The Myth and the Master's Student

As discussed in the comments to Monday's post, I was able to reach Rosalind Barnett in regards to my concerns about the assertion in Sunday's Boston Globe that there are "no gender differences in the size of the corpus callosum, and recent studies using MRI images agree." While she admitted that the referenced study (Frumin et al, 2002) was "not a good reference" (in that it did not address gender differences at all), Barnett continued: "However, I do believe the weight of evidence supports the conclusion we drew. I include some of the references in the attachment." These are the references she sent me:

• Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, by Anne Fausto-Sterling. (2000) does not appear to draw a conclusion, book's main thrust = sex as social construct
• SEX AND THE CORPUS CALLOSUM: "A literature search at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana" by Paul Pietsch, which gives the following sources:
  1. "Sex differences in the human corpus callosum: myth or reality?" Bishop & Wahlsten, 1997 Meta-analysis: no sex difference found. (49 studies 1980-1997?)
  2. "Age-related changes in fibre composition of the human corpus callosum: sex differences." Aboitiz et al, 1996 Autopsy?: found sex difference, relating to aging process
     (n = ?)
  3. "Sexual dimorphism of the human brain--a review of the literature" [article in German], Suprian & Kalus, 1996 Review: inconclusive, # of studies = ?
  4. "Sexual dimorphism in the human corpus callosum? A comparison of methodologies" Constant & Ruther, 1996 MRI: Difference found in overall, but not relative size, favoring males (n = 104)
  5. "Sexual dimorphism of the developing human brain." Giedd et al, 1997 MRI: No relative size sex difference in ages 4-18 (n = 121)
  6. "Sexual dimorphism in interhemispheric relations: anatomical-behavioral convergence", Zaidel et al, 1995 MRI: no size difference reported, but functional difference reported? (n = ?) [in Spanish?]
  7. "Sexual dimorphism of the human corpus callosum from three independent samples: relative size of the corpus callosum.", Holloway et al, 1993 Autopsy: Relative size favoring females (n = ?)
  8. "Corpus callosum in sexually dimorphic and nondimorphic primates." Holloway & Heilbroner, 1992 4 species of primates: no sex differences
  9. "Sex differences in the corpus callosum of the living human being." Allen et al, 1991 MRI: no difference in children (n = 24), shape difference in adults, changing with age (n = 122)

Less than half of these are imaging studies, and at 10-15 years old, they stretch the scientific use of the word "recent." Ignoring the reviews, the original research articles appear to be split 50-50 on whether a difference exists. However, the following phrase does appear in the abstract of the Bishop and Wahlsten review: "The recent studies, most of which used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirm the earlier findings of larger average brain size and overall corpus callosum size for males". Perhaps that was the source of Barnett's claim. Possibly the most recent imaging study to examine the corpus callosum is Lenroot et al (2007) (MRI, n = 387), which reported greater relative corpus callosum volume in females.

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You know, I'm having a harder and harder time giving credit for due diligence to a women's studies professor and a journalism professor in their reading of neuroscientific literature. That's unfair. After all, I'm not a professor, either. I'm not even a professional scientist. I'm a "Financial Coordinator", if you ask my job description, and I don't even have a thesis topic for my Master's yet. However, I don't think that my letter deserved a "go away, kid, ya bother me" response like this half-assed list of references copied from the web.

The really sad part is that, by and large, I agree with Rivers and Barnett on most of the points of action that they're championing. Rivers and Barnett are extremely active in trying to keep public schoolrooms mixed-sex, and in not pigeon-holing kids into teaching styles by gender. I'm wholeheartedly in favor of that. It seems like Rivers and Barnett's core argument is that we don't understand enough about what the structural differences mean to build a curriculum around them. That's entirely different than denying that these differences exist. I support their work and the core of their argument, but their use of the literature makes me frankly angry.

EDIT: Barnett's response in comments on Livejournal
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The gender vote

The National Election Studies (NES) are surveys given to voters pre- and post-elections. Since 1948, the NES respondent pool has consistently had more women than men (table). According to political scientist Susan Carroll (2004), women voted at lower rates than men from 1920-1980, but since the 1980's, women have increasingly been voting more often than men. The perception that women are more likely to vote Democrat is widespread; pundit Ann Coulter has been quoted more than once as saying that women were responsible for all Democrats elected president since 1960 (2003, 2007). According to the Democratic Party (2006), "in every Senate race held or won by Democrats, women voters voted in larger numbers than male voters AND gave a larger percentage of their vote to Democratic candidates."

