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Originally Posted by Neverfly
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Thank you for the link. I took a look at Publius' posts on that page, but I'm afraid I remain unconvinced of any differences in math ability caused by hormonal factors.
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Originally Posted by publius
There is much similiar research being done. Here's an interesting one:
http://www.bio.psy.ruhr-uni-bochum.d...CycleMRTmh.pdf
This finds signigicant variation in womens' spatial skills over the menstrual cycle as sex hormones fluctuate. Testosterone improves spatial skils and estrogens reduce it.
Another older found estrogens improve verbal skills as well as fine motor skills. |
Interestingly, right in the second paragraph of that article, the authors admit:
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Although the magnitude of gender differences in spatial
abilities seems to have decreased slightly in recent years
(Masters & Sanders, 1993; Voyer, et al., 1995) and gender
differences in some visuo-spatial tasks can be eliminated
through practice (Baenninger & Newcombe, 1995; Kass,
Ahlers, & Dugger, 1998), different meta-analyses indicate
that gender differences in spatial abilities do exist and are
robust [...]
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Don't these facts severely put into question any claim that such differences are
innate?
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Originally Posted by publius
Here's a nice summary on this subject:
http://www.sfu.ca/~dkimura/articles/NEL.htm
Note that it is much more complex than a simple (on average) "men are better at math" and "women are better at verbal". For example, women tend to do better at numerical tasks, repetitive arithmetic operations, than men.
On verbal, the female advantage is in verbal fluency and memory, not in vocabulary or verbal reasoning. And then there's motor skills. Women show advantage in fine precision motor skills, while men do better at "hitting moving targets".
The whole thing is much more complex than the simple generalizations made. It's darn fascinating.
And it says that most researchers into cognitive sex differences think they are evoloutionary -- pressures selected for certain abilities in women vs other abilities in men. |
They do list observed cognitive differences between the genders, but the summary does not seem to have been based on studies that controlled for environmental factors. This does not excuse us in jumping to the conclusion that the differences must be innate. So, gender differences can be found across cultures--guess what, so can discrimination against women.
And look at the "fine print":
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It must be kept in mind that these are average differences, and that the overlap between the sexes on many tests is extensive. Predicting an individual’s performance level based on sex alone would be highly inaccurate.
[...]
Of course we would not conclude that life experience plays no role in the appearance of sex differences in cognition. However, it seems inevitable that such experience will manifest itself within the context of nervous systems already differently predisposed at birth.
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"It seems inevitable"...?! Translation: they have no evidence, they're just assuming.
Is there a Bad Cognitive Science forum I can join?
