Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In ...this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (
N
= 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development-including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth-were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated.
Research and theorizing on gender and age differences in self-esteem have played a prominent role in psychology over the past 20 years. However, virtually all empirical research has been undertaken ...in the United States or other Western industrialized countries, providing a narrow empirical base from which to draw conclusions and develop theory. To broaden the empirical base, the present research uses a large Internet sample (N = 985,937) to provide the first large-scale systematic cross-cultural examination of gender and age differences in self-esteem. Across 48 nations, and consistent with previous research, we found age-related increases in self-esteem from late adolescence to middle adulthood and significant gender gaps, with males consistently reporting higher self-esteem than females. Despite these broad cross-cultural similarities, the cultures differed significantly in the magnitude of gender, age, and Gender × Age effects on self-esteem. These differences were associated with cultural differences in socioeconomic, sociodemographic, gender-equality, and cultural value indicators. Discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of cross-cultural research on self-esteem.
Females consistently score lower than males on standardized tests of mathematics – yet no such differences exist in the classroom. These differences are not trivial, nor are they insignificant. Test ...scores help determine entrance to college and graduate school and therefore, by extension, a person's job and future success. If females receive lower test scores then they also receive fewer opportunities. Why does this discrepancy exist? This book presents a series of papers that address these issues by integrating the latest research findings and theories. Authors such as Diane Halpern, Jacquelynne Eccles, Beth Casey, Ronald Nuttal, James Byrnes, and Frank Pajares tackle these questions from a variety of perspectives. Many different branches of psychology are represented, including cognitive, social, personality/self-oriented, and psychobiological. The editors then present an integrative chapter that discusses the ideas presented and other areas that the field should explore.
Social status is a central and universal feature of our highly social species. Reproductively relevant resources, including food, territory, mating opportunities, powerful coalitional alliances, and ...group-provided health care, flow to those high in status and trickle only slowly to those low in status. Despite its importance and centrality to human social group living, the scientific understanding of status contains a large gap in knowledge-the precise criteria by which individuals are accorded high or low status in the eyes of their group members. It is not known whether there exist universal status criteria, nor the degree to which status criteria vary across cultures. Also unknown is whether status criteria are sex differentiated, and the degree of cross-cultural variability and consistency of sex-differentiated status criteria. The current article investigates status criteria across 14 countries (N = 2,751). Results provide the first systematic documentation of potentially universal and sex-differentiated status criteria. Discussion outlines important next steps in understanding the psychology of status.
Most published research focuses on describing differences, while neglecting similarities that are arguably at least as interesting and important. In Study 1, we modified and extended prior procedures ...for describing similarities and demonstrate the importance of this exercise by examining similarities between groups on 22 social variables (e.g., moral attitudes, human values, and trust) within 6 commonly used social categories: gender, age, education, income, nation of residence, and religious denomination (N = 86,272). On average, the amount of similarity between 2 groups (e.g., high vs. low educated or different countries) was greater than 90%. Even large effect sizes revealed more similarities than differences between groups. Studies 2-5 demonstrated the importance of presenting information about similarity in research reports. Compared with the typical presentation of differences (e.g., barplots with confidence intervals), similarity information led to more accurate lay perceptions and to more positive attitudes toward an outgroup. Barplots with a restricted y-axis led to a gross underestimation of similarities (i.e., a gross overestimation of the differences), and information about similarities was rated as more comprehensible. Overall, the presentation of similarity information achieves more balanced scientific communication and may help address the file drawer problem.
Bjorklund and Kipp (1996) provide an evolutionary framework predicting that there is a female advantage in inhibition and self-regulation due to differing selection pressures placed on males and ...females. The majority of the present review will summarize sex differences in self-regulation at the behavioral level. The neural and hormonal underpinnings of this potential sexual dimorphism will also be investigated and the results of the experiments summarized will be related to the hypothesis advanced by Bjorklund and Kipp (1996). Paradoxically, sex differences in self-regulation are more consistently reported in children prior to the onset of puberty. In adult cohorts, the results of studies examining sex differences in self-regulation are mixed. A few recent experiments suggesting that females are less impulsive than males only during fertile stages of the menstrual cycle will be reviewed. A brief discussion of an evolutionary framework proposing that it is adaptive for females to employ a self-regulatory behavioral strategy when fertile will follow.
