The Difference Blog by Dan4th

Feed may be broken

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:32:43 GMT

I think I may have broken the main site this morning. This link should work, even if I broke the DNS settings for http://www.differenceblog.com/

Thanks for your patience.

Feminism and Anti-Science

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:33:38 GMT

The syndicated feed for diffblog seems to be having trouble again. Today's post, "Feminism and Anti-Science" is posted.

Attractiveness and Marital Satisfaction.

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:45:29 GMT

It looks like there might be a problem with the diffblog feed this morning. Just in case it doesn't pick it up, here's today's post: Attractiveness and Marital Satisfaction.

today's topic: Skin tone, Gender, and Attractiveness.

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:40:22 GMT

Reminder: Differenceblog is now available at diffblog and Differenceblog.com.

Differenceblog is moving!

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:08:30 GMT

Dear friends,

Difference Blog is moving! Please click this link to add the diffblog feed to your friends-list. You may prefer to add the Atom Feed, or visit DifferenceBlog.com.

If I see comments on the LiveJournal feed, I will respond to them, but unfortunately, they aren't emailed to me, and they're only saved for two weeks. I recommend leaving comments on the main site. Here's today's post.

Thanks for your ongoing support.
--Dan4th

Height and jealousy

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:45:09 GMT

Global jealousy relationship with
height, Figure 1 (men, top) and
2 (women, bottom)

Buunk et al's (2008) article has made significant press, starting with the New Scientist, being cited as proof of "short man syndrome." For example, Marie Claire magazine (2008) is polling its readers on whether their man suffers from it. The full article, however, examines the relationship between height and jealousy for both men and women:

"male height was found to be negatively correlated with self-reported global jealousy, whereas female height was curvilinearly related to jealousy, with average-height women reporting the lowest levels of jealousy"

In Study 2, Buunk claims that average-height women's jealousy is piqued by rivals with "masculine" (his quotes) characteristics like physical dominance or high social status, while men's height/jealousy relationship is not much changed by rival characteristics (short men were not as threatened by socially successful or "seductive" rivals). Previous research from Buunk has shown that men in general are threatened by financial success and physical dominance, while women in general tended to be threatened by physically attractive rivals (see DB 7/19/07, 10/25/06)

I'd like to point out that this is at least the second "tall men are better" article covered in the New Scientist in 2008 (see DB 1/18/08). I wonder if some editor there is as touchy as I am. ;) Quick! Stop me before I complain about my height again! ;) I know, distract me with a delicious word like "curvilinearly." Yummy. I also wanted to show you a couple of the scatter plots for this relationship (click to enlarge). I find it very hard to believe that Buunk's jealousy instrument is sensitive enough for what he's trying to do with it.

One of my biggest concerns is with using identical scripts with switched pronouns for the rivals in Study 2. I don't think "physical dominance" has the same connotations for a male or female rival. The example items for physical dominance are "is more muscular, is more athletic, has a heavier build." I don't think those are gender-equivalent values (even if I'd like them to be). Nor is "slender", one of the items for "physically attractive." Buunk's theories hang on which tools are more powerful in assortative mating strategies, so the utility of slenderness or muscularity to a man or woman is fairly important. I didn't see any indication in the article that these items were varied by participant gender.

Small changes for Big Problems

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:48:49 GMT

Several projects recently have suggested specific actions that could be taken in developing countries to improve the lot of women.

The Poverty Action Lab's ongoing project "Menstruation and Education in Nepal" is examining whether distributing menstrual cups can help Nepalese women and girls overcome cultural taboos that restrict their mobility and education.
The European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (2008) have begun a pilot program of low-cost fertility treatments for women in Africa. A woman who does not bear children "might be disinherited, ostracised, accused of witchcraft, abused by local healers, separated from her spouse, or abandoned to a second-class life in a polygamous marriage," according to ESHRE's press release.
A United Nations three-agency report on gender-based violence in Nairobi (IRIN, 2008, see also Kenyan election crisis) notes that displaced women "had repeatedly expressed fears of sexual violence because of makeshift sleeping arrangements, where men and women were forced to sleep under one tent or out in the open."

Feministing.com talked about the Nairobi violence report yesterday, saying "women are not being repeatedly raped and abused because they are sleeping in one tent with men," and that's similar to my initial reaction to all three of these items. Plans like these don't change the devaluation of women that is the underlying problem. That being said, I don't think the UN report was saying that the sleeping conditions caused rape, but rather that the women expressed fear about the sleeping conditions. Another friend mentioned yesterday that the term "male sexual incontinence" was thrown around in the On Point (2008) radio show on prostitution yesterday, but I haven't listened to it, and I can't comment specifically on that. I think the idea that men can't be expected not to rape devalues both men and women, and is a load of crap.

