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An article in The Economist last week on the ways in which men and women think differently stated:
Not surprisingly, on average men were physically more aggressive (d=0.6). But in this case other work shows the danger of jumping too rapidly to a conclusion. A study done in 1994 hints that if women think nobody is watching and judging them, and there are no physical consequences, they might be more aggressive than men.
In this study, participants played a video game in which they defended themselves from attackers, and the number of bombs they chose to drop was a measure of aggression. When participants thought they were known to the experimenter and were having their performance assessed, men dropped more bombs than women did. But when those same participants were given the impression that they were anonymous, women became the more enthusiastic bombers.
I find this incredibly fascinating and would love to hear some of our female readers weigh in. What say you?
The article also states that “female is the default brain setting. Until the eighth week of gestation every human fetal brain looks female.”
I wonder what former Harvard president Larry Summers would think of that one.
Comments (4)
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I found the article in The Economist fasccinating – enough to cut it out and discuss w/ others. WAs there a breakdown on age of the women who played the video game? I wonder if we who are the aging boomers would score differently than women of other ages – bec. we were brought up to be “nice” –those some of us learned to be tough through business. Nature and nurture rears its head again.
posted by Joan Eisenstodt on 8-14-2006 at 8:33 am
It reminds me of a line from As Good as it Gets where Jack Nicholsen explains his approach to writing female characters “I think like a man, then I take away reason and accountability”.
I’m sure there are sociologists who would find some deeper meaning in these results in regard to the roles we place upon women in our society.
posted by Christopher Smith on 8-14-2006 at 8:43 am
Joan – the article didn’t specify the age group for that particular study, though I’d be just as interested to know. You can read the whole article at the link in the post above “The Economist.”
posted by David on 8-14-2006 at 10:28 am
I found it interesting to see a quotation from Jack Nicholsen (name misspelled, no less)– a notorious womanizer– as a response to an article about the differences between men and women.
posted by Blue on 8-14-2006 at 2:42 pm