Background: While there is clear evidence of sex-specific global and regional methylation patterns, these have yet to be examined within the context of central adiposity. We conducted a ...methylation-wide association study (MWAS) to identify cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites that exhibit sex-specific associations with waistcircumference (WC), WC-to-hip ratio (WHR), and WC-to-height ratio (WHtR). Our study included African American (AA) adults in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study (ARIC; 1,702 females; 982 males) with whole blood Illumina 450K genome-wide methylation typing data. Methods: We adjusted CpG beta values for batch effects and white blood cell proportions and used the resulting residuals in subsequent analyses. We performed sex-stratified MWAS analyses with waist traits using linear regression (or mixed model for family studies), adjusted for age, education, BMI, smoking, center, and 10 genetic principal components. Using sex-stratified results, we estimated sexinteraction methylation effects (INT) and main+interaction effects (JOINT), respectively. CpGs that reached suggestive significance (Pjoint or PINT < 1 x 10-6) were brought forward for generalization in an independent sample of European descent (EUD) adults (2,777 women; 2,299 men) from ARIC and Framingham Heart Study (FHS). Results: We identified a total of 43 non-overlapping CpGs (8 WC, 35 WHR, 20 WHtR) in our discovery analyses with evidence of sexinteraction. Of the 43 CpGs, 5 of them (cg06500161 near ABCG1, cg19693031 near TXNIP, cg00574958 near CPT1A, cg06192883 near MYO5C, cg23580000 near ADCY7) met Bonferroni-corrected significance in our generalization analyses for one or more waist traits (3 WC, 5 WHR, and 2 WHtR) in the JOINT model, including 2 CpGs (cg19693031 near TXNIP and cg06500161 in ABCG1) also significant for the INT model. Both of these CpG sites that displayed significant in INT had stronger effects in women compared to men (i.e., cg19693031 displayed ~4x effect in women (Beta = -0.23) compared to men (Beta = -0.06) for WHR) in our generalization. Conclusions: These findings underscore the importance of accounting for sex in MWAS, as differences in methylation of CpG sites in TXNIP and ABCG1 (these genes involved in glucose and lipid homeostasis) between sexes may help to explain sex differences in downstream diseases linked to obesity.
Since its publication in 1990, Gender Troublehas become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the ...politics of sexuality in culture.
While research suggests strong associations of self-compassion with mental health and well-being, gender norms may hinder the development of self-compassion by women on one hand, and men on the ...other. This study represents one of the first systematic analyses of potential gender differences in self-compassion using meta-analytic techniques, including whether such gender differences are moderated by age or ethnic minority status. Fixed-effects models were used to estimate the average effect size (ES) of gender differences in self-compassion scores across 71 journal articles and dissertations providing a total of 88 estimates. Results revealed that males had slightly higher levels of self-compassion than females, with a small ES observed (d = .18). This difference was larger in samples with a higher percentage of ethnic minorities. Researchers and practitioners should take these group differences into account in future studies and interventions focused on self-compassion, while not overemphasizing gender differences in self-compassion as being large in size.
Finite Difference Frequency Domain in MATLAB. Written especially for those who are new to computational electromagnetics, this book teaches you everything you need to know to simulate a wide variety ...of electromagnetic and photonic devices using the powerful finite-difference frequency-domain FDFD method. The book comprehensively reviews key concepts from electromagnetics and is packed with MATLAB codes and special techniques that demonstrate how FDFD can be applied to a very wide array of devices and applications. You will learn how to simulate three-dimensional devices like metamaterials and frequency selective
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