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Introduction
Issues about gender in psychology have been under investigation for the longest time since the works of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution; where he investigated and highlighted the importance of variability and individual differences that in a way authenticated the study of variations in behavior including the behavior variations as per gender. Due to this fact, for a very long time in psychology, gender differences have been considered as an important field of study.
Phrenologists and neuroanatomists began with studying the intelligence difference between the two genders. It was a belief that females possessed smaller brains than males and that the brain size was an indicator of high intelligence levels and women therefore were not as intelligent as men (Hyde, 1994). When people who are not experts discuss the gender comparison issues, most of the time they ignore the similarities between the two genders and most of them tend to concentrate only on the differences.
In this study it will be very important to ask ourselves whether women really differ in their cognitive abilities from men and also how they differ in their attitudes related to motivation and success.
By addressing the above issues we shall be able to understand why men are more likely to become engineers than women and therefore be able to trace the gender career whether it is influenced by the cognitive differences or the social surroundings where one finds him or herself when born.
To analyze their topics, psychologists have been using several methods to review their research either by using a box score approach or the Meta analysis approach. In the box score approach, the researchers are supposed to read all the necessary studies in a particular topic and then draw conclusions based on the tally of outcomes.
Meta analysis on the other hand involves using a statistical method that is able to combine numerous topics on a single topic where a statistical analysis follows thereafter combining the results of all the studies. This method is more preferred due to its capability of analyzing the overall differences between the two genders and thus more preferred.
Literature Review
The differences in academic capabilities and preferences between the two genders have been put under consideration using several methodologies. Some of these methodologies have been helpful while others are not.
However, it is important to note that all studies which have been aimed at understanding the gender differences are quasi experimental and not experimental. Due to this fact, it becomes very difficult to understand whether it is the person’s gender that causes the difference or whether it is other numerous variables correlated with the gender.
Most studies, which have been conducted especially on course and career choices, have relied on correlation designs. It is just in the recent past that statistical techniques such as the structural equation techniques were introduced to allow psychologists test and analyze complex models of various families, peers and even cultural effect to the people’s perception of their academic abilities and academic preferences in relation to their cognitive abilities (Priess & Hyde, 2010).
Whereas disputes arise when trying to describe the cognitive abilities between the two genders, there are several areas where there is no difference between the two genders. For example there are gender similarities when it comes to general intelligence. The temperature of these debates of which gender is more intelligent than the other tends to rise further and compounded by uncertainties surrounding intelligence and gender differences (Halpern, 2000).
Despite these problems psychologists have always remained interested in the extent to which the gender differences are reflected in cognitive functioning and a variety of different measures have been devised to try and ascertain the nature and the extent of these. It is this area of gender difference rather than the intellectual or cognitive superiority or inferiority that is a main issue of discussion (Downing, Chan, Lam & Kwong, 2008).
Halpern and Lamay (2000) indicated that there were difficulties in addressing the academic, sociological, and political differences of using intelligence tests as a measure of gender differences due to the fact that there have been contradictory studies all over.
When referring to works done by Maccoby and Jacklin, Downing et al indicates that their study found no significant differences in general abilities and intelligence in the elementary years between the two genders but they did identify some differences in verbal, visual-spatial and mathematical reasoning in the onset of adolescence.
Males were seen to demonstrate better visual spatial and mathematics ability while the females performed better on verbal tasks such as spellings, pronunciation, and reading. However, Halpern and Lamay (2000) found no gender differences in terms of the overall intelligence. Critical reviews have shown that men and women exhibit differences in their cognitive abilities and skills. The studies also suggested that men were better at manipulating numeric and visual while women were better in their verbal ability.
Kimura (1999) explains that males outperform females on some spatial tasks with targeting and three dimensional rotations showing the most reliable sex difference. In other aspects of spatial ability, females dominated males in remembering task of location that is remembering where an object is located and identifying which objects in an array have been moved from a prior location (Silverman & Eals, 1992). These contradictions make it hard to be definite about some of the cognitive abilities the two genders possess.