Craig Leonard Brians (2005) examined the claim that women would be more likely to vote for female candidates. In his analysis of the NES for 1990-2002 (Congressional races), he found women were 4% more likely to vote for a woman than a man, whereas men's votes were generally split close to evenly. However, Brians stresses that this result was not statistically significant. He also found that Republican men and women were more likely to cross party lines to support a female candidate than Democratic men and women. This result also failed to reach significance.*

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I've wasted your time for the last 95 words -- but it's a lot briefer than the 15 pages Brians spends on non-significant findings. Generally speaking, Brians' conclusion is that there aren't enough women candidates running for a decent analysis. I'll wholeheartedly agree. I have to wonder about selection bias for the NES gender split, though. It strikes me as not terribly unlikely that women are more likely to agree to answering a survey than men -- much like the old saw about juries being made up of people who don't get out of jury duty.

I'd like to apologize for such a US-centric post, but I can't say it won't happen again. I'd be interested to hear what the voting stereotypes are in other countries, though.

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Difference Myth?

The Boston Globe devoted the front cover of the "Ideas" section in their Sunday edition to gender differences yesterday. The 2,000 word article references some of our favorite topics and authors*. The article's authors, Rivers and Barnett (see 10/9/06), do cite a few authors we have not examined. Elizabeth Spelke's 2005 review raises serious and valid concerns about the controls in Simon Baron-Cohen's experiments with infants, concluding that males and females are equally gifted with the capacity for mathematics. Diane Halpern's book Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities (now in the 3rd edition) points out that within-sex differences dwarf between-sex differences to the extent that gender differences are negligible. These claims are not without support.

However, Rivers and Barnett also claim that a 2002 article from the American Journal of Psychiatry found no differences in the corpus callosum between men and women. This does not appear to be the case. Frumin et al (2002) control for the differences expected in the corpus callosum while studying schizophrenia. I was unable to find either the referenced study or the "recent studies using MRI images" which Rivers and Barnett claim debunk the corpus callosum claim.

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Yup, it's time for another Difference Blog challenge -- and I don't mean the one on Donors Choose! I find it hard to believe that Rivers and Barnett simply made up a source, although I'm surprised that they didn't mention an author, since they made a point of doing so with so many of their other points. While I agree that within-sex differences are far larger than the average between-sex difference, and I also agree that we don't know enough about brain function to build educational curricula from what we know about structural brain differences, I'm fairly on-board with the size difference in the corpus callosum. I'm not sure what Rivers and Barnett hope to gain by denying it, since their evidence seems weak. So, I hope that if the 2002 American Journal of Psychiatry article does exist, one of you can point me to it. Happy hunting!

*Janet Hyde, Simon Baron-Cohen, and Mark Liberman (of Language Log fame).

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Author's Notes

In response to April 19th's post, lawyer Robyn Berkley points out "we actually state there IS coverage for same-sex harassment under civil rights law, but coverage for sexual orientation discrimination is NOT covered [but should be]"

Author Andrea Doucet commented that the Ottawa Citizen article I cited didn't provide a good summation of her book "Do Men Mother?"

Blogger Wendy Maynard (aka "The Marketing Maven") wanted to point out that further research is being done on the mood-altering effects of chocolate.

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I've been meaning to do this for a while, since I don't want to be one of those "Mistake on Page 1, Retraction on Page 13" kind of sources. Sometimes the authors I mention will find the post and make a comment, but it's often well after the post goes up, and their comments go unnoticed. These are the comments from authors I've cited in the past year.

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So Sry

Constance Holden, writing for Science discusses some of the research that has been done with Sex-Determining Region Y knockout mice (SRY^-/-) -- mice that have been genetically altered to have XY chromosomes but have a female hormonal environment (and the reverse, by inserting SRY into XX mice).

What researchers have found is that some sex differences in mouse behaviour are not dependent on hormones. For example, Quinn et al (2007) found that female rats develop habits more quickly (or perhaps break habits more slowly) than male rats, even when their hormones are reversed.

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Caution: Nervous Tranny. It's hard for me to have as objective a view on this particular avenue of research as I normally try to keep this blog. I've been asked too many times "but what are your genes?" I love the argument that I'm acceptable as a man (even without a penis) if I have XY genes. I have no idea, but I have no reason to believe I was anything but a normal XX female from the neck down until 2003. I've never been genetically tested. Why would I be? I didn't try to compete as a woman in the Olympics (see HMMI), and it's not a standard part of the transgender treatment at any clinic I know about. I get the impression that the questioners would just feel a lot better if they knew it wasn't my fault I was this way. Oh no: wait. They'd feel better if they knew it wasn't their fault.