Physician Bias

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:18:26 GMT

Borkhoff et al (2008) sent two standardized (scripted) patients to visit 38 family doctors and 29 orthopedic surgeons within a 3 hour drive of Toronto, ON. The patients were scripted to have identical symptoms and circumstances related to osteoarthritis. However, the male patient had arthroplasty recommended 67% of the time, compared to only 33% recommendations for the female patient. Borkhoff concludes that the doctors may be biased, tending to treat women's complaints "less seriously."

This tendency to assume women are exaggerating is consistent with rheumatoid arthritis treatment studies examined last May (5/22/07). It may also explain why other studies find that women are far more incapacitated when they finally do present for surgery (9/26/06).

This definitely looks like a down side to the tendency of women to go to the doctor more often. Honestly, I can't tell you whether my medical concerns have been taken more seriously since transition. Doctors and transsexuals can have a very adversarial relationship as it is. I don't think I can say I've ever been treated like a man by a doctor. Hell, I still get called "miss" about half the time in the doctor's office, which I expect is pretty confusing to the other people waiting, what with my beard. I try to be reasonable and cooperative, but educating my doctors gets tiring.

Cognition and correlation

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:31:38 GMT

Burman and Booth (2008) searched for brain activation differences by sex that could explain the persistent performance differences on language tasks between boys and girls. Burman and Booth's fMRI study scanned 62 children (50% male) during rhyming and spelling tasks presented in written or verbal form. They concluded that boys and girls were using different brain areas to process these types of tasks, and "greater activation of language areas in girls." Boys, on the other hand, showed greater activation of the sensory modality in which the stimuli were presented: visual or auditory. In an article about the study in Science (2008), Burman suggests that these results support single-sex education in middle school.

I have to say I'm impressed by the size of their sample: 31 subjects per group seems a lot bigger than most of the fMRI studies we've discussed. I am concerned, however, about the group analyses, which cut these groups down into much smaller samples of 5-11 subjects of a particular age and sex, and about the fact that data were excluded for 8-20 subjects for each task. I still have a lot of questions about how much we can deduce from "greater activation." I think that correlations with behavioral results are a step in the right direction. However, in terms of the behavioral results in this study, Burman and Booth report that there was no sex/task correlation on accuracy, only on reaction time. Girls answered more quickly but no more accurately.

One question not addressed in the article is the theory that girls respond more to auditory stimuli while boys are more visual. This theory does not seem to be supported by these results.

Streaming television

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:49:13 GMT

Nielsen//Net Ratings (2008, pdf) reported in February that women are more likely to watch network television as streaming video than men: 22% to 12%. Men are more likely to watch "Consumer Generated Media" (CGM): 27% to 12%. The Nielsen report, which was criticized for excluding iTunes ("The Underwire" blog, 2008), pointed out further distinctions -- not between men and women, but between CGM viewers and streaming TV viewers. CGM viewers were more likely to watch overnight on weekends (11pm - 6am), whereas network streams were most viewed during the 12pm-2pm time window. Nielsen hails this spike as a "new primetime" during office worker's lunch hours.

I will almost never click on a video link at work. My main issue with video is that it takes time. I can almost see watching network shows at work, if I was officially off the clock. I would be too nervous about tripping over a NSFW link if I was browsing CGM at the office. On the other hand: is there anything on the "networks"? The Nielsen report only looked at Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC. I watch sports and cartoons, and most of that on cable. I wonder what CBC streams?

Off-topic, I need to be smug for a moment. The Nielsen press release is named 080114.pdf, but was released on February 14. Whoops. The Wired Blog where I first noticed the story linked to the pop-up javascript window for the press release (which clearly wouldn't work from the Wired website). Whoops. I shouldn't be that smug. Google and Technorati have indexed this weekend's post about Pinker with my typo included. At least I fixed mine.

Related: "Internet Video Usage", May 2007

NYT Review: The Sexual Paradox

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:41:17 GMT

Follow-up to Friday's post: New York Times review of Susan Pinker's new book. Review by Emily Bazelon, "senior editor at Slate."

