What is the Blue Pill view regarding the psychological differences between men and women?

BabeOfBlasphemy · 2014-03-06T07:12:36+00:00

I'm a blue pill and accept the scientific evidence that men and women DO have neurological differences. Theres too many for me to list at this hour, but none of which can justify the idea one gender is inherintly better than another. We are meant to be a synergy which complement, not compete or use

IRScientist · 2014-03-06T13:48:24+00:00

BP is literally everyone who isn't RP, right? So, aren't all the scientists, the ones studying gender differences (I think there's a study showing men and women use different parts of their brains to do the same things), by definition BP? If that's the case, then isn't RP just extrapolating on BP data, like redefining the word "hypergamy"?

And honestly, science is still working on 1 and 2. I know RPers aren't into truth and hard facts, but the reality is, these things are hard to figure out. There's still a lot we don't know about the brain. You might as well be asking people to how to cure cancer.

Oh, and in regards to point 3, you could easily say: Compared to other species, humans display low sexual dimorphism, therefore, there's little differences between the sexes.

JuCee · 2014-03-06T21:34:06+00:00

No, people don't oppose the Red Pill because they believe there are no psychological differences between men and women (maybe some do, I'm not one of them) The problem is the amateur overapplication/misapplication of scientific results to support the philosophy.

Sure, on average, there are differences between men and women. But, as other posters stated, within-group variation is significantly greater than the between-group variation. TRP likes to defend its beliefs by saying "we're not talking about EVERYONE, we're talking about AVERAGES." Well, if you want to use statistics, you should be concerned with variance. What's happening on TRP is akin to taking a fact like "men are on average taller than women" and vastly overestimating the chance that given a random man and woman, the man will be taller.

The other issue is the obsession with linking observed anecdotal or statistical differences with innateness. Back when this brain study came out, TRP went wild over it. But the authors of that study are very careful not to make any claims about innateness or causality because the data doesn't support any such claim. "Innateness" is extremely difficult to define and to prove, especially when it comes to the mind and brain. What is the role of culture? Epigenetics? Neuroplasticity? It is well beyond TRP and even modern science to answer those questions fully.

TL;DR just because men and women might be different is not a validation of your entire philosophy

liah · 2014-03-06T07:30:48+00:00

There's simply too many variables to quantify what those differences are and what causes them, essentially.

What are the individual's hormone levels? Current environment? Past environment? Nutrition during childhood? Nutrition now? What's their culture's biases? What are their individual experiences? Who were their influences? What is conditioning and what is biological? What is genetic or epigenetic vs. what's dictated by sex alone? What is neurological and what is psychological?

How do you explain away the tribes in which the males wear the makeup and dance, while the women approach them based on their skills in these fields? The cultures in which there is more than one gender? The cultures in which women hunt, or are the elders? Or the Dahomey amazons? Or the women who, in a few short decades, are almost up to equality with men on nearly every front despite a massive institutional and cultural disadvantage for much, if not all, of that duration? And countless other variables that we haven't even discovered yet?

Is there even a point in saying that men and women are different when there's all these variables that contribute to every single individual? When the difference within the sexes is greater than between them? When we are the most adaptable creatures on earth, with, arguably, the most plastic brains of any living creature?

I'd argue there is no point trying to summarize any sex. That, when asked, we have nothing quantifiable whatsoever as to a difference between the sexes. Watch those studies you read, and where they're from, and what their samples are. Every time you think you've found a surefire difference, there's another culture across the world that completely inverts everything you thought you knew that you won't hear about because of your biases towards your own culture.

Look up 'WEIRD.'

trabant00 · 2014-03-06T05:01:40+00:00

Here's my own non-RP take:

Along most personality traits (IQ, Big Five etc.) the innate difference is small or moderate, such that there is more within-sex difference than between-sex difference.
For traits such as mate selection/selectivity (at least in some contexts; I keep seeing contradictory things about what context or what criteria)~~, aggression (hormonally mediated?)~~ (EDIT: aggression's more complicated) and sex roles (there are at least sex-specific socialization cues) the difference is larger than that (little overlap), and there are probably evolutionary reasons for all of these. (I believe sex roles probably tied into child-rearing, intra-sex competition, etc.)

fiat_lux_ · 2014-03-06T06:14:13+00:00

3) Logic. This may be a subset of #2. The thinking is this, gender differences appear in practically every cell of the body, in every organ. Why is the brain the only set of cells, the only organ in the human body not subject to sexual dimorphism? Believing that hormones act on every single organ of the body except the brain seems to defy reality.

Let me summarize two of the most common bp arguments:

1) They might be different, but we don't know enough to say. It's just too complicated and stuff. We're not there yet and we never will.