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Social intelligence game

Two weeks ago, we looked at how just ten hours on a video game helped women catch up in spatial performance (10/9/2007). Researchers at McGill University are developing games towards a different purpose: increasing self-esteem and reducing stress. Mark Baldwin's Self-Esteem Games attempt to condition players to focus on the positive about themselves and their environments. Much of the theory behind the self-esteem games is based on Baldwin's findings that low self-esteem individuals pay more attention to rejection than acceptance (Baldwin & Dandeneau, 2004). Surprisingly, the group's research has found no difference in self-esteem between men and women (e.g. Baccus et al, 2004).

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As discussed in June, many researchers have found differences in self-esteem measurements between men and women, although it varies with the measurement used. Despite the inconsistencies in measuring gender differences in self-esteem, many theories surrounding gender differences in performance focus on women's assumed lower self-esteem. Personally, I think that women do tend to have lower self-esteem, at least in the protective definition of the concept. While women and men may have similar levels of self-esteem in a generalized sense, I suspect that the difference in how it is constructed may leave women more vulnerable to criticism than men, which would counteract any protective effect.

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Drug Use

In previous posts, we've looked at how drug use rates are higher in men, but that women might be at greater risk of addiction. There is hardly consensus on this point. Kendler et al (2003) point out that risk factors for drug use are very similar between men and women (social, genetic, and personality-based). Holdcraft and Iacono (2004) suggest that onset age and severity of drug use is more related to generation than gender (although women tended to have shorter courses of drug abuse).

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I'm a big wimp about drugs. Philosophically and ethically, I'm all for legalization, pretty much across the board. Emotionally, I'm not particularly comfortable being in the same room as conversations about illegal drugs. I don't even really like being drunk that much; loss of control is just too aggravating for me. I'm told that holding on to precious, precious control is a fairly feminine attribute, but I keep forgetting to research that for a post.

Today is the last day to fund the Spatial Visualization project at DonorsChoose. The other project still has months to find funding, but the Spatial one's about to expire.

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Acne

Collier et al (2007) surveyed 1013 men and women over 20, and found that in all age groups, women reported more trouble with acne than men did. Women were also more likely to report that their acne got worse after their teen years (13.3% to 3.6%). Dreno and Poli's 2003 review reports that most studies find higher rates of acne in women than men, going back to adolescence. Several studies have linked women's menstrual cycles to acne outbreaks (e.g Lucky, 2004; Stoll et al, 2001), concluding that women's acne tends to get worse in the premenstrual phase of their cycles.

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I'm baffled that I was unable to find any studies comparing the self-report accuracy of acne in men and women. It strikes me that women are far less tolerant of acne than men, especially in adulthood. Honestly, I think my skin has probably gotten worse (especially on my body) since starting testosterone therapy, but I have largely attributed that to having more hair -- and what's more, I can't recall ever having seen a man with perfect skin on his body. One of the things I like about women is that their skin tends to be better. All the studies listed above are based on self-report data.

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Leisure reading in adolescents

Manuel and Robinson (2003) challenge what they call "limiting assumptions about boys, girls, and literacy practices" -- such as boys' lack of interest in reading. Their survey of 69 Australian adolescents found more similarities than differences in reading habits and preferences. Nippold et al (2005) found no significant difference in preference for leisure reading in their study of 200 Oregon boys and girls. Both studies found that girls showed a greater preference for reading poetry than boys.

Leyser and Cole (2004) surveyed 969 Illinois students, and found significant differences in reading patterns between boys with disabilities and boys without. (17.4% of their sample was classified as "with disability"; 60% of these were learning disabilities.) No differences were found within-sex for girls.

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The Australian survey looked kind of interesting until I looked at the sample size. Manuel and Robinson mention that 8.8% of boys read 4+ hours per day, while no girls reported reading that much. That turns out to be three boys. Hm. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to speculate on the dips in the male reading and internet use curves. So I will anyway: time spent reading or on the computer dropped almost to 0% at 3-4 hours, but shot up in the 4+ hour group. Girls didn't seem to do that. My suspicion is that there's a "solitary activity" pattern for a significant percentage of the boys that the survey sort of caught sideways, but didn't examine, because it didn't seem relevant to their research.