Cognitive Psychology
To analyze the cognitive differences between males and females, it will be important first to understand what cognitive psychology. According to Halpern (2000), “Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with how people think, learn, and remember, which in turn is related to intelligence” (p.3). Intelligence is not usually unitary rather it is an interrelationship between different intellectual abilities.
Intelligence is usually divided into two cognitive abilities: verbal and performance skills which are then divided into several subdivisions. In the verbal ability we have factual knowledge, arithmetic, spelling and comprehension among other factors while the division on performance has the skills of picture arrangement, picture completion, and digit symbol and object assembly among other skills.
Gender Differences in Cognitive Abilities
Among several studies which have been conducted, it has been evident that girls perform better in verbal memory verbal skill and school performance while males had advantage at quantitative and spatial activities.
Verbal ability
Verbal abilities apply to all components of language usage, word fluency, spelling, reading ability, and grammatical usage among other factors. Halpern (2000) when reviewing past researches suggests that females are more language proficient and able to communicate earlier that their male counterparts he also noted that females acquired language with greater speed and accuracy than boys.
Similar sentiments about female outdoing males in verbal ability are shared by Browne (2006) where she puts it that the female advantage in verbal abilities even exceeds the mathematical advantage that the males usually possess. However, while females are such good performers, males outperform females when it comes to the verbal portion of the Scholastic Assessment Test even though it’s by smaller margins (Browne, 2006).
Experts believe that dyslexia and stuttering are two of the most prominent reasons which bring about the verbal ability between the two genders. Dyslexia is usually a brain dysfunction that affects the comprehension and the ability to read of a rather normal person while stuttering on the other side is the inability to produce a fluent speech. It is four to five times as many in boys compared to girls to experience dyslexia while in stuttering three to four times more males than in females (Browne, 2002).
Quantitative (mathematical ability)
The two genders also differ in their mathematical performance. According to Kimura (1999) males tend to excel in tests of mathematical reasoning especially those involving abstract reasoning although the margins are very small.
A study conducted by Robinson, Abbott, Benninger and Busse (1996) while conducting a study focusing on the advantages of males over females in mathematical ability as well as visual ability found that girls had higher achievements during their primary years compared to the boys while in high school boys tended to have higher mathematical ability that the girls.
Robinson et al. (1996) concluded that boys were likely to use spatial strategies even when dealing with verbal word problems however within problems involving spatial and mathematical abilities, girls were found to have a higher correlation than boys. The sex differences were very small but due to the variability in performance this made the effect size to be larger in most samples.
Halpern (2000) however indicated that although males outperformed males on tests of mathematical concepts, females outperform males when it comes to tests of computation. This led to Halpern concluding that the greater the test emphasized on mathematical reasoning the more advantaged the males were and the opposite was also true.
From above it can be concluded that males have a cognitive advantage over females when it comes to mathematical ability although girls performed better at junior and elementary levels. Females were found to score higher than males when it came to mathematical sentences and mathematical reasoning with researchers relating this advantage to the verbal advantages female have over males. While where male performed better in geometry, probability, and statistics it was related to their advantage over females on visual spatial strategies.
Visual Spatial Ability
While the females performed better on verbal ability tests, there is evidence which shows that males perform better than females when it comes to both spatial and mathematical abilities. There are three categories in which spatial ability can be analyzed and they include: spatial perception, mental rotation and spatial visualization.
The ability to identify the vertical and horizontal presence of distracting information is usually the spatial perception and boys were found to have a small advantage over girls on this task, however, gender difference increase as they become older (Brannon, 1996). Mental rotation which is the second category is spatial ability is the ability to mentally transform and manipulate images.
Such skills are better used in certain fields such as engineering and carpentry. Men substantially outperform women on the mechanical comprehension of engineering fields such as Air Force qualification test in the USA. According to Hedges and Nowell (1995) in any top 10 percent in the field of mechanics, male outnumbers the female by a very huge margin.