Oh, btw, the safe and default position is to assume they are the same. If you want to say they are different, then the burden of proof is on you. Never question the null hypothesis.

...

2) Intrasex differences matter way more than intersex differences. The shortest woman in the world is like... less than two feet while the tallest is over 8 feet! See? The difference is like, over 6 feet.

On the other hand, the difference between the average male and the average female is only around 5-6 inches. That is like nothing at all. The physical differences between men and women are like nothing!

I believe TRP is primarily concerned with these questions. TBP is concerned with ... what? Proving there are no differences? Do people oppose the Red Pill because they believe there are no psychological differences between men and women?

No. I'm fairly sure even the most dishonest and delusional bper recognizes that there are differences. They are just very concerned about tone and possibly offending or discouraging individuals.

Here is where I actually agree with them in general. In spite of those innate differences, they are still concerned with equal treatment. I'm fine with equal legal treatment and equal opportunities. I give individuals a chance regardless of their gender, orientation, race, whatever. If a girl trains harder and kicks the crap out of a male, it logically follows that she more likely to be a challenge to me in a fight than the guy she beat up, regardless of gender.

There is no birthright. It's a matter of merit.

GridReXX · 2014-03-06T11:26:37+00:00

The difference between people are much larger than the differences between the sexes.

Meaning I'm most likely to meet a diverse group of stoic and talkative people than I am to meet 10 stoic guys in a row and 10 talkative women in a row. In real life I meet a talkative guy and then I meet a stoic gal and then sometimes the next guy is reserved and so on.

TRP would have you believe the world exists on a very start personality binary. And it doesn't.

polyhooly · 2014-03-06T16:15:57+00:00

There are some general differences between men and women as a group. These cannot be used to prejudge an individual. I think TRP places way too much emphasis on the differences and understates the overwhelming similarities. TRP will also take a kernel of truth, say that women place more emphasis on a man's finances, and come to absurd conclusions: women only care about your status, will only ever love you for that, and will drop you like a bad habit, not even looking back, if someone with a higher status comes along and gives her the tingles.

funkless_eck · 2014-03-06T16:21:37+00:00

I think that most people here aren't an expert on it, and for the most part TBP is reactionary and not a movement in and of itself: therefore when you say, "TBP is concerned with ... what?" it doesn't quite follow.

What is defined as "blue pill" is mostly a rejection of what TRP proposes. Therefore there is no blue pill definition of anything.

It may be that men and women have de facto psychological differences, but the causes of this may not be physical bodies. Or rather, it might be down to differences of the body other than gender.

I guess a question would be - why divide psychological differences only along gender/sex lines, and not along race, class, culture, country, religious etc lines?

Those_Who_Remain · 2014-03-06T06:00:47+00:00

They are different, but not as significantly as TRP suggests. The difference within sexes is most likely bigger than the difference between sexes for most personality traits.

[deleted] · 2014-03-06T13:21:53+00:00

Of course there are differences, but TRP has those differences all wrong. It almost seems like TRP asserts that women are more Machiavellian in nature. But I think science has actually revealed the reverse, at least among college age individuals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_psychology

A personality trait directly linked to emotion and empathy where gender differences exist (see below) is Machiavellianism. Individuals who score high on this dimension are emotionally cool; this allows them to detach from others as well as values, and act strategically rather than driven by affect, empathy or morality. In large samples of US college students males are on average more Machiavellian than females; in particular, males are over-represented among very high Machiavellians, while females are overrepresented among low Machiavellians.

Furthermore, I believe men are more likely to be narcissistic. >7% of males are believed to have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) versus 4% of females according to a national survey. Men are also more likely to be diagnosed with ASPD. So the idea that women are more self-serving than men is hogwash. The idea that women don't love like men is almost certainly hogwash.

myfriendscantknow · 2014-03-06T08:02:17+00:00

As others have said, it seems to me that the differences between individuals are far more significant than those between the sexes. If there are significant differences between the genders, nothing compels me to think that TRP comes even close to describing them. Reading TRP makes it seem as if a vast majority of them have never even had a woman as a friend. Most of them only talk about how women behave in sexual or romantic contexts, which obviously is going to be very different then their day to day experiences with men. It's very narrow minded.

TBP is concerned with ... what? Proving there are no differences?

Lol no, though that is an incredibly common straw man. TBP is primarily concerned with laughing at TRP.

Do people oppose the Red Pill because they believe there are no psychological differences between men and women?

Lol no, people oppose the Red Pill because they're a cultish hate group that makes several outrageous claims.

