Mr. Kefor
Journalism
December 18, 2014
Gender
Intelligence
It has been an ongoing rivalry between men and women
since the beginning of time, a constant competition that never ends. People assumed that men were smarter because
they were always given more opportunities than women. Women were pushed to the
side and never given as many options to become successful, so they were seen as
the lesser gender. Women have been striving to be seen as equal to men for many
years, working hard to change the image they had as weak and not as intelligent
as men. We have been researching which
gender is smarter for many years, but the results are inconsistent. Some studies show men are more intelligent
and others show women are smarter. What
if there is no correlation between gender and intelligence at all? We may never get an answer, but we can try to
make our best judgment based on all the information we collect. What does literature “say” about which gender
is smarter, females or males?
Gender has no correlation with intelligence at all. Being male or female does not have any effect
on grades. It simply might just have to
do with the brain and anatomy of the two different genders.
All the research and studies could be a waste of time and
money for there may be no correlation between gender and intelligence at all. Baumeister said, “Although there are no sex
differences in general intelligence, reliable differences are found on some
tests of cognitive abilities.” Different
genders call for different cognitive abilities.
Tasks that require abilities to manipulate images in working memory
demonstrate an advantage in males. Whereas many tasks that access the ability
to retrieval from long-term memory, make acquisitions, use verbal information
shows an advantage in females. (Baumeister)
“Large effects favoring males are also found on advanced tests of
mathematical achievement” said Baumeister “especially with highly select
samples.” The author believes that there
are no differences in general intelligence.
There are many ways to counter this statement, but the studies back up
this statement to prove this argument.
Gender is said to have no correlation based on this article, but is that
true? There are so many differences
between the two sexes which causes a difference in the way they work which then
effects the way they learn. So, is there
really no difference in intelligence between men and women?
Women may excel in some studies than men but not
all. Sometimes one may be better at one
thing and your friend may be better at another.
Many people have their strengths and weaknesses and everyone is unique.
This is just how life works and we can apply this to which gender is
smarter. An example, women may get a
better score in English and men might get a better grade in math class. The data also depends on the students chosen
to be in the study. “Females obtain
higher grades in school, score much higher on tests of writing and content-area
tests on which the questions are similar to material that was learned in
school,” said Halpern “attain a majority of college degrees, and are closing
the gap in many careers that were traditionally male.” Females have some advantages over males but
are not completely better than them. Men
commonly do better on tests that do not involve memory: “By contrast, males
score higher on standardized tests of mathematics and science that are not
directly tied to their school curriculum, show a large advantage on
visuospatial tests (especially those that involve judgments of velocity and
navigation through three-dimensional space), and are much more knowledgeable
about geography and politics.” (Halpern)
The brains of the two genders are wired differently which causes a
difference in the way they act which affects their intelligence. (Halpern)
Women and men are obviously very different in their appearance but also their
way of learning.
On one hand, men have the lead on intelligence over
women. They have a history of the male
species evolved their brain to obtain different skills. This ability now helps men to achieve higher
grades and IQ’s than women.
Men are smarter because of their history. The male background tracks all the way back
to hunting: “The hunters that used all their mental capabilities to come up
with the answers, successfully killing animals day after day, were clearly the
most intelligent. They were the
high-status males of their day and - provocative as it is to say so - must have
possessed far sharper minds than those of women engaged in the relatively
simple tasks of gathering berries and raising children.” (Lynn) The skills this task took lead to the
evolution of the male brain. Men’s
brains grew sharper than women’s, who just had to complete tasks of picking
berries and raising children. The
background of the male species lead to the brain males carry around today: “The
result is that men today still have physically bigger brains than women, even
after adjustments for their different-body size. Might this underpin the
five-point difference in IQ between the sexes?” (Lynn) Since the men used more of their mental
skills to complete these tasks they got smarter which affects their scores on
tests. It is said that boys start to
become more intelligent than girls by age sixteen. “Boys and girls may start
out with the same IQ” said Lynn “but by 16 or so boys are starting to inch
ahead.” Boys are claimed to be smarter
than girls because of their background.