Leyser and Cole's study also shows a bimodal pattern for boys' reading, explained by disability, but Manuel and Robinson do not specify the disability status of their sample. The "solitary activity" pattern was explored in the Illinois study, but was attributed to a rural environment.

Less than two weeks left to donate in the Blogger Challenge! -- One of the projects expires in 6 days!

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Osteoporosis

Advanced age and female sex are risk factors for osteoporosis, a bone disease characterized by decreased bone density. Sex hormones play an important role in bone health: levels of estrogen or testosterone seem to regulate the replacement of cells in mature bones. Eriksen et al (1988) first reported the presence of estrogen receptors in mature bones. Lower levels of sex hormones can lead to decreased bone density. The effect of lowered testosterone seems to be less severe than that of lowered estrogen. The reason for this difference is unclear: Moggs et al (2003) state that there is "no sexual dimorphism in receptor distribution" in bones.

Thomas et al (2001) found a relationship between body fat and bone mineral density (BMD) for women, but not men. However, Thomas found that bioavailable estradiol predicted BMD equally in men and women, pre- or post-menopause.

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I can think of three reasons why women have a greater risk of osteoporosis, despite the fact that aging lowers sex hormones in both men and women. First, women's estrogen levels typically drop post-menopause, while men's testosterone levels decline more slowly. Second, the effect of the estrogen drop seems to be more severe. Third, women live longer. They're around more to suffer the effect. Still, with my non-standard hormone distribution, I do worry about the health of my bones. There simply isn't enough research into the long-term side effects of cross-sex hormone therapy. Dr. Nick Gorton's Medical Therapy and Health Maintenance for Transgender Men: A Guide For Health Care Providers gives a great review of what little is known.

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Masturbation Situation

A British survey reported in the Metro (2007, UK) found that men and women masturbate in different places. The survey by dating site CupidBay found that 58% of women prefer to masturbate in their own beds while 69% of men preferred to do it in front of their computers. The survey also asked what people fantasized about: men preferred pornographic images (75%) while women thought about someone they knew (80%).

The "continually updated" sex survey at InfiniteThinkings reports (as of today) that 96.28% of men admitted to masturbating while only 84.51% of women said the same. However, when caught masturbating, women were far more likely to ask the other person to join in (54.26% to 28.72%).

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Even though today's post is utterly free of science, I still can't justify putting results from a LiveJournal poll into the first segment. However, while searching for surveys about masturbation location, I found Masturbation Circumstances (2004), which had 7 female, 8 male, and 9 transgendered respondees (2 MTF, 7 FTM). 86% of women masturbated in bed vs 62% of men and 56% of transgender persons. 29% of women, 75% of men, and 88% of transgender persons admitted to taking some special time in front of the computer or television. Only men admitted to doing it outside their home (25%).

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Advertising claims

Berney-Reddish and Areni (2006) found that women were more likely than men (in general) to believe claims made in advertising slogans. However, this effect seemed to disappear when "probability markers" were added to the slogans. Men's belief remained fairly constant but women's belief levels dropped when these markers were added. Berney-Reddish and Areni tested both "hedge" (e.g. "probably", "may") and "pledge" (e.g. "definitely", "undoubtedly") words: both lowered claim acceptance for women.

Lori Wolin (2003) reviewed over 30 years of advertising research: some of her findings may explain this effect. Although most of Wolin's review focuses on differential reactions to gender role stereotyping and spokesperson gender effects, seven studies from 1985 to 1995 explored the "selectivity hypothesis". The selectivity hypothesis claims that "females are thought to be comprehensive information processors who assimilate all available cues while males are thought to be selective information processors who assimilate only salient cues" (Wolin). Kempf et al (2006) went further, demonstrating that men were less likely to notice the experimental manipulations in presented information.

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Well, isn't Kempf interesting? That really makes me want to look into the "hypothesis guessing" probability between men and women. Is it just harder to do research on women because they're more likely to detect what you're trying to test? As for the main question of today's post -- the believability of advertising claims is a common theme of discussion at my house. I'm a commercial-watcher. I tend to like commercials more than the actual programs half the time. Even when I was a kid, I would try to pull people into discussions about what insecurities the commercials were trying to target. There's a commercial for a weight-loss pill that runs a lot on the channels I watch that has become a running joke between me and my partner. The ad states: "we couldn't say it if it wasn't true!" I believe that's an example of a "pledge" statement, and exactly the sort of statement that makes me distrust everything else that's been said previously.