SockSage · 2014-03-06T06:42:13+00:00

Women and men are more similar than they are different, and there is more difference within groups than there is between them.

Human behaviours are intricate and complex, and attempting to explain them using genetics alone will set you up for failure. While some gender specific behavioural predispositions can be related to biological sex, it has been demonstrated that cultural influences can be so great that they overpower genetics.

GNEEZY: It’s not that men and women are not born differently. I’m sure they are. And you can come up with good evolutionary stories about why men are more competitive than women. What we showed is that’s not the only factor that goes in, which is not a big surprise, but the other factor, the culture can be so big that it can just overturn the results.

Study.

The Blue Pill exists to make fun of TRP. There is no ideology that they push. The cement that holds TBP community together is the shared belief that TRP is ridiculous, nothing more.

yasee · 2014-03-06T22:05:31+00:00

A) Yes, you can find differences in the average scores between men and women for many traits.

B) A google search would serve you better, but a few of the more obvious ones for me are aggressiveness, risk-taking and emotional expressivity; they're all easily measurable and deeply embedded in our cultural notions of gender.

What might set me apart from an average redpiller is that I believe gender role socialization plays a very significant (but not the only) role in the expression of psychological traits, and I think the magnitude of these differences is often overstated.

LadyLumen · 2014-03-11T05:36:51+00:00

Purple Pill woman here. Personally I think there are differences between the sexes mentally. Men and women have different bodies and different hormones. Wouldn't this affect their brains at some degree?

I think in the past these differences have been oversimplified and over-hyped. Even pop-psychology articles today misinterpret the original scientific findings and white wash them with things that grab headlines like, "Brain Wiring Proves That Men Read Maps Better!" Or some garbage like that.

I think men and women are different, but in very complex and nuanced ways that are hard to summarize in a couple paragraphs. Overall, I think it's best for society to treat men and women as equals despite their differences.

However, I don't like the super leftist idea of trying to abolish gender all-together. When I took a Women's Gender Studies course in college, the teacher tried to say that gender was bad and needed to be deconstructed.

I don't think you should mess with nature and evolution. That tends to have bad results.

[deleted] · 2014-03-06T14:59:48+00:00

Blue Pillers are generally Tabula Rosa types. Reddit has too many social science majors who never honestly considered the limitations of social science.

I don't really buy into the mind/body divide at all. If there are biological differences, there will be psychological differences. Psychology stems mostly from biology. The rest is just a response to various different stimuli, but the biology itself is what controls what that response will be.

Ten years ago, very few professionals would have thought that the childish politics of feminism would have preserves this idiotic notion, which was mostly purged from intellectual life at that time. Tabula Rosa is a myth. Anyone who buys into it is a fucking fool. Anyone who even flirts with it is a damned fool.

ahostofeyelashes · 2014-03-06T06:30:40+00:00

Are men and women different?

Yes, i think they generally are.

Specifically with respect to hormones and their role in behaviour, I think it would be very difficult to legitimately claim that humans are unaffected by hormones. All of this said, I take each individual on their own merits, male or female, and try not to make any assumptions about individual behaviour based only on sex.

fasterfind · 2014-03-06T07:43:17+00:00

Yes, there's definite psychological differences. Women make decisions more emotionally, and care more about the emotional outcome or condition of a situation than the logical outcome. E.g. if a guy comes home late, he shouldn't talk about a broken transmission, instead he should be talking about how she felt waiting. - This can sound a lot like women are somehow demanding, but that's not really the case because the transmission doesn't matter to her like it would a guy.

Women pull men emotionally close at times when men need emotional space and silence in order to recover from a long day or life situation. This is counter productive.

I believe the book series by Dr. John Gray is the best source for understanding female psychology.

PUA stuff is fun for a little while, and attracts a lot of kids, but it doesn't get into the psychology of a healthy and long lasting relationship.

TBP is mainly concerned with busting TRP chops where they are wrong. There's less interest and movement in TBP communtiy about actually putting out quality information. Both communities really need to hit the books more often.

potopotp · 2014-03-06T13:14:38+00:00

From what I have witness from blue pillers, it's always something about how there is no differences between men and women because that's gender.

Biology isn't gender.

And because of that there is no difference between men and women in any way.

Also: males and females are capable of the exact same things always, there is variation all over the place. Males and females are really the same exactly except that all men are rapists.

Title	What is the Blue Pill view regarding the psychological differences between men and women?
Author	FortunateBum
Upvotes	16
Comments	130
Date	March 6, 2014 4:16 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1zox5u/what_is_the_blue_pill_view_regarding_the/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/what-is-the-blue-pill-view-regarding-the.286111 https://theredarchive.com/post/286111

Comments