Now, because of their history boys are said to score greater on tests.
Females
and males are very different in structure.
Men are commonly tough and rugged looking. Women tend to be more petite
and poised. Women are usually more
hormonal than a man and this interferes with their intelligence: “Because, some
would hold, hormonal differences between the sexes cause differences in brain
structure and function.” (Fausto 14)
Hormones make women emotional and this in an interference to their
learning. Instead of focusing on the new
material they are learning they are thinking about something else. Males then get a lead in academics, because
women are too emotional. The hormonal
differences causes there to be more intelligent male icons than female,
“Theories abound that there are more male than female geniuses and that boys
wind up ahead of girls in the classroom” said Fausto “and hence in the job
market.” (14) Men also rule the schools,
for their attendance is greater: “In 1903 James McKeen Cattell, a professor at
Columbia University and editor of Science, the official journal of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, noted that among his list of one
thousand persons of eminence throughout the ages, only thirty-two were women.”
(Fausto 14) The author thinks that men
are smarter than women due to the hormonal differences. Women are more emotional and men and this
leads to differences in cognitive ability.
Men develop a better visual perspective on things. Whereas, women develop greater communication
talents. (Fausto)
Men are also claimed to have a greater IQ than
women. “Men and women apparently achieve
similar IQ results with different brain regions,” stated Download “suggesting
that there is no singular underlying neuroanatomical structure to general
intelligence and that different types of brain designs may manifest equivalent
intellectual performance.” The reason
men do better on the IQ tests is because they use a different part of the brain
to complete tasks asked of them. This
region of the brain that has a lot of activity and material stays: “We examined
the relationship between structural brain variation and general intelligence
using voxel-based morphometric analysis of MRI data in men and women with
equivalent IQ scores. Compared to men, women show more white matter and fewer
gray matter areas related to intelligence.” (Download) Men show more activity in their brain than
women do. Men show more activity in one
part of the brain than women. “In men
IQ/gray matter correlations are strongest in frontal and parietal lobes (BA 8,
9, 39, 40),” said Download “whereas the strongest correlations in women are in
the frontal lobe (BA10) along with Broca's area.” Men demonstrate a greater level of
intelligence based on the different parts of the brain they locate information
from.
On the other hand, women tend to be more intelligent than
men. They are smarter in more studies
and work better in groups. This is
because women’s brains show more activity than men’s.
Women excel in more studies than men do. Girls are more intelligent than boys in most
studies but not all: “In 1927, Lincoln (1) reviewed studies that compared boys and
girls in a variety of areas. In
summarizing, the finding up to that time, Lincoln reported that girls excelled
in reading rate, spelling, handwriting, and arithmetic computation; boys were
slightly better in arithmetic reasoning, geography, and geometry.” (McFarland
14) This article is stating its opinion
that, on average, girls are smarter than boys.
“Using the Iowa Every-Pupil Tests of Basic Skills on a sample of more
than fifty thousand pupils” said McFarland “these researchers found significant
differences in achievement, favoring girls, in most of the areas studied.”
(14) Although women do not take the lead
in all subjects of academics, they still are smarter in more than men. Females tend to excel in more subjects of
school than males do. The subjects
include; reading, spelling, handwriting, and arithmetic computation.
Women have continued to get better grades on tests than
men. They also tend to have greater GPA’s than men: “As students move into
college, women have continued, women continue to get better grades, on average,
than men: 61% of females and 49% of males have a college GPA higher than 3.0
(Clune,Nunes&Choy, 2001).” (Halpern 93)
The difference in intelligence between the two sexes depends on a
multitude of things. “In addition, the size of the between-sex difference
depends on other moderating factors,” claimed Halpern “such as education,
testing conditions, personal and societal beliefs, and many more.” (99) Women have a greater GPA and often do better
on tests than men. Females can stay
focused and do much better in learning environments than men.