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Pink Ribbons

Cancers are the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. aged 35-64 (CDC 2004), and breast cancer is the second most common kind of cancer for women (WebMD). Blogger Susan Metters (2007) complains that the "pinking" of breast cancer excludes men, who can also develop breast cancer. Men make up less than 1% of all breast cancer diagnoses, according to the National Cancer Institute (2007).

However, many cases of male breast cancer can be linked to abnormal estrogen levels. Giordano et al (2002) found that male breast cancers were more often responsive to hormone treatments than breast cancer in women. In a report released today, the National Cancer Institute (2007) suggests that female breast cancer may be related to hormonal issues as well: the report attributes a recent drop in breast cancer rates to decreased use of hormone replacement post-menopause.

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October has been National Breast Cancer Awareness Month since 1985, and I am surrounded by pink. I was lost in a sea of pink on the subway yesterday as a crowd left the Making Strides walk. I was baffled by Gatorade's Pink Towels on the NFL sidelines. I don't object to the "pinking" of breast cancer because it excludes men. I object to the color coding of causes, because it trivializes the cause and encourages superficial "support" without understanding. The Personalized Cause site lets you pick a cause by your favorite colors -- don't support a cause that clashes. I also object to the gendering of colors, but I feel like that battle's lost. I'll continue to voice the opinion that a genetic female predisposition towards pink is unsubstantiated and ridiculous", but as a social convention, it appears to have won.

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Workplace Depression

Wang et al (2007) attempted a screening and telephone intervention strategy to reduce depression in the workplace. Wang's group found that workers who were screened and treated for depression missed less work and were less likely to leave their jobs. No gender differences were reported, although Wang's group did find a higher proportion of women than expected from national samples, as well as lower rates of depression. Wang's group attributed this difference to the fact that their sample was restricted to full-time employees of major firms.

Merikangas et al (2007) suspect that depression is the major contributor to the 1.3 billion days of work missed annually due to mental health concerns. Doshi et al (2007) found that both men and women were more likely to retire early when depressed; women were more likely to leave their jobs with even subclinical depressive symptoms. Blackmore et al (2007) found that men are mostly likely to attribute their work-related depression to job strain and women were more likely to be depressed when they had low levels of decision-making authority. Low levels of social support were tied to depression in both genders. This is contrary to the Globe and Mail report which claimed that social support affected women more.

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Wang's finding of high women/low depression surprised me, given that women are more likely to be depressed than men in general. I can only conclude that the women in the sample are far less likely to be depressed than women who are not working full-time. Doshi's finding that women would leave the workforce with lower levels of depressive symptoms would make the cause-and-effect relationship difficult to assess.

Several years ago, after a breakup (when I was still living as a woman), I was an independent contractor. I suspect I went through a major depressive episode, and one of the main factors leading me to that conclusion is that I stopped booking work for myself. I sat at home and didn't work. Earlier this year, I was struggling to keep up emotionally as well, but this time I cut down on social contact and paid more attention to my work. However, work strain was a major contributor to my overall stress load this time, which it wasn't in the earlier example. The main pattern that I see is that I have a tendency to focus my energies on the thing that is making me unhappy, in what may not be entirely helpful ways.

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Consumer electronics

According to a survey released yesterday by Solutions Research Group (2007), 76% of Americans have at least one "digital lifestyle product" on their wish lists. The top ten items desired by men and women were very similar, with the top four in each category being identical (HD TV, laptop-Windows, digital camera, desktop-Windows). What items in the top ten differed? The only gaming console that made the women's top ten was the Nintendo Wii, but PS3, Wii, and Xbox all made the men's top ten. Women's lists included a Mac laptop and a Tivo/DVR, which didn't make the cut for men.

In an International Women's Day report this March, GizMag (March, 2007) reported that women were outspending men on consumer electronics in the U.S., $55 billion to $41 billion. Since the same report mentions that the industry as a whole had revenue of $145 billion, one wonders where the other $49 billion came from. A British survey, reported in Media Life (2007) found that men and women were spending "broadly" the same amount on electronics. 9% of the respondents to the British survey rated "looking feminine" as important in their electronics. However, the New York Times (June, 2007) reported that functional changes were starting to be made to market electronics to women, such as "the wider spacing of the keys ... [to accommodate] the longer fingernails that women tend to have."

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The SRG survey uses the word "new" in front of certain items on the list, which makes me wonder if they distinguished between people who wanted a "new digital camera" and those who wanted their first digital camera. I can't tell if I'm gratified or embarrassed that I already have (or my partner has) most of the items on the digital wishlist, but if I take the "new" into account, it's a different story.