The Other Pinker

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:00:20 GMT

Psychologist and author Steven Pinker isn't the only author in his family. Released this month, his sister Susan Pinker's new book advocates for "women's professional advancement on their own terms." The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap, released this month, suggests that the "Vanilla Male Model" of success isn't fulfilling or appropriate for most women, due to biological factors such as oxytocin levels and how "male brains are wired". A review of the book in the Financial Post (2008, CAN) suggests that such claims are "heretical" (citing Larry Summers); the publisher's blurb on Amazon notes that Pinker "may draw a great deal of fire for this book."

Pinker can hope she'll draw a lot of fire for the book. I can't bring myself to rip it too hard. I haven't read it, and I support the idea that people should define their own version of success. I'm also willing to entertain the idea that not all differences in representation are necessarily indicative of discrimination. I'm not, however, prepared to "forget the patriarchy", as the Financial Post suggests. Hell, I just got here! ;)

This post was written in advance. Corrections, if needed, will be made when I get back to the computer.

Mental Rotation: a new spin

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:47:33 GMT

EDIT: Sorry for the double post today. LJ was twitchy this morning
Alexander and Evardone (2008) found that sex differences in performance on a mental rotation task (MRT) could be cut in half by using human figures instead of the traditional block figures. Both men's and women's performance on the MRT was improved by using a human figure, but the improvement to women's performance showed a much stronger effect. The sex of the human figure also seemed to play a role - men's performance with rotated female figures was similar to their performance with blocks, while women showed improvement on both male and female human figure stimuli.

Men still showed a statistically significant advantage with the human figure stimuli. Finger-length ratios (assumed to be indicators of androgen activity) were associated with total correct rotations in men, and with percentage correct rotations in women. The Pre-School Activities Inventory (PSAI, Golombok & Rust, 1993) (a recollection of gendered types of play engaged in as a child) did not show any associations with success in the MRT, or with finger length ratios. The strongest predictor of performance on the MRT was performance on the Extended Range Vocabulary Test - "a control measure of general cognitive ability that does not show a sex difference."

The theoretical framework proposed by Alexander and Evardone is that childhood play affects spatial sense:

"we reasoned that male-typical play may enhance the mental rotation of replicas of inanimate objects such as vehicles and blocks, whereas female-typical toy play, such as dressing dolls, may enhance the mental rotation of animate forms or body parts."

The results from the PSAI do not seem to support this: participation in masculine-specific play didn't seem to correlate with better spatial rotation. The figure-gender difference makes me wonder if the participants were picturing themselves as the figures, and that perhaps the male participants did not picture themselves as the female figures.

Essentialism

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:13:29 GMT

Smiler and Gelman: Masculine, feminine, and Neutral concepts

Smiler and Gelman (2008) examined the determinants of psychological essentialism in college students. They define essentialism in this context as the suggestion that "categories are stable, fixed at birth, and based on biological factors." Smiler and Gelman found greater essentialism among men (especially normatively masculine men) and greater essentialism for masculine concepts than feminine ones.

The terms in the table shown were used in the first of two studies, and were rated as masculine or feminine by 12 students unfamiliar with the main study. Study 1 participants were given nine prompts using these terms, along the lines of "Being X is a fixed property of an individual that doesn’t really change from"“…from childhood through adolescence,” “…from adolescence through early adulthood (e.g., 30s),” and “…from early adulthood (e.g., 30s) through old age.” Data from the "neutral" terms were not analyzed. In study 2, adjectives were more carefully matched to nouns (e.g. "a slut"/"promiscuous"; "a homosexual"/"gay"), and no neutral words were used.

Okay, I'm looking, but I'm not seeing how they found the "neutral" words, and I don't find them particularly neutral. But that's neither here nor there, and beside the point. This study caught my eye because of a really nice compliment I received a couple of weeks ago that Difference Blog was "rigorously and personally thoughtfully anti-essentialist." It sounded good, but honestly, I had no idea what essentialism was. Based on the definition used by Smiler and Gelman, I'd say my life is a study in anti-essentialism. I think I know this concept under the name "trait theory", and I've mentioned my understandable bias against it before (2/19/08). I consider personality changes to be not only possible, but more common than not. I'd be interested to hear whether any of you identify some of the words in Table 1 as stable, essential traits.

Forgiveness

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:39:15 GMT

Julia Juola Exline, Associate professor of Psychology at Case Western Reserve University, says she was "aggravated" by the results of her experiments with forgiveness. Men kept turning up as less forgiving and more vengeful than women. "The gender difference is not anything that we predicted... We kept trying to explain it away, but it kept repeating in the experiments", said Exline (EurekAlert, 2008). In an article released March 1st, Exline et al (2008) cover seven of these experiments from 1998-2005. The main conclusion is that people are more forgiving if they see themselves as capable of the offense; and that encouraging empathy was more effective in creating forgiveness in men than in women.