Space visualization is the last category and it mainly concerns the ability to process spatial information. This task usually requires analytical ability. According to a study done by Montello, Lovelace, Golledge, and Self (1999), when a group of females and males were given a battery for psychometric tests, the results indicated that males outperformed females on tests dealing with newly acquired spatial knowledge of places from direct experiences.
A question that enters into ones mind is “are there evolutionary pressures on mathematical abilities. ” There is a requirement to make inferences about the relative degree on the biological and cultural influences on cognition are needed. According to Geary (1996) the reason behind this is the fact that children’s mathematical development occurs early in their school and as a result, the mathematical performance sometimes reflects some cultural influences.
Although we have seen above that the two genders perform almost equally in every aspect with very little advantage over the other gender, Geary (1996) continues and argues that the notion that certain features of counting, numbers and arithmetic are biological, it should not be taken to mean that all numeric and arithmetic abilities are biological in nature.
There are many skills and knowledge which are usually socially geared. For example parents teach their children during their early periods in life. Most of the complex mathematical domains are usually learn as these complex concepts such as algebra and calculus are introduced later in life as the formal education progresses.
Whereas the majority of the gender differences are small to worry about, the differences in mathematical problem solving and visual spatial ability are quite significant. Understanding the cause of gender differences in performance could provide clues to educational strategies that would minimize the differences.
Some researchers are of the idea that cognitive aptitudes are as a result of genetic factors while others believe these variation may have resulted from sociological factors. The two explanations have been in opposition as we shall see below. We shall begin with the biological explanations:
The first discipline in genetics explains that the differences in the cognitive abilities of males and females are influenced by the genetics, hormones and brain organization. According to Halpern (2000) the genetic theories are usually based on the fetal development. When one is born, genetic information is usually coded in one’s chromosome and every trait is transmitted through the genes.
In the cognitive theory, the cognitive sex assumptions are usually found in the assumption that the high spatial ability is usually a sex linked recessive trait that is carried on the X chromosome (Browne, 2002). Another assumption still based on the spatial ability is the assumption that there is usually an explicit pattern of relationships among parents, children, and other siblings.
For example Halpern (2000) indicates that it is assumed that a son’s spatial abilities should resemble the mother’s more than the father’s due to the fact that males possess only a single X chromosome which they inherited from their mothers. Thus, concluding that if the spatial gene is carried in this gene then on average the son should be more similar in spatial ability to his mother’s.
Another genetic relation which tries to explain the biological cognitive differences is the length of the fingers. Studies show that men with less of a male typical finger length ratio pattern performed better on the verbal fluency while women who possesses male typical finger pattern scored better on the mental rotation tests.
Another biological factor which has been attributed to the cognitive abilities is the hormones. According to experts, the sex hormones of progesterone, testosterone, and androgens influences the cognitive abilities. For example, a study done by Hausmann, Slabbeckoorn, Van Goozen, Coohen, and Gunturkun (2000) showed that the menstrual cycle affected the spatial cognition of females.
They concluded that high estrogen concentrations lead to a decrease in spatial MRT scores while a high testosterone levels lead to a high score. The results also indicated that high estrogen levels lead to improved verbal articulation and fine motor skills.
The other hormones such as androgens have also been found to have an influence in the cognitive ability of the two genders.
The sociological explanations of the different cognitive abilities that females and males possess are explained under several categories which include: sex role appropriate behavior, teacher’s influence, and socialization. According to the sex role behavior, the two genders receive different rewards and punishments based on their genders.
There are those expectations that the society looks upon from an individual according to their gender. During childhood, the child is shaped by three major forces which are the television and media, parents and teachers. While the parent of a boy may concentrate more on task assignments that of a girl wont put more concentration on to it. What children sees from the television and other media influence their lives to great extent.
Individual differences in gender play a major role in the spatial ability test performance. According to a study done by Massa, Mayer, Bohon (2005) if a test was described to be that of measuring spatial capability, the females performed poorly while if the same study was done to measure empathy, women performed better.
