Post 1: The science of cognitive sex differences.

I’m going to start off with a 2014 article on cognitive sex differences [1], which aimed primarily to simultaneously test the relationship between sex, group setting (i.e. being tested in a mixed-sex vs. same-sex group), and stereotype threat/boost (the effects of being made to think about sex stereotypes on performance in tasks a group is stereotypically good or bad at). This study references a large number of other studies, which I’m not going to link to because most of you probably do not have institutional access to the journals they are in, and I don’t want to hunt down that many papers just to download them and make them available here. I have other things to do.

This paper confirms two basic facts: Firstly, men consistently outperform women by a moderate margin on mental rotation tasks, especially 3D mental rotation tasks. It is believed that there is some relationship between performance on these tasks and testosterone, since the administration of testosterone to trans* individuals transitioning from female to male can be observed to have some effect on performance in these tasks.

Secondly, women outperform men on tests of verbal fluency by similarly moderate margins. This, also, is an oft-replicated finding in the field of sex differences research.

It should be pointed out that the observation that men outperform women is not a phenomenon that generalizes to problem solving ability in general. It is often repeated by TRP members that women are emotional problem solvers, and men are logical problem solvers. This generality is not borne out by the literature on the subject. A meta-analysis of 100 different experiments on sex differences in mathematical ability [2] found that sex differences in mathematical ability are typically small (the very largest sex differences were approximately 0.5 standard deviations in magnitude) and did not show a significant advantage for men in the general population. In general, women outperformed men on tests of computation ability, and men outperformed women on tests of more difficult types of math (e.g. calculus). However, there exists considerable evidence that there sex differences are not due to anything biological. I will refer you to a study on stereotype threat [3] which found that performance on a difficult math test was higher for men than for women, BUT ONLY IF THE PARTICIPANTS WERE TOLD THAT THE TEST TYPICALLY REVEALED SEX DIFFERENCES. There was no difference, on the same test, if participants were told that the test typically did not show sex differences. Furthermore, this effect was observed even when the idea of sex differences was not explicitly brought up, i.e. women’s performance was affected negatively even if gender stereotypes were never mentioned (but performed as well as men when told there was no difference). This phenomenon (sterotype threat) is very well documented, with respect to both sex differences in subjects that women are stereotypically worse at AND subjects that Black people are stereotypically worse at (such as verbal ability). A simple Google Scholar search will turn up a small mountain of empirical research on this subject, confirming that great power expectations have over performance.

This should be common sense. We are, it is generally agreed, social creatures by nature and by nurture. Our social environment affects us profoundly. This is one of the primary reasons behind the desire many feminists have to change how we as a society talk about the potential and abilities of men and women. We believe that creating a culture where girls are not told that they have less aptitude for science and math will lead to a world in which the full intellectual potential of all human beings is more likely to be unleashed. This is why we don’t like it when people spend so much time talking about men’s superior problem solving abilities: It’s the very exemplar of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The incontrovertible, empirical fact is that publicly asserting that women are inherently handicapped on tests of logic and problem solving ability directly harms the minds of women. If you, reader, are a man, you may not be able to understand what it is like to live from birth with the handicap of being told that you are inherently less talented at certain things. I, as a man, can myself only speculate, and weigh the scientific evidence that I can find.

In summary: Empirical research shows that men have an advantage that IS probably at least somewhat biological when it comes to certain types of spatial reasoning. In tests of more general logical ability, however, sex differences are small and nonexistent. Furthermore, there is very strong evidence that the sex differences we do see are probably due primarily to stereotype threat and not to inherent differences in ability.

[1]

Gender-Stereotyping and Cognitive Sex Differences in Mixed- and Same-Sex Groups Hirnstein, Marco ; Coloma Andrews, Lisa ; Hausmann, Markus Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2014, Vol.43(8), pp.1663-1673 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-014-0311-5/fulltext.html

[2]

Hyde, J. S., Fennema, E., & Lamon, S. J. (1990). Gender differences in mathematics performance: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 107(2), 139.

[3] Spencer, S. J., Steele, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women's math performance. Journal of experimental social psychology, 35(1), 4-28. http://nuovoeutile.it/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Stereotype-threat-Spencer-1999.pdf