You may remember Exline's co-author, Roy Baumeister, from his "Gender Warriors please go home" speech last summer (2007).

In previous work, Exline reported that narcissistic, "entitled" people had a harder time forgiving (EurekAlert, 2005). Now, everyone watch while Dan4th scuttles off to cull previous D-Blogs about "narcissism" and completely fails to find any... Right. Change tactics.

So, see if you can follow me here. This is logically swiss cheese, but I'm enjoying the thought experiment: People who feel more entitled are less likely to forgive. People who can imagine themselves committing the offense are more likely to forgive. So, people who feel more entitled are less able to picture themselves committing an offense? That seems odd to me. I mean, I have an enormous ego, and I've always sort of assumed I'd make a fantastic criminal if I decided to pursue a life of supervillainy. Doesn't everyone?

Social Security and the mortality gap

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:22:27 GMT

Financial columnist Sandra Block (2008) discusses the pitfalls of filing for early benefits from Social Security, an issue facing many of the Baby Boomers (who are now 44-62). Block examines two different mortality differences: the gap between men and women (see 9/28/06), and the gap between unmarried and married men (see 1/10/07)). Both of these differences, Block argues, make it a better idea for married men to delay filing for benefits: married men will live longer, and may be more concerned about leaving their wives a higher survivor benefit.

Block cites the American Academy of Actuaries (AAA) for the disturbing figure that 42% of elderly women depend on Social Security for 90% of their income, but only 28% of men are this dependent on it. The same source notes that 20% of single women over 65 live in poverty, compared to 5% of married couples. The AAA's June report on Women and Social Security" (2007, pdf) points out that while Social Security is calculated on a gender-neutral basis, it's calculated off lifetime earnings, which culturally do not tend to be gender-neutral.

You know, I don't think I've ever expected to collect on Social Security. I was sort of raised on the rhetoric that it was going to run out before I was eligible. Until recently, I hadn't even considered the possibility that I'd live to see retirement. I figured I'd work until I died. That's not looking as inevitable as it once did, but the idea that I might outlive my retirement savings terrifies me. *scuttles off to increase 401K contributions*

Roleplay cafe for women

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:30:44 GMT

Reuters (2008) reports that a new "roleplay cafe" has opened in Tokyo, this time catering to women. The roleplay cafe idea is not a new one. Author Neil Gaiman (2007) discussed maid cafes (see Wikipedia for cosplay restaurant) in his blog last September. However, the new "Edelstein boarding school" cafe claims to be the first schoolboy cafe, cashing in on the genre of boy-on-boy manga written for a female audience (see yaoi). The manager, Emiko Sakamaki, also opened the first "butler cafe" for women, according to Reuters.

So, my immediate reaction is "that's the kind of equality I'm talking about!" However, I suspect that while I'm not alone in this (they have customers), I get shot down for these suggestions on a regular basis. Women, I'm told, don't want to gawk at and objectify pretty boys. Expecting women to enjoy gender-swapped versions of male entertainment is expecting women to be men. My reactions can not be trusted as typical of any gender: I'm too male, too female, too bisexual, and too kinky for that. So, what do you think? Are cosplay cafes for women feeding into a male-centric paradigm, or are they just kinda hot?

Sports pools: the impact on work

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:43:55 GMT

As we've discussed before, women (in general) tend to take more time out of work than men. However, there is at least one reason why men may be more likely to call in sick than women. A new survey by Harris Interactive (2008) found that men were more likely (11% to 5%) to call in sick in order to (or as a result of) watching a sporting event.

The survey found several other gender differences in sports dedication as it relates to the workplace: men were also more likely to have watched a sporting event from the office on their work computers (33% to 19%). Men were more likely to participate in office betting pools (51% to 36%) and less likely to name camaradarie as the top reason for doing so (39% to 53%). Men and women listed the money as their top reason for participating 38% and 33% of the time, respectively.

My office hasn't ever had a sports betting pool. *sulk* My top reason for participating would depend on the sport, honestly. If it was a hockey pool (not likely to happen), I'd be participating in order to show off my hockey knowledge - or at least my ability to read other people's hockey knowledge. The Harris Interactive Survey was timed to coincide with the beginning of March Madness pools, and I'd only participate in one of those out of camaradarie, as I actually have negative interest in college basketball.

