 0.29)

28
Contexts

• Eg smiling (LaFrance, Hecht and Paluck, 2003)
• Moderate gender difference in smiling (d
  -0.41)
• If participants had clear awareness of being
  observed, difference was larger (d -0.46) that
  it was if they were not aware of being observed
  (d 0.19) also depends on culture and age.

29
We shouldnt study sex and gender differences!

• No not the right question
• eg Yoder and Kahn (2003)
• We contend that the answer to the question How
  different are we? is empirically unknowable
  because the sources of sex and gender differences
  do not reside exclusively within men and women
  (p.283).
• They suggest we should ask
• Under what conditions are women and men similar
  and different?
• Sex and gender are no longer self-explanatory
  instead they become a marker for related causal
  factors.

30

• No theres no point!
• Dont study because science is unable to deliver
  truths or facts all experiments looking at
  difference are correlational or quasi-experiments
  and thus capable of answering causal questions,
  because we cant randomly assign participants to
  sex categories and the multiple experiences
  associated with those categories that predate and
  permeate any research activity (Maracek, 2001).
• Furthermore, science as social institution
  reflects dominant values.

31

• Male-female difference as a primary organizing
  category for dividing human attributes and
  abilities is, I would argue, fundamentally a
  belief or prejudice. Just as no amount of
  scientific evidence or logical argument can
  prove a 6-foot invisible rabbit does or does not
  exist, no amount of scientific evidence can prove
  or disprove the existence of inherent differences
  between men and women. (Baker, 2006, p 5)

32

• No we shouldnt research sex differences
  because it starts by accepting the legitimacy of
  the question and is therefore logically incapable
  of ending the debate.

33

• What should we do then?
• Study the transactions of power for which sex
  and gender differences serve as markers
• Challenge the acceptance of work which uses
  supposedly natural biological categories such
  as sex, sexual orientation and race as the
  explanatory locus for differences among people.
  (Baker, 2006)
• Distinguish between research on sexism and
  research on sex differences.

34

• Baker, N L (2006) Feminist psychology in the
  service of women staying engaged without getting
  married, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30,
  1-14.
• Bohan, J S (2002) Sex differences and/in the
  self classic themes, feminist variations,
  postmodern challenges. Psychology of Women
  Quarterly, 26, 74-88.
• Hare-Mustin, R T and J Maracek (1994) Asking the
  right questions feminist psychology and sex
  differences, Feminism and Psychology, 4,
  531-537.
• Hyde, J S (2005) The Gender Similarities
  Hypothesis, American Psychologist, 60 (6),
  581-592.
• Kilminster, S, J Downes, B Gough, D
  Murdoch-Eaton, and T Roberts (forthcoming) Women
  in medicine is there a problem? A literature
  review of the changing gender composition,
  structures and occupational cultures in
  medicine.
• Kitzinger, C (ed) (1994) Should psychologists
  study sex differences? Special Issue Feminism
  and Psychology, 4.
• Maracek J (2001) After the facts psychology and
  the study of gender. Canadian Psychology 42,
  254-267.
• Shields, S A (1975) Functionalism, Darwinism and
  the psychology of women a study in social myth,
  American Psychologist, 60, 16-26.
• Stewart, A J and C McDermott (2004) Gender in
  psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 55,
  519-544.
• Yoder, J D and A S Kahn (2003) Making gender
  comparisons more meaningful a call for more
  attention to social context. Psychology of Women
  Quarterly, 27, 281-290.