Research Paper on Sex Differences in Mental Abilities

Introduction

For nearly a century, empirical data and research have suggested the existence of a minimal difference among the sexes when it comes to their mental abilities. It is evident that gender differences can not only be seen in terms of creative and physical differences as this tends to contribute minimally when looking at how men women perform. Women and men have been found by various studies to possess difference when it comes to their cognition abilities, and this is mainly explained sex hormones secreted during their development that show the difference the organization of their brains( Pardeller, Frajo-Apor, Kemmler, & Hofer, 2017). Various schools of thought have been postulated to explain the reason for the cognitive difference between men and women, and this is discussed in details in this paper with the aim of communicating the need to avoid stereotyping based on the sex differences.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

In both women and men, it can be noted that a difference exists between their brains and this can be seen through their personality traits, their stronger abilities, life skills, and their behaviors. When it comes to the capabilities, it can be identified through their quantitative skills, verbal and visuospatial abilities. This can be shown by observing the behavior of individuals. For instance, in the male the visuospatial abilities include the object rotation which indicates how they can imagine how an object would look like when rotated (Pardeller et al., 2017). A clear example includes imagining a rotation of the object in video games and this; men are in a better position to create games faster as opposed to women due to their unique abilities hence explaining why men are usually hunters as the practice requires visuospatial ability. When it comes to verbal skills such as memory ability and speech fluency, women tend to perform better than men. This explains the why women display higher tendency of giving of delivering speeches that may take any form without any compromise (Caplan, Crawford, Hyde, & Richardson, 1997).

Additionally, another difference between men and women can also be analyzed in terms of their intelligence in different fields. The organization and structure of both female and male brain tend to be the same but given more in-depth inspection of some brain parts between female and male are different. Besides that, another difference exists in the aggression levels in which men appear to be more aggressive compared to women and in the way they show it. Women tend to show how aggressive they might be indirect as opposed to men who are direct with their level of aggression. For instance, women aggression can be manifested through gossips and not physical as expressed by men (Caplan et al., 1997).

Studies (Caplan et al., 1997) have shown that when women and men are aiming at a given target or an object, men are at a higher chance of getting their target right compared to women. This indicates clearly that women are not as accurate as men in target-directed skills like the one which involves interjecting the projectiles. This can be illustrated by looking at target directed games such as dart playing in which men outperform women, and this demonstrates that problem-solving jobs tend to favor men than women just because they perform better.

Debates exist about the effect brought about by cultural differences on the brain. Socialization and culture play a role in affecting female and male brains in regards to the strengthening of some regions of the brain, for example, the emphatic side for women and the systematic side for men. A few studies which relate to infancy suggest the critical role of biological factors in the development of the brain. The various biological factors include genetic influences, hormone levels, gender, nutrition, and brain chemistry (Levine, Foley, Lourenco, Ehrlich, S., & Ratliff, 2016).

When it comes to the processing speed, women have been found to operate faster compared to men. This is mainly in tasks which involve alphabets and digits and in naming rapid tasks. Men have been proven to be faster in finger tapping and time reaction tests. It has been suggested that superiority among female when it comes to writing and reading skills may be attributed to their more in-depth involvement in activities which are language-related both at home and in schools. Various studies have indicated that women possess an advanced cerebral organization which is bilateral especially when it comes to language processing.

On the other hand, men demonstrate dominance for language in the left hemisphere for language. Through this, the gender differences can be examined by looking at the decision making tasks which are lateralized lexically. Lateralization is pronounced highly in male as compared to female because of neurohumoral interactions which are facilitated by the existence of the testosterone hormone (Reilly, Neumann, & Andrews, 2016).

Research indicates that a correlation exists between intellectual abilities and brain size. White matter and cerebrospinal exits in the brain of male compare to that in the female. It has been proven that the white matter plays a vital role in the transfer of information to various regions of the brain hence contributing to the higher spatial abilities. Women, on the other hand, have more grey matter which enhances their efficiency and the processing capacity. Also, women exhibit greater empathy level and a higher sex difference which favors them when it comes to the mind-reading tests compared to men. The neural responses which are related to empathy tend to be low in men when looking and to observe a person undergoing pain which is entirely different when it comes to women (Levine et al., 2016).

Literature indicates that women possess greater social recognition level as opposed to men. Women tend to recognized better various facial effects, emotions and expression processing, unlike men who can only identify given behavior such as aggression, cues which are more threatening and anger. The research indicates that women are more likely to do better in cognition tests and when it comes to face memory as they stay for long without forgetting those they encounter. The temporal cortex of female shows more activities hence explaining their understanding of the behaviors of other people such as their expectations, emotions, and intentions (Reilly et al., 2016).

Conclusion

Through the research, it is evident that sex differences exist between the genders, but this is only limited to certain areas. It is clear that the strength possessed by one gender is not what the other gender might have and numerous studies and theories have explained this. Biological plays a vital role in the development of an individual's brain in various life stages hence explaining the difference in the cognitive abilities of male and women. Additionally, the environment where a person was brought up to a more significant extent explains the brain differences. This study, therefore, demonstrates the need to recognize others in society and stop the stereotyping of other genders.

References

Caplan, P. J., Crawford, M., Hyde, J. S., & Richardson, J. T. (1997). Gender Differences in Human Cognition. Counterpoints: Cognition, Memory, and Language Series. Oxford University Press, 2001 Evans Road, Cary, NC 27513 (ISBN-0-19-511291-1, $19.95).

Levine, S. C., Foley, A., Lourenco, S., Ehrlich, S., & Ratliff, K. (2016). Sex differences in spatial cognition: advancing the conversation. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 7(2), 127-155.

Pardeller, S., Frajo-Apor, B., Kemmler, G., & Hofer, A. (2017). Emotional Intelligence and cognitive abilities-associations and sex differences. Psychology, health & medicine, 22(8), 1001-1010.

Reilly, D., Neumann, D. L., & Andrews, G. (2016). Sex and sex-role differences in specific cognitive abilities. Intelligence, 54, 147-158.