Incidence and Prevalence: Schizophrenia

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:44:54 GMT

Saha et al, 2005 report that their meta-analysis of studies from 1965-2002 found no significant difference in the prevalence of schizophrenia between men and women. This is especially curious given the same group's reporting of the male/female odds ratio for incidence at 1.40 in the previous year (McGrath et al, 2004). As incidence examines new cases and prevalence examines existing cases, this disparity may indicate some difference in the way men and women are affected by the disorder. In fact, Leung and Chue's 2000 review indicates that the course of schizophrenia is more severe in men. Saha et al predicted that this would lead to fewer recoveries, and therefore a higher prevalence in men. However, it is possible that this leads to higher mortality and a lower prevalence.

I was really sure I remembered sex differences in schizophrenia rates from class, but clearly I was wrong. Both of the intro textbooks I could lay my hands on agreed that men and women are about equally affected by schizophrenia (Davison et al, 2003; Bernstein et al, 1999). Sometimes I really need to check an intro book for the "best guess" because the primary articles are so busy trying to make their work look groundbreaking that I have no idea what the accepted model actually is.

Since most mental illness affects more women than men, it seems like a greater percentage of male patients than female patients would be getting treated for schizophrenia. Maybe I'm remembering that? Sadly, I'm probably just making the association because I've only met men (well, one man) who disclosed their schizophrenia diagnosis. I hate how little I can trust my memory. Stupid brain. *pokes it with a Q-tip*

Speed Dating, again

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:01:22 GMT

Eastwick and Finkel (2008) apply a longitudinal approach to speed dating. A Newsweek interview (2008) with the authors sums up their findings:

Finkel: "There was a disconnect between what they said they wanted and what they actually wanted."

Eastwick: "People have theories, and those theories guide us, but they might not always be correct."

In short, men (more than women) rank attractiveness as more important, and women (more than men) rank earnings as more important. But the people these same men and women chose to date did not correlate with their stated preferences. After mates were found, the attraction One theory, espoused in Newsweek by Eastwick, is that people adjust their priorities to match the mates they find, rather than finding mates who match their priorities.

Don't tell my boyfriend*, but I suspect that I follow Eastwick's adjusted priorities model. Of course the person that I'm enjoying right now seems to have the qualities I admire: I notice myself admiring them in him. When filling out the "how would your ideal mate answer this question" forms on OKCupid, I usually find myself wondering how he would answer. However, I self-centeredly admit that I'd like to think I'm objectively awesome, and not just awesome because we're dating. The "adjusted priorities" model reminds me far too much of the Onion article "You Are The Most Beautiful Woman In The World Who Will Sleep With Me" (Babcock, 2004)

Eastwick and Finkel are apparently both in serious relationships, according to their interview, so I wonder how their partners feel about their research.

*this is a joke, because he reads D-blog

UNICEF: Spotlight on Jamaica

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:16:43 GMT

The "Situation Analysis on Gender Disparities in Jamaica"(UNICEF 2007) notes that girl children under five are more likely to be brought to private physicians, whereas boy children are more likely to be brought to government hospitals. The UNICEF report attributes a difference of 3-4% in child mortality by gender to this difference in care. However, Dr Glenda Simms tells the Jamaica Gleaner (2008) that these findings are probably overgeneralized. Simms is the former executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs in Jamaica, and still a major figure in women's activism. Simms told the Gleaner: "I doubt whether any family takes one boy to a different doctor than her family doctor and, therefore, I am not convinced."

Other highlights in the UNICEF report include differences in school achievement (girls perform better), in violent crime (boys are much more likely to be shot or stabbed), and participation in national government (women up to 12%). Differences in reported use of birth control were especially stark: 31% of girls versus 17% of boys aged 15-19 reported that they didn't use contraception with their last sexual partner. UNICEF reported that 20% of all births in Jamaica were given by adolescent girls.

Sorry today's post is so late going up; I was stuck in bed with two underaged girls who wanted to give me a tongue-bath. ... Wow, that reaches a new poor-taste low, even for me. Sorry, I had thought of the line before I picked today's topic. Okay, if you don't want to click the link, the "girls" are my kittens. They're about four and a half months old, and very sweet. I slept in because I'm on medical leave to recover from surgery.

