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A compilation of some of the differences between men and women in psychology.

More than once, I have stumbled upon the claim that gender roles are a mere product of sociocultural factors. That social roles are shaped by cultural conventions and ideologies — which can change and manifest differently across cultures. The idea that we can override our nature through nurture, and that the differences between men and women really aren’t as significant as they may seem.

However, many of these differences very likely aren’t simply the result of sociocultural influences, as ‘social role theory’ would suggest. When tested globally, it was found that many of these gender differences were larger in more egalitarian societies (or invariant across cultures).

In poorer and less egalitarian societies, gender differences shrink — Johannes Hermle writes that “fulfilling basic needs is gender neutral.” Researchers Schwartz and Rubel-Lifschitz write that, on the other hand, gender egalitarianism in a culture tends to “permit both sexes to pursue more freely the values they inherently care about more.”

Let me also add that stereotypes are often accurate, and this is very much the case with gender. Social psychologist Lee Jussim writes that,

“women are, on average, better at reading nonverbal cues than are men, and people are pretty good at recognizing that. Nearly all of the stereotype accuracy correlations exceed .50, and many are over .80. A correlation of .50 can be interpreted as people being right 75% of the time; .80 as people are right 90% of the time. Furthermore, those 16 studies provide at least as much evidence that people underestimate gender differences as that they “overemphasize” them.”

Up Close and Personal

In terms of personality traits known as the Big Five, women tend to score higher in Neuroticism (though were not always higher in Anger) and Agreeableness. Looking at more specific sub-traits, women also scored higher in terms of Warmth and Openness to Feelings, and men higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas.

Men are also typically reported to have significantly higher social dominance orientation, and women tend to score higher on measures of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. In studies measuring people’s Dark Triad personality traits, men typically score higher in Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.

Both men and women are compassionate; however, this manifests in different ways. Women are statistically more likely to express compassion through nurturing, bonding, kindness, and warmth, while masculine compassion involves protection, survival, and heroism.

Similarly, though men and women are alike in their overall EQ, they possess different competencies. Women tend to score higher in areas of empathy, interpersonal relationships, and social responsibility, while men tend to score higher in areas of assertiveness, stress tolerance, and self-regard (or confidence).

In their research, Del Giudice et al. found that females scored much higher in Sensitivity, Warmth, and Apprehension, while males scored higher in Emotional Stability, Dominance, Rule-Consciousness, and Vigilance. Discussing the paper, Dario Maestripieri writes that,

“When many personality traits were considered simultaneously, there was only a 10% overlap between the distributions of these traits in men and women. Essentially, the study suggests that when it comes to personality, men and women belong to two different species.”

Intellect, Emotions and Principles

Most psychologists believe that there is no significant difference between men and women in general intelligence. By some measures, men show greater variability, scoring both the highest and lowest in cognitive abilities. Funnily enough, despite their equal intelligence, men tend to score higher in self-estimated intelligence (this has been termed the male hubris, female humility effect).

Research has also suggested that women, on average, are more expressive and more frequently express emotions than men. Taken together, it becomes clearer that the emotional is not the antithesis of the rational — in fact, individuals who score higher on tests of intelligence may often be those who pay more attention to emotions.

Regarding personal values, women report higher levels of benevolence and universalism, while men report higher levels of power, achievement, and hedonism. Meta-analytic reviews have also found gender differences in occupational interests. Women report more interest in people-oriented professions and are more interested in people, while men report more interest in thing-related professions and are more interested in things.

Comparisons

But let us keep in mind the great variation that exists within genders. After having looked over an array of cross-cultural differences between men and women, Schmitt et al. still manages to concede that,

“It is undeniably true that men and women are more similar than different genetically, physically and psychologically.”

Johannes Hermle writes:

“If you randomly take a woman or man from the U.S. or some other country, knowing this person’s gender would tell you very little about their preferences.”

While such gender differences are statistically true, keep in mind that they are still general — but, at the same time, do not dismiss them as such. Generalisations teach us something — an outlier is not cause for dismissing a clear pattern. Schmitt et al. continues:

“Even so, important gender differences in personality exist… The extreme alternative, a Semmelweis reflex whereby psychologists cling to gender blank slate-ism regardless of new evidence, will deleteriously hamper our ability to maximise everyone’s medical, mental and relational health into the future… We believe the men and women of this world, different as they may be, deserve better.”

Sexism is the belief that one gender is superior to another. What has been described above is not sexist, but merely a description of differences between men and women. No role is greater than another, nor are they interchangeable. Guard yourself against the belief that the different treatment of men and women is sexism, for it is in fact proper for them to be treated differently and of equal value. Men and women have much in common — we are both human beings, moral agents, made in God’s image — yet are innately different.

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Photo by vjapratama.