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Sex and intelligence

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It has been proposed at numerous times throughout history that the human sexes display differences in mental abilities on different tasks. Specifically, it has often been proposed that men are more intelligent than women. These proposals are sometimes controversial. This article examines the claim and the data.

Contents

1 SAT scores

1.1 Allegations of SAT bias

2 Other reports

2.1 IQ and memory
2.2 Other differences

3 Brain size

4 Reasons for differences

5 See also

6 References

7 External links

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SAT scores

The Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT, keeps track of the gender of test-takers and releases SAT scores by gender. In 2001, men scored 509 out of 800 on the verbal portion while women scored 502 out of 800. In some years, women scored slightly higher than men.

The difference, however, is more pronounced and consistent on the math segment of the SAT. In 2001, men scored 533 while women scored 498. This difference tends to appear year after year.

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Allegations of SAT bias

Rosser (1988) claimed that there were four potential areas for testing bias in the SAT:

Test content in which many more men than women are referred to or depicted and where women are depicted, they are typically shown in lower status situations
Test context in which questions are set in experiences more familiar to men
Test validity in which women's academic capabilities are under-predicted while that of men are over-predicted
Test use in which women's access to educational opportunities are diminished or restricted by an institutions reliance on test scores which under-predicts their abilities. (sq.4mg.com/IQincome.htm#G)

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Other reports

A 2001 report by Richard J. Coley of the ETS found that females often outperformed males on various measures of verbal ability, while males tended to outperform females on measures of mathematical and spatial ability. [1] (http://www.ets.org/research/pic/gender.pdf)

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IQ and memory

A 1994 study by H. Stumpf and Douglas N. Jackson based on medical school application test scores showed that men averaged IQs about 8.4 points higher than women, while women averaged memories about 7.5 IQ points higher than men. This study, however, maybe atypical.

A 1999 study by Richard Lynn [2] (http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/publications.asp), found shown that the IQ difference between men and women is typically about 3-4 IQ points, while women usually maintain short-term memory advantages over men of about 2 IQ points.

Evidence against differences in overall average IQ scores between men and women comes from several very large and representative studies. However, these studies did find that the scores of men show greater variance than the scores of women, and that men and women have some differences in average scores on tests of particular abilities, which tend to balance out in overall IQ scores.

Deary et al. (2003) performed an analysis of an IQ test administered to almost all children in Scotland at age 11 in 1932 (>80,000). The average IQ scores by sex were 100.64 for girls and 100.48 for boys. The difference in mean IQ is not significant. However, the standard deviation was 14.1 for girls and 14.9 for boys. This difference was statistically significant. In the sample studied, 49.6% are girls and 50.4% are boys. Because of the difference in variance between the sexes however, girls are in excess by 2% in the middle IQ range of 90–115. At the extreme IQ ranges, 50–60 and 130–140, boys make up 58.6% and 57.7% of the population (a gap of 17.2% and 15.4%) respectively. That is, boys were overrepresented amongst the lowest and highest IQ groups.

Hedges and Nowell (1995) performed a meta-analysis of national ability surveys that cover a 32-year period. Their primary conclusion is that male scores show greater variance (more men than women at the extremes of ability) in most abilties. The use of representative samples gives them reassurance that these differences in variance are true, and not the result of differential selection by sex. Their second finding is that average differences in most abilties are small. Exceptions include moderate to strong average advantages to men in math and science and typically male vocations, and moderate to strong average disadvantages to men in reading. They suggest the male advantage in measures of typical male vocations is not predictive, but that the other strong differences are. Thus, they claim to be concerned about the relative disadvantage of men in writing and the disadvantage to women in science and math. For example, they mention that male advantage in math and science may cause inequality in income between men and women and the underrepresentation of women in these academic fields, and likewise that men may suffer greater rates of illiteracy that will push more of them towards unemployment.

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Other differences

Grades: Women usually receive higher grade point averages than men in educational settings. This may be a result of the subjective nature inherent in grading.
Memory: Several studies have shown women are better at certain types of memory. [3] (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00018E9D-879D-1D06-8E49809EC588EEDF)
General knowledge: A study by Richard Lynn showed that men have more general knowledge than women and that men have more general knowledge in certain areas while women have more general knowledge in other areas. [4] (http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/publications.asp)
Education: In the United States, women tend to outnumber men at colleges and universities, except at technical institutions such as MIT and Caltech, where men predominate.
Academia: Men outnumber women in tenured faculty positions in math and science. Women outnumber men in tenured faculty positions in humanities fields.

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Brain size

In 1861, Paul Pierre Broca examined 432 human brains and found that the brains of males had an average weight of 1,325 grams, while the brains of females had an average weight of 1,144 grams. A 1992 study of 6,325 Army personnel found that men's brains had an average volume of 1,442 cm³, while the women averaged 1,332 cm³. (Ankney 1992). The differences are smaller when adjusted for body size, although still persist.

Side view of male and female human brains

In 2005, Haier et al. reported that compared to men, women show more white matter and fewer gray matter areas related to intelligence. They also report that the brain areas correlated with IQ differ between the sexes. They conclude that men and women apparently achieve similar IQ results with different brain regions. [5] (http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1261)

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Reasons for differences

It is possible that sexual dimorphism may exist in regard to intellectual abilities in humans. Men may have evolved slightly greater spatial abilities, possibly as a result of certain behaviors, such as navigating during a hunt, that they were more likely to be involved in during humans' evolutionary history. Similarly, women may have evolved to devote more mental resources to understanding and tracking relationships and reading others' emotional states in order for them to be able to better understand their social situation.

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References

Born, M. P., Bleichrodt, N. & van der Flier, H. (1987). "Cross-cultural comparison of sex-related differences on intelligence tests". Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 18, 283–314.
Haier RJ, Benbow CP. (1995). "Sex differences and lateralization in temporal lobe glucose metabolism during mathematical reasoning". Dev Neuropsychol., 11, 405–414.
Haier RJ, Jung RE, Yeo RA, et al. (2005). "The neuroanatomy of general intelligence: sex matters". NeuroImage, 25, 320–327.
Lynn, Richard, with With P.Irwing and T.Cammock (2002). "Sex differences in general knowledge". Intelligence, 30, 27–40.
Lynn, Richard (1999). "Sex differences in intelligence and brain size: a developmental theory". Intelligence, 27, 1–12.
Stumpf, H. and Jackson, D. N. (1994). "Gender-related differences in cognitive abilities: evidence from a medical school admissions program". Personality and Individual Differences, 17, 335–344.
IJ Deary, G Thorpe, V Wilson, JM Starr, LJ Whalley (2003). "Population sex differences in IQ at age 11: the Scottish mental survey 1932". Intelligence, 31, 533–542.
Larry V. Hedges; Amy Nowell (1995). "Sex Differences in Mental Test Scores, Variability, and Numbers of High-Scoring Individuals". Science, 269, 41-45.