Test of verbal ability

1. Test of verbal ability • Below are ten anagrams. Unscramble the letters in each to form a common English word. You will have two minutes to complete ten item: • EILNST • EGHITW • AAENRS • AEGIMRT • ADIRWZ • AEKRST • CCENNOT • AALMNU • DEEGNR • EFORST

2. Intelligence and Gender Differences Claire, Mallory and Brian

3. Overview of Gender Differences • No documented gender disparity in overall intelligence • Male advantage on spatial tasks • Female advantage on language and memory tasks • Disproportionate male incidence of dyslexia, delayed speech, attention disorders and mental retardation

4. Brain Size • Brain Size • Broca’s Studies • Parisian hospital study – Men have larger brains • 252 male brains, 140 female brains • Male brains 14% larger in mass • L’Homme Mort Cave Study – Craniometry • Craniometry – measurement of skull size • Male and female brain size difference increasing over time • Problems with Broca’s research (Gould, 1980) • Age and height differences – females actually have the advantage • Small number of brains analyzed in cave study

5. Brain size • Modern study of brain size (Nopoulos et al., 2000) • Male and female brains similar • No significant differences in volumes of cerebrospinal fluid, volume of the cerebellum, cortical depth, gyral and sulcal shape, and degree of cortical surface complexity • Males have larger cerebrum

6. Androgens • Androgens – Kimura’s studies • Girls w/congenital adrenal hyperplasia – better spatial skills • Boys with increased testosterone have decreased spatial skills • Estrogens (Collaer & Hines, 1998) • Exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES) • No physical effects on sex differences

7. Functional Organization • Brain Lateralization Theory • “Left-brain” females and “right-brain” males? • Theory does not work – females should be superior at math • Bilateral language processing theory – • Damage to specific hemisphere has distinct effects on men, but not women (Springer & Deutsch, 1981) • Women use both hemispheres to process language, men more lateralized to left (Shaywitz et al., 1995) • Research inconclusive • Other studies show same amount of lateralization (Frost et al., 1999) • Meta-analysis: no significant differences (Sommer, Aleman, Bouma, & Kahn, 2004)

8. Functional Organization • Brain matter – MRI study (Haier, Jung, Yeo, Head, & Alkire, 2005) • Women have more white matter and less gray matter than men in regions associated with intelligence • Similar IQ scores, but brain functions in different ways • Men – frontal and parietal lobes • Women – frontal lobe and Broca’s area • Allows for differences in IQ subtests, but similar overall IQ • Women’s brains more efficient?

9. Psychoevolutionary(Crawford, Krebs 1998) • Three main assumptions of Evolutionary psychologists • Pressure from natural selection • Universal species-typical solutions • Impact on differences between the sexes “I just happen to be very tuned in to my ‘hunter and gatherer’ instinct.”

10. Psychoevolutionary theories(Crawford, Krebs 1998) • Gaulin and Fitzgerald’s Theory of Mating Systems • Large home range for males • Home range refers to the area within which an animal freely travels on a regular basis • Spatial differences based on way to find potential mate

11. Psychoevolutionary theories(Crawford, Krebs 1998) • Silverman and Eals’ Division of Labor Theory • Spatial measures showing male bias correspond to attributes that would enable successful hunting. • Successful foraging would require finding food sources within such configurations and relocating them in ensuing growing seasons. • The test

12. Kalahari Bushmen • One of the last remaining hunter-gatherer societies in the world • Also known as the San

13. Gender Roles and Stereotype Threat • Stereotype Threat (Steele, 1999) • Fear of being subjected to a pejorative stereotype • Fear of inadvertently confirming that stereotype via underperformance

14. Gender Roles(Good, Aronson, Inzlicht, 2003) • Can reinforce a stereotype by encouraging personal identification with it • e.g. females as mathematically deficient • males as linguistically deficient • Can depress the performance of either sex and thereby exaggerate inherent sex differences

15. Detecting Stereotype Threat(Good, Aronson, Inzlicht, 2003) • Mediated through two factors: • Evaluative scrutiny: occurs when a person associates him/herself with a given stereotype • Produces lack of enjoyment, anxiety, underperformance • Identity salience: when stereotype-relevant thoughts are instigated by group composition • e.g. a black student in a primarily white classroom

16. Males, Females, & Stereotype Threat(Wicherts, Dolan, Hessen, 2005) • A study investigating the adverse of effects of male-dominant stereotype on female math performance • Stereotype threat typically activated by: • Presenting a test as diagnostic for the stereotyped ability • Asking for relevant biographical information (before or after the test)

17. Method • Participants: 159 students enrolled in a psychology course • Design: participants randomly divided into two conditions • Control- test prefaced by a statement discounting gender differences • Stereotype- test prefaced by an emphasis on gender differences • Materials: three math tests • Difficult test- 15 challeging SAT questions • Easy test- 20 relatively easy multiplication problems • Persistence test- 24 addition and subtraction problems

18. Results • Three way interaction gender, testing condition, and test difficulty • Stereotype condition enhanced the women’s scores on the easy test, while depressing scores on the difficult test • Stereotype condition neither enhanced men’s scores on the easy test, nor depressed scores on the difficult test

19. Details of the Findings

20. Conclusions • Stereotype threat • Hampers performance on difficult tasks • Enriches performance on easy tasks in stigmatized group • Arousal • The observed decrements in difficult task performance may be attributable to arousal (i.e. anxiety or agitation) • Evaluation Apprehension • Diminished performance not due simply to a fear of test-taking • Females scored higher on easy tasks when exposed to negative stereotypes

21. References Good, C., Aronson, J., Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 645-662. O’Brien, L. T., Crandall, C. S. (2003). Stereotype threat and arousal: Effects on women’s math performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 782-789. Steele, C. M. (1999, August). Thin: ice: “Stereotype threat” and black college students. The Atlantic Monthly, 44-54. Wicherts, J. M., Dolan, C. V., Hessen, D. J. (2005). Stereotype threat and group differences in test performance: A question of measurement invariance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 696-716.