When more women are involved the collective intelligence
rises. The collective intelligence does
not reflect individual intelligence.
“There’s little correlation between a group’s collective intelligence
and the IQs of its individual members.” said Woolley “But if a group includes
more women, its collective intelligence rises.” (2) The author not only believes, but knows, that
when there are more women in collaborative work, the intelligence score is
greater, “Many studies have shown that women tend to score higher on tests of
social sensitivity than men do.” (Woolley 2)
This data is not relative to individual scores but it has also been
proven that women score better on tests, “The standard argument is that
diversity is good and you should have both men and women in group. But so far,
the data show, the more women, the better.” (Woolley 2) The teams with the least females were below
average. “Teams with more women tended to fall above the average;” said Woolley
“teams with more men tended to fall below it.” (3) We can take away from this article that the
more women in the group the better.
Women’s brains have a greater level activity. Women are smarter than men on average:
“Women’s brains showed a higher level of activity in the prefrontal cortex
which is often referred to as the CEO of the brain because of its many functions.”
(Are Women Really Smarter than Men?)
Women are smarter than men due to increased blood flow in the
brain. Blood flow is key for obtaining
information and remembering it later on.
“One of the first findings was that women showed an increased blood flow
in 112 of the 128 regions of the brain. This indicates that women’s brains are
more active than men’s.” (Are Women Really Smarter than Men?) They often times have better memorizes: “Another large difference between men and
women is that women tend to have better memories.” (Are Women Really Smarter
than Men?) An increase in blood flow
helps the memory remember information for a long period of time. Also, females have a more active brain than
men, “Women are also found to behave less recklessly than men, and in essence
live longer because they are more careful about their behavior.” (Are Women
Really Smarter than Men?) Women have an
advantage over intelligence because their brains are just wired to hold more
information. The ability to recollect
information from awhile back definitely helps when it comes to
intelligence. In addition, by having a
very active brain it allows females to think beyond ideas and not get
frustrated when learning new material.
Discipline is a large contributor to think about when
deciding which sex is smarter. Girls
tend to be smarter than boys because they are more disciplined. Boys are very aggressive and need more
discipline and attention than girls.
Their rapid brain causes their intelligence to decrease because they are
often distracted. “Boys on average, area
year and a half behind girls in reading and writing; they are less committed to
school” claimed Sommer “and less likely to go to college.” (14) The male species has no self-discipline and
gets distracted on a daily basis. The
female species knows how to control themselves so they get ahead of the males
academic wise: “In 1997, college fulltime enrollments were 45 percent male and
55 percent female.” (Sommers 14) A lot
more women enroll in college than men also.
The ratio of men in college was much less than women’s attendance and is
projected to decrease in the next couple of years. “The U.S Department of Education predicts
that the ratio of boys’ entry into college” stated Sommer “will continue to
worsen.” (14) All considered from these
articles, girls continuously show an advantage over boys when it comes to
academics: “A review of the facts shows boys, not girls, on the weak side of an
educational gender gap.” (Sommers 14)
This article is stating its opinion that girls are smarter because they
are more likely to pay attention.
By and large, what does literature “say” about which
gender is smarter, females or males?
This is a very tough question that has been pondered upon for many
years. We have not been in complete
agreement over which sex is more intelligent, but we can make a good hypothesis
as to which gender is smarter. Based
upon the reliable information collected, women look to be smarter. Only finding ten resources, five out of the ten
were in favor of the females. That is
about fifty percent. The other five
resources included; two that claimed no correlation and three that were in
favor of men intelligence. These were
all the articles that related to the gender intelligence, which concludes that
women are smarter than men.
Gap
identification-
The research I have uncovered is
written mostly by scientists. I have not
read any literature based on the opinions of common teenagers. Teenagers are the ones that feel the pressure
of doing well in school and are in a very competitive environment at least six hours a day, except on weekends. School is so competitive and causes issue in many
adolesents. But, do teenagers notice a
difference in female and male intelligence?
