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About 15 years ago I first heard that men generally have higher standard deviation than women over various measurable properties including IQ. I didn't know it
by eterevsky 3y ago
About 15 years ago I first heard that men generally have higher standard deviation than women over various measurable properties including IQ. I didn't know it was controversial until Damore's controversy at Google in 2017.
I still think it sounds highly plausible, since I didn't hear of any studies that would disprove it (links are appreciated).
If true it would constitute a benign at least partial explanation for men/women imbalance in some professions.
- yorick 3y agoMore about this on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis IMHO the evidence points to this being a cultural effect that can be changed with policy.
- eterevsky 3y agoDo you think it's fully cultural? I agree that it can partly be the case, but I doubt that it would explain all of the difference for several reasons: - Wikipedia cites the study that showed this effect for the brain size (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8675415/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8675415/) - IQ is known to be mostly genetic (see e.g. Pinker's "Blank Slate"), so it's unlikely (though not impossible) that the differences in IQ stddev are cultural - Wikipedia cites another study that found similar effect in birds: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7423667/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7423667/. This kind of difference could evolve due to different reproduction strategies for males and females.