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> Even so, it can still be the result of life-long social conditioning, which determines what you want, part of which is gender role conditioning. So what? Why

> Even so, it can still be the result of life-long social conditioning, which determines what you want, part of which is gender role conditioning. So what? Why is it important to know what force (cultural, biological, gravitational..) in the universe determines what you want? Why should the society be defined by some other metric than preference of its individuals? AFAICT, the article tries to measure the preference, as precisely as possible. It strikes to me as unfair to the people expressing those preferences to say "your preferences are influenced by culture and therefore less valid". (If they are not less valid, what is the problem?)

kazinator 11y ago
> So what? Why is it important to know what force (cultural, biological, gravitational..) in the universe determines what you want? Because, for instance, you're a social sciences researcher and it's your job to figure it out and stick it in a paper. We also want to avoid jumping to some bad conclusions like "female humans naturally lack ambition, and that's why they are under-represented in the top echelons of organizations". The authors of the paper touch on this in the Discussion: > Identifying the origin of the differences between men’s and women’s professional aspirations is beyond the scope of the current research. Our findings may be the result of biological gender differences, learned preferences that have developed in response to cultural norms and gender-based discrimination, or both.
- asgard1024 11y ago
  Maybe I misunderstand you, but: > We also want to avoid jumping to some bad conclusions like "female humans naturally lack ambition" Why is it a bad conclusion? Maybe it's the truth (for arguably narrow definition of ambition). You don't want to get wrong conclusions from the research (whether you jump to them or not), but you cannot pick in advance which conclusion is morally good or bad. Preferences simply are somehow. I actually think we should consider psychological research into group differences to be unscientific, unless it is firmly based on biology. Ideally, these studies should be based on DNA rather than gender or race or religion or ethnicity. You can research preferences of people if you need to know them, but you shouldn't correlate them to some social group. I don't think society needs that kind of results apart from dinner conversations, because these results cannot inform the policy, which should be to respect everybody's preferences equally.

kazinator 11y ago

> So what? Why is it important to know what force (cultural, biological, gravitational..) in the universe determines what you want? Because, for instance, you're a social sciences researcher and it's your job to figure it out and stick it in a paper. We also want to avoid jumping to some bad conclusions like "female humans naturally lack ambition, and that's why they are under-represented in the top echelons of organizations". The authors of the paper touch on this in the Discussion: > Identifying the origin of the differences between men’s and women’s professional aspirations is beyond the scope of the current research. Our findings may be the result of biological gender differences, learned preferences that have developed in response to cultural norms and gender-based discrimination, or both.

asgard1024 11y ago
Maybe I misunderstand you, but: > We also want to avoid jumping to some bad conclusions like "female humans naturally lack ambition" Why is it a bad conclusion? Maybe it's the truth (for arguably narrow definition of ambition). You don't want to get wrong conclusions from the research (whether you jump to them or not), but you cannot pick in advance which conclusion is morally good or bad. Preferences simply are somehow. I actually think we should consider psychological research into group differences to be unscientific, unless it is firmly based on biology. Ideally, these studies should be based on DNA rather than gender or race or religion or ethnicity. You can research preferences of people if you need to know them, but you shouldn't correlate them to some social group. I don't think society needs that kind of results apart from dinner conversations, because these results cannot inform the policy, which should be to respect everybody's preferences equally.