However, the British survey and the NYT story give me real pause. I would have expected the "feminine appearance" issue to be rated a lot lower than 9%. The people I know who complain about small keys tend to be big men with big hands. Fingernails have to be pretty long before they start to get in the way of typing, in my experience (I don't think mine ever got that long, even when I was painting them, back in the day). It's funny, I don't generally feel like a woman (shocker! *grin*) but whenever someone starts talking about marketing to women, I start to feel patronized. Hm. I just noticed that the word isn't "matronized."

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Back to Brains

from Luders et al (2005), [click for full caption]

Luders et al (2004) used a 3D MRI technique to measure cortical folding (cortical complexity) on 30 men and 30 women. Luder's group suspected that women's smaller cranial size would necessitate more cortical folding -- additional folding meaning additional surface area, which could offset the possible disadvantage posed by lower brain volumes. Luder found more gyrification in women's frontal and parietal areas. Men did not show greater complexity in any lobar region.

Luders et al (2005) later got attention with another MRI study showing a proportionally thicker cortex (and greater proportion of grey matter) in women than men. Im et al (2006) confirmed this finding, but points out that women's cortexes are thicker in specific areas, spread across the cortex. Sowell et al (2006) found that women had a thicker cortex in the right inferior parietal and posterior temporal regions, even without correcting for overall brain size.

In contrast, see Haier et al (2005), whose well-publicized (MSN) results found more white matter in women than men "related to general intelligence."

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I'd read about Haier's study, and heard a lot of people (largely of an evolutionary psychology bent) try to use women having more white matter as an explanation for differences in behavior. Except that Haier doesn't appear to be saying that women have more white matter, but instead that the difference is in how the brain regions are used. You could say that men and women are using different parts of their brains. I'd be more likely to say men and women are failing to use different parts, but I'm a cynical bastard. However, reading Haier's report, I'm not overly impressed by how he relates structure to general intelligence. Basically, he appears to be saying that women who do well on IQ tests tend to have more white matter than women who do poorly on IQ tests (substitute men and grey and repeat). I'm not convinced yet, but I could be. So convince me. Why is this a good test?

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DonorsChoose: DifferenceBlog Challenge

I need to credit astrogeek01, my number-one supporter (and commenter), for the inspiration for this challenge. She mentioned in a comment this morning that she supported a mental-rotation project on DonorsChoose.

So far, there are two projects in this challenge -- a mental rotation training (see today's post) and a project to help pre-school kids dismiss gender roles when picking future careers. I know there are probably more projects at DonorsChoose that would support students in overcoming socialized roadblocks, and I'll add them if I find them. If anyone else has a project to suggest, please let me know.

($5 from each DifferenceBlog reader would fully fund both of these projects, with money to spare to another one.)

Large, robust, and malleable.

As discussed in previous posts, sex differences on the mental rotation task and other spatial measures are consistently shown to be "large and robust" (Martin et al, 2007). Research released this week suggests that these differences may be more malleable than previously speculated. Feng et al (2007) found that just 10 hours of training on a first-person shooter video game significantly reduced male advantage on spatial attention and mental rotation tasks. Both males and females performed better on these tests post-training, but females benefited more.

This is hardly surprising. Connor et al (1978) showed that 6-year-olds showed no difference on an embedded figures task post-training*; Schafer and Thomas (1998) showed similar results with adults. Kass et al (1998) found that the elimination of difference on an angle estimation task (due to practice) remained three weeks after training. The main difference between Feng et al and the preceding examples is that Feng's "training" consisted of a commercially available game: Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault.

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Okay, I admit it, but I don't feel great about it: I don't like first-person shooters. I played Duke Nukem for about a month in the 1990's, and then went back to playing Civ II. My partner, on the other hand, plays Time Crisis every time he passes an arcade. I think he actually gets withdrawals.

However, I notice that Feng et al is yet more gender research out of Canada. (Happy Thanksgiving yesterday, as lovecraftienne so rightly pointed out.) Seriously, why does it feel like way more than half of the studies I'm looking at were performed in Canada? I know there's a bias because I can only read in English, but I'm wondering if "U.S. Americans" are using different words for gender differences than I am, in such a way that I'm just missing our research. Maybe I should be looking for terms like "differences between standers and squatters" or "why a peepee is different than a neener."

