Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Men vs. Women: How Different Are We? (Hint: 'Different Species')

From the financialbrand.com (find it here)
A new study published by the Public Library of Science (and written about here) tells us what we knew: men and women are different. How different? Pretty much so, say as in "different species," according to the one of the researchers for the report.

The study measured a list of personality traits and came up with this: "men are far more dominant, reserved, utilitarian, vigilant, rule-conscious, and emotionally stable, while women are far more deferential, warm, trusting, sensitive, and emotionally 'reactive.'" There were some similarities, though not many: "The two sexes were roughly the same when it came to perfectionism, liveliness, and abstract versus practical thinking."

Paul Irwin, a researcher from the University of Turin who was in on this project, summed it up nicely: "If you translate it into the simplest terms, only 18 percent of men and women match in terms of personality profiles, and that's staggeringly different from the consensus view." Irwin used the term "different species" to describe the gap.

(The graphic is from thefinancialbrand.com and illustrates Men vs. Women: Two Different Perspectives on Money.)

5 comments:

  1. Hm. Based on the graphic, I think all this data indicates is that men make more money than women. I'm on the skeptical side about the validity of this study's findings. It has to be replicated by others to have value.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jill: The graphic has nothing to do with the study. It's just interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Okay, then I would say the info presented in the graphic definitely reveals income disparity -- nothing more. The other study, I'm not so sure about without examining their sampling methods, etc. I certainly think men and women are different, but not so different as to be called "different species." That's ridiculous!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jill: Coming at it from the male persuasion, I tend to agree about the "species" difference. You've never tried to understand a woman unless you've tried as a man.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, I can never know that! So . . . vive la difference.

    ReplyDelete