The more gender equality a society has, the more similar men and women will be, adopting more similar interests, personality traits, and behavioral patterns. Or so many people seem to believe.
Statements like this may seem true, but science shows that reality may be more complex.
Various studies have found that some psychological gender differences, such as personality, are larger in countries with greater gender equality. The same goes for countries that are more educated, prosperous and have better living conditions. This became known as the gender equality paradox.
Until recently, it was unclear how widespread this pattern might be. My team, including research assistant Kare Hedebrant, sought to address this issue in a recently published study; here we investigated what psychological sex differences are related to life circumstances and, if so, how.
The study covered a variety of themes, from personality and cognitive functions to sexting and circadian rhythms. Our study focused mostly on western countries, but some data from other countries such as India and Kenya were also used.
We reviewed 54 articles that analyzed the relationship between the magnitude of psychological gender differences and country-level indicators of living conditions. We also used data from 27 meta-analyses (reviews of previous research) on psychological sex differences and conducted new analyzes to identify relationships between sex differences and the national economy, education, health, gender equality, and more.
gender differences
Each study used data from at least five countries, often spanning several decades.
We grouped the many psychological dimensions covered by these studies into six categories: personal characteristics, cognition, interpersonal relationships, emotions, academic preferences (such as orientation towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and ethics and values.
Our findings paint a complex picture, showing that variation in psychological sex differences does not follow a uniform pattern. In countries with better living conditions, men and women are more similar in some ways and different in others.
For example, differences in personality traits have often been found to be greater in countries with better living conditions. This includes traits such as extroversion, agreeableness, and altruism, which research has shown to be more strongly associated with women. The same was true for gender differences on some dimensions of emotion, particularly negative emotions such as shame, where women scored higher.
There were exceptions to the gender equality paradox. Gender differences in sexual behaviors, such as having casual sex, have been consistently found to be smaller in countries with better living conditions. This is probably because women in these countries with more permissive norms have better access to contraceptives.
A complex phenomenon
Gender differences in cognitive functions were sometimes larger and sometimes smaller in countries with better living conditions. Interestingly, gender differences were larger in cognitive areas where women were strong.
For example, episodic memory (memory for experienced events) and verbal ability, where women generally outperform men, have seen greater gender differences as living conditions have improved. When women had better living conditions, they became better at episodic memory. In contrast, gender differences in semantic memory (memory of facts) and mathematical ability, where men tended to perform better, decreased when living conditions improved.
This suggests that women benefit more than men from improvements in their living conditions when it comes to cognitive abilities. The performance gap increases in areas where women have an advantage, and narrows in areas where men are ahead.
Not all psychological gender differences were related to life circumstances in the same way. So can we say that the gender equality paradox exists? Yes, to some extent, because in countries with better living conditions gender differences have increased rather than decreased.
However, in most cases the magnitude of the psychological gender difference was not significantly related to living conditions. This suggests that psychological gender differences in general are not greatly affected by life circumstances, but instead appear to be quite stable. For example, studies often reveal that women get higher grades in different subjects in school. It is also common for researchers to find that men are more interested in mathematics. However, neither of them seem affected by their living conditions.
Even in cases where the magnitude of sex differences varied depending on living conditions, the pattern of male and female advantages generally remained the same. For example, although women’s advantage over men in episodic memory ability is greater in some countries than others, women outperform men in almost all countries.
In summary, we found little support for the idea that psychological sex differences will disappear as societies evolve. Policymakers cannot possibly rely on this if they hope to ensure an equal distribution of men and women in different professions. Instead, the dominant feature of psychological sex differences appears to be their resilience in the face of social change.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Agneta Herlitz receives funding from the Swedish Research Council.