* Edit: there was a difference pre-training, which was unclear in the original version of this post.

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Cartoon Break

Since talking about gender differences requires broad oversimplification and generalization, many people find it easier to do in the form of cartoons. For example, Sheik Jassem Al-Mutawah (2004) (2:41) draws a little cartoon while he discusses differences between men's and women's verbal habits. A song from "The Wacky World of Mother Goose" (1967) (3:10) shows a boy and a girl each begging the other gender to give them "half a chance." However, what I really wanted to draw your attention to was Bruno Bozzetto's "Female & Male" (2004) (5:30), which seems to cover just about every social stereotype about men and women in the book, including a few I'd never thought of.

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It's Columbus Day, so I have the day off from work, unlike almost everyone I know. I keep meaning to announce that I'm taking a day off before three day weekends, but I forget to, and then I feel guilty not posting. I may as well announce now that I am taking a vacation from December 21st through Dec 30th this year, because I'm going to Vegas again (and I think I tapped that topic out pretty well this spring.

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Countering stereotype threat

Stereotype threat, characterized by a reduction in performance based on social cues, has been blamed for some of the difference in minority and female participation in many fields. However, this effect does not prevent all women from participating in male-dominated fields. Researchers have tried several intervention methods to see what internal or external factors could reduce stereotype threat effects.

Davies et al (2005) found that adding the sentence "our research has revealed absolutely no gender differences in either ability [leadership or problem-solving] on this particular task" removed the effect of stereotype threat on leadership interest. Ben-Zeev et al (2005) found that when given another excuse for nervousness, stereotype threat effects on performance disappeared. That is, when given an external excuse for their nervousness, women and minorities performed just as well as they did without stereotype threat. Less successfully, Inzlicht et al (2006) predicted that high self-monitoring would protect against stereotype threat. Inzlicht's group, which included Joshua Aronson, found little support for this prediction, with some evidence of it in minorities, and no significant effect for women.

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You know, I wonder if my cluelessness -- which Ben-Zeev might have called "misattribution" -- could be responsible for some level of my moderate success. I can't recall any time before I was 22 when someone suggested that my interests were out of line for a woman -- at which point, I had almost no idea that I only had 4 years left in that group. I very rarely assumed that I was being targeted as a woman or a queer or any other subgroup; I always took it personally. It didn't make any sense, in my worldview, that someone would think I couldn't or shouldn't do something because of what I was. I just assumed they disliked me. That was stressful enough in its own right, but at least I didn't feel like I was being held back because of my gender.

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Romantic Co-sleeping

MSNBC's Linda Carroll (2007) reports that men sleep better next to their mates. The article is based on Dittami et al (2007), an Austrian study that compared actigraphic readings and sleep diaries for 10 couples. Women tended to get more "efficient" sleep when alone, while men tended to get better sleep with their partner. Sexual contact improved the diary reports, but not the readings.

Meadows et al's 2005 review notes that most couple-sleeping studies have not used actigraphy, even though this technique has been used for most other sleep research since the 1950's. (Meadows' review actually suggests the sleep-diary/actigraphy pairing for measuring couple sleep -- there is no author-overlap with the Dittami article.) Troxel et al's 2007 review suggests that closeness of the relationship and the quality of co-sleep will have reciprocal effects: sleep quality affects the relationship and relationship quality affects sleep. However, the MSNBC articles "sleep experts" have another theory: men snore more.

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It seems like nearly everyone I know has trouble sleeping. I know what feels like a disproportionately high number of people who sleep with CPAP machines. Personally, I sleep great -- hm, that sounds a little smug. Sorry. But I generally sleep soundly. Actually, my observation sample is hopelessly biased, since I mostly ask people who are trying to sleep next to me, which is a Sisyphean task . Out of my 31 years on the planet, I think I was only not sharing a bed for eight or nine of them. I shared a bed with a sibling until I was 12, and have cohabited with a romantic partner since I was 20, with embarrassingly brief breaks between partners. I have no idea how to sleep alone. Actually, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the four partners who have tried to sleep next to me for extended periods of time. I'm sorry that I stole the blankets. I'm sorry that I kick, push, snore, grind my teeth, talk, and throw the pillows off the bed. My bad.

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300th posting day -- Anniversaries

Men are often accused of not being able to remember anniversaries. Gizmodo (9/21/07) posted about the "Remember Ring", which heats up annually to remind the wearer of their wedding anniversary. The "Remember Ring" is apparently not actually available at this time, but it does not appear that the maker plans to offer them in women's sizes (product website). Little research has been done into gender differences in different types of declarative memory, although Reese and Cherry (2004) found that "important dates" are classified as "easy to remember" by young, middle-aged, and older adults.