Anyway, I suspect Simms' point has some validity: families are not likely to be bringing their sons and daughters to different doctors. So: could UNICEF have missed something as obvious as rich families having more daughters than poor families? What other explanations could explain a difference in attendance to expensive and cheaper doctor's offices? Is this just an extension of a global pattern of women needing more health care?

Dismissive?

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:01:19 GMT

In the final installment of our series on the ISDP, Schmitt et al (2003) ask: "Are men universally more dismissing than women?"

Schmitt says no.

I say yes. Have a good weekend. ;)

This was written in advance.

Factors affecting credibility

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:01:21 GMT

Continuing our examination of Schmitt's ISDP:

Schmitt's response (2005) to critics such as Asendorpf and Penke (see yesterday's post) cites both Bailey and Baron-Cohen. Bailey is cited as evidence of mate-selection biases among gay men. Baron-Cohen is cited as proof of "brain-based sex differences" in psychology.

I cite Bailey and Baron-Cohen all the time. They're probably the most-mentioned authors in DifferenceBlog. However, Schmitt cites them unironically, which essentiallly means I stopped listening.

As shallow as it is, the web designs used by Schmitt and his collaborators make it harder for me to take his continuing research seriously.
Someone hire this man a web designer. I'm using LiveJournal, fer chrissakes, and I'm turned off by their webpages. The current incarnation if the ISDP (ISDP-2) is hosted by Michael Mills at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. The study page isn't dated (it's a personal pet peeve) but the website (in a lovely shade of lavender) has been updated for Spring 2008, so I have some hope that it's still useful. This is the same link that I provided last May, but it seems to be active now. David P. Schmitt's webpage is also not my most favorite design ever. Actually, it reminds me a lot of the Angelfire page of mine that was deleted last year, right down to the ad banner for the hosting service. Basically, I have no leg to stand on, but I'm poking at them anyway. *poke, poke*

This was written in advance.

Grow up! Evolutionary psychology perspectives on the ISDP

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:20:26 GMT

Today we continue our series on the "International Sexuality Description Project" (ISDP).

The evolutionary psychology (EP) framework of the ISDP elicited strong reactions from multiple camps. For example, Asendorpf and Penke (2005) express concern over the college-linked sample, pointing out that an extended educational period has homogenizing effects on sociosexual development. However, Asendorpf and Penke do praise Schmitt for research that could help bring EP to the next level. Griet Vandermassen's (2004) "Darwinian feminist perspective" argues that feminism must embrace EP in order to proceed to its next phase. In short, Asendorpf and Penke argue that EP overstates results, and Vandermassen argues that feminists are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Vandermassen quotes a contemporary critic of Darwin with a passage I found really poignant, although it might just be that I've barely slept:

Only a woman can approach the subject from a feminine standpoint; and there are none but beginners among us in this class of investigations. However great the disadvantages under which we are placed, these will never be lessened by waiting. -- Antoinette Brown Blackwell, The Sexes Throughout Nature

Actually, Vandermassen does a good job in general of summing up what I like and what I dislike about EP in under 8,000 words. I highly recommend reading it if you have time.

reminder: I am away from my computer and may not respond to comments starting today at 19:00 UTC (2:00pm EST)

Culture and personality

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:42:53 GMT

Last May (5/30/07), we discussed the "International Sexuality Description Project" (ISDP) - a cross-cultural psychological inventory of over 16,000 participants (largely college students). Of course, with a data set that large, it would be surprising if only one paper resulted from it. For the rest of this week, we'll look at other studies published from the ISDP data.

Schmitt et al (2008) examined culture's effect on gender differences on the Big Five personality tests collected in the ISDP. Comparing test scores from 55 cultures, they found that gender differences in personality were higher in more egalitarian cultures, and attenuated in "less fortunate social and economic conditions." As the authors point out, a purely social role explanation of gender differences would predict the opposite effect: that more equality would mean less difference. Two alternative explanations are offered: evolutionary and artifact. The evolutionary explanation suggests that more progressive cultures are actually closer to stone age conditions than less egalitarian ones; the artifact explanation is that there's a problem with the measurement system.

I don't think I can approach this one free of bias. My immediate response upon reading the article title was that there's a problem with the measurement system. Hell, I think there's a problem with the Big Five in general. I don't buy into stable personality theory -- but it's not hard to see why I would be personally invested in the idea that people change.

Speaking of changes. I'm having a hysterectomy on Thursday morning. I'm going to try to set up posts in advance, like I did for a vacation last spring, but there's a distinct possibility that there won't be posts on Thursday and Friday. I don't want to make any promises either way at this point.