Do they know more intelligent girls or boys in class?Do teenagers notice a difference in female and male intelligence?
Methodology-
I chose
to use the quantitative method to further my research on gender intelligence. I
thought it would make more sense to use statistics to ask teenagers which
gender is smarter. “Quantitative
research methods and measures are usually universal, like formulas for finding
mean, median and mode for a set of data.” (Research Methods) In order to find out which gender is more
intelligent through teenager’s eyes, using numerical data suits this research
best. It makes it much easier to get
your point across quickly. “Quantitative
research involves analysis of numerical data.” (Qualitative versus
Quantitative) The quantitative data I collected lead me to a final answer. It gave me just the right information to draw
a conclusion. “Quantitative experiments are useful for testing the results
gained by a series of qualitative experiments, leading to a final answer, and a
narrowing down of possible directions for follow up research to take.”
(Quantitative Research Design) Overall, quantitative data was the best way
to form my data analysis. Data Collection Process and Instrument-
I created a quantitative survey to help me collect information on my research question. I printed out this survey and gave it to some students from Norton High School. They were asked five simple questions and just had to circle “boy” or “girl”. The first question was, “Is the smartest student in your English class, a girl or boy?”. Next, they were asked, “Is the smartest student in your Math class, a girl or boy?”. The third question they were asked was, “Is the smartest student in your History class, a girl or boy?”. Then, I asked them, “Is the smartest student in your World Language class, a girl or boy?”. Lastly, they were asked, “Is the overall smartest student in your grade, a girl or boy?”. Everyone answered these questions and gave the survey back to me to analyze.
Sample Population-
I gave
my survey to twelve high school students from Norton High School. Six of the twelve students were male, and the
other six were female. The student’s
ages ranged from fourteen to seventeen years old. It is important to survey people of different
ages and gender. This is because you want
a variety of answers so you need a variety of people. The large range of teenagers that took my
survey should be enough to come to a conclusion with my research question.
Data Analysis-
After
looking over the statistics I got from my survey, I think it’s safe to say I
have made a conclusion. According to
teenagers, 67% of adolescents thinks that a girl is the smartest student in
their English class and the other 33% thinks that a boy is. Girls seem to take the lead in English, but
what about Math? The survey shows that
67% of teenagers think the most intelligent gender in their Math class is a boy
and the other 33% of adolesants think it is a girl. We can conclude that for the most part, males are
smarter in Math than females. When I
asked them about which gender student is smartest in their History class, 42%
said a girl and the other 58% said a boy.
Although this is very close, the boys still show a lead in terms of
History grades. Next question asked was
about which gender was smarter in the student’s world language class, 83% said a
girl and 17% said a boy. Females
demonstrate an advantage in world language class over males. Lastly, 92% of the high school surveyed said
that a girl was the most intelligent student in their grade, and the other 8%
said a boy was the smartest student in their grade. This question is debatably the most important
question, and the females seem to be overall smarter than males.
Findings- After
reviewing the data, the teenage perspective favors female high school students in
gender intelligence over male high school students.
Based on the teenagers I asked, boys and girls have different cognitive abilities. Girls show an advantage in the subjects;
English and World Language. Female
students also are said to be the overall smartest gender in their grade. On the other hand, men tend to be better at
Math and History. I found similar
information in the literature I read about this topic. Women may have a slight edge in intelligence
but men can still be better in some subjects.
Discussion/Conclusion-
In
conclusion, women are overall more intelligent than men. But, men can also show an advantage in some
areas over women. This is important to
know going into the future. Women have been
pushed to the side for many years because they were considered not as smart as
men. Now, we can finally say this
stereotype is incorrect. In the future, I
hope women and men are given the same equal opportunities. Future research should focus on why women and
men have different cognitive abilities.
This will help everyone understand exactly why women might be more
intelligent than men and have different strengths in academics.
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