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This is the 300th edition of Difference Blog. It's not the 300th post, the 300th day, or the 300th topic, but it is the 300th day-on-which-I-made-a-post. I wanted to talk about anniversaries now, instead of on the actual anniversary, because I feel like the multiple ways anniversaries can be counted have an effect on why they're hard to remember. My partner and I, for example, have an "anniversary zone" which runs from roughly the date we started sleeping together until the date when we admitted we were "dating." I actually love having an anniversary zone, since it gives me enough time to remember, make a plan, and execute it before the time runs out.

Correction/Addendum: Yesterday I posted that "Venusians in a Martian's world" was an excerpt from The Myth of Mars and Venus by Deborah Cameron. The Guardian, however, states that "Speak up, I can't hear you" was the 2nd of 3 excerpts. "Back Down to Earth" is the 3rd extract, printed today.

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Myth? Yeth?

The Guardian has printed an excerpt from Oxford sociolinguist Deborah Cameron's new book, The Myth of Mars and Venus, which will be released later this month. Three excerpts in total are due to be printed. The first excerpt, printed yesterday, ambitiously lays out a plan of attack against the "myth of Mars and Venus... that men and women differ fundamentally in the way they use language to communicate". Cameron cites Janet Hyde's gender similarities hypothesis heavily. She then identifies five premises used in most, if not all, science to address this point:

1. Language and communication matter more to women than to men; women talk more than men.
2. Women are more verbally skilled than men.
3. Men's goals in using language tend to be about getting things done, whereas women's tend to be about making connections to other people. Men talk more about things and facts, whereas women talk more about people, relationships and feelings.
4. Men's way of using language is competitive, reflecting their general interest in acquiring and maintaining status; women's use of language is cooperative, reflecting their preference for equality and harmony.
5. These differences routinely lead to "miscommunication" between the sexes, with each sex misinterpreting the other's intentions. This causes problems in contexts where men and women regularly interact, and especially in heterosexual relationships.

The second Guardian excerpt, printed today, addresses women in Parliament. The tone of the second excerpt feels very different, in that it seems to be upholding the differences between male and female speech patterns. Cameron cites Silvia Shaw (2000) on how women in the House of Commons spoke as often as men, and challenged opponents as often, but did not interrupt or interject "illegally" like men did.

Correction/Addendum: "Venusians in a Martian's world" (about Parliament) is apparently NOT an excerpt from The Myth of Mars and Venus by Deborah Cameron. "Speak up, I can't hear you" was the 2nd excerpt, and "Back Down to Earth" is the 3rd.

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I'm a little disappointed that the usually verbose Language Log only quoted a bit of the excerpt and didn't discuss it. Honestly, I'm still up in the air on the "innate" communication differences between men and women. If you can demonstrate language differences between male and female feral children, you'll have a lot easier time convincing me that it's not social. But more importantly, I don't really care if it's social. It's like telling someone with psychosomatic pain that their pain doesn't hurt. It's not helpful.

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Predicting the future?

From Lagattuta 2007,
an illustrated story
was used to demonstrate
negative past events to
4-6 year olds.

Kristin Hansen Lagattuta (2007) found that children as young as 3 were able to understand that negative past events could cause story characters to worry about them repeating. Girls were more likely than boys at all age ranges to assign worry about negative events repeating as the cause of people's behavior or feelings.

The literature is rich with examples of differences in men's and women's risk perception. Per E. Gustafson's 1998 review suggests that quantitative and qualitative studies gave contradictory results about gender differences in risk perception. Weber et al (2002) suggests that women are more risk-averse than men in financial, health/safety, recreational, and ethical decisions, but not in social decisions. However, Weber et al found that engaging in a risky activity is not associated with gender, meaning that other factors probably come into play in women's assessment of possible risky activities.

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The Daily Democrat reports Lagattuta's research as "Women Anticipate Potential Threats Better Than Men", while ScienceDaily headlines the story with "Females More Likely To Believe Negative Past Events Predict Future". Neither article gives a name or gender for the headline writer, but I have my suspicions. I'm unconvinced that understanding motivations in story characters is necessarily the same as worrying about an event yourself. I also have concerns about agency in the experimental stories; having a favorite toy stolen by a particular person strikes me as different than, say, losing it on a boat ride.

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