This forced Massa et al. to conclude that society and gender influenced the performance on cognitive abilities especially mathematics problem. Due to the society expectations, women are perceived to be more empathetic than men and men are said to possess better spatial ability.
Teacher’s influence is another contributing factor to the different cognitive abilities the two genders possess. Studies have shown that teachers who possess gender specific beliefs influences the way students perform. For example, there is a common belief among teachers that girls should exert more effort in order to achieve similar grades with boys and as a result this makes the girls to perform poorly in their mathematics tests compared to other assessments.
Lastly, socialization is the last social factor that influences the cognitive abilities of a student. Evidence shows that children who are usually rejected by their peers tend to have greater difficulties in interacting with and confronting other children as a result these children had difficulties in changing their structure of thoughts.
Conclusion
We can conclude that cognitive sex differences exist in some cognitive abilities in particular language fluency and certain forms of spatial and mechanical cognition. Although it is important for the two genders (men and women) to be permitted to choose what they want in life whether in their courses or careers, it is never sensible to assume in advance that the choices made will be or should be identical to what other members of the same gender are doing.
In the same direction, although to arbitrary indicate the social barriers associated with the choice of careers men and women choose, it is not ethical or sensible to assume that when women do not enter certain occupations in the same number as men their entry is necessarily impended by one of the social barriers rather than their cognitive abilities. Freedom to choose after all entails the freedom to choose differently.
Implications of the Conclusions
Differences in cognitive abilities are an issue of controversy in the field of education and psychology. Whereas there are differences in the cognitive abilities, the extent of the differences is not as much as people try to explain although in some fields we have seen certain genders to be better than the others. Researchers explain that there are two explanations for the gender differences in the cognitive ability.
The biological explanations which involve genetics and hormones while the social explanations involve sex role appropriate behavior, teacher influences, and socialization. It therefore implies that the differences in cognitive abilities do exist although there seems to be no agreement as to what really influences these cognitive abilities between the two genders.
Reference List
Brannon, L. (1996). Gender: Psychological Perspectives. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Massachusetts.
Browne, K. (2002). Biology at Work: Rethinking Sexual Equality. Piscataway, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Browne, K.R. (2006). Evolved Sex Differences and Occupational Segregation. Journal of Organized Behavior. Pp 143-162.
Downing, K., Chan, S., Kwong, T.S., & Lam, T.F. (2008). Measuring Gender Differences In Cognitive Functioning. Multicultural Education & Technology Journal Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 4-18.
Geary, D.C. (1996). Sexual Selection and Sex Differences in Mathematical Abilities. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Vol.19 Iss.2, pp. 229-284.
Halpern, D.F., & LaMay, M.L. (2000). The Smarter Sex: A Critical Review of Sex Differences in Intelligence. Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 12 Iss. 2, pp. 229-46.
Halpern, D.F. (2000). Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities, 3rd ed., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey.
Hausmann, M., Slabbekoorn, D., Van Goozen, S., Cohen-Kettenis, P., & Gunturkun, O. (2000). Are There Differences In Cognitive Abilities? Journal of Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 114, Iss. 6, pp 1245-1260.
Hedges, L. V., & Nowell, A. (1995). Sex Differences in Mental Test Scores, Variability, and Numbers of High-Scoring Individuals. Journal of Science. Vol.269, pp 41-45.
Hyde, J.S. (1994). Can Meta-Analysis Make Feminist Transformations In Psychology?Psychology of Women Quarterly 1994 18: 451. Web.
Kimura, D. (1999). Sex and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Montello, Lovelace, Golledge, and Self (1999). Sex-Related Differences and Similarities in Geographic and Environmental Spatial Abilities. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Vol. 89, Iss. 3, pp 515-534.
Priess, H.A., and Hyde, J.S. (2010). Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology Volume 1: Gender Research in General and Experimental Psychology. Web.
Silverman, I., & Eals, M. (1992). Sex Differences in Spatial Abilities: Evolutionary Theory and Data. In J. H.Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation Of Culture. Pp533-553. New York: Oxford University Press.
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