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Sex Differences in IQ
Conventional wisdom overturned
The conventional wisdom about sex differences in IQ is that males and females have the same average IQ. The conventional wisdom also stipulates that males are more variable than females, meaning that there are more mentally deficient and gifted males than females. Presented here is information from two good papers on sex differences in IQ that disagree yet end up having the same conclusion with regard to the high extreme of IQs. Additionally, data from Mensa Canada is given that agrees with both those papers on that point. Before continuing, it might be prudent to tackle one of the first objections that will be raised to a finding that the sexes are not equal in terms of IQ: that IQ tests are biased. Test bias is an intricate subject, and if you are interested in the details, the book Bias in Mental Testing by Arthur R. Jensen is suggested. (He started out believing that IQ tests were biased and through careful research ended up concluding that they generally were not). Let it suffice to point out the analogy of height differences: Men are taller on average than women. If one does not like the situation, one cannot seriously accuse the height-measuring device of being biased. Many people have been influenced by anti-IQ reporting in the media, and politically correct writings by authors such as Stephen J. Gould to think that if IQ tests show an inequality it is obvious evidence that they are biased. There are ways of measuring test bias and merely showing that there is a difference between groups is not enough.
WISC-R
The paper that supports the conventional wisdom is Jensen, A. R., & Reynolds, C. R. (1983). It finds that females have a 101.41 mean IQ with a 13.55 standard deviation versus males that have a 103.08 mean IQ with a 14.54 standard deviation. You may want to read the IQ Basics page first if you are unfamiliar with IQ and standard deviations. By just looking at those figures, it seems to corroborate the conventional wisdom that has been known for decades: the average IQs are about the same and males are a bit more variable. However, if the summary data is used to generate a graph, a different picture emerges:
Graphs drawn in Excel using the NORMDIST function. Note that due to the seemingly unimportant slightly higher male average IQ, the extra male variability does not mean that there are many more mentally deficient males. Instead, the areas under the curve show that at the high extreme, such as the Mensa or gifted cut-off IQ of 130 (indicated by the red arrow)
and above, there are significantly more males than females who qualify.
Looking at the graph produced from this meta-analysis, beyond the 130 cut-off, the ratio of the areas under the curve for males and females is about 2:1.
Conclusion
Male and female mean IQs are about equal below the age of 15 but males have a higher mean IQ from age 15 on. The effect of sex differences in IQ is largest at the high extreme of intelligence. Since many of the more prestigious roles in society are associated with high IQ, the lack of female representation in these roles may be partially due to fewer females being competitive at the highest levels. This does not mean that females should not be given equal opportunity to demonstrate their abilities as this would create an worsened artificial 'glass ceiling'.
If you have formal arguments to present (based on scientific sources, not what is reported in the media), . Especially appreciated would be please email them to references to any better papers on the subject or graphs of raw sex difference data. Because the
graphs here were created using summary statistics, they might turn out to be misleading if the actual distribution curves turn out to be skewed or otherwise aberrant. If you have informal arguments to present, then you are encouraged you to comment on this web page at the following sites:
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References
Jensen, A.R. (1980). Bias in mental testing. New York: Free Press. Jensen, A. R., & Reynolds, C. R. (1983), Sex differences on the WISC-R. Personality and Individual Differences, 4, 223-226. Lynn, R., & Irwing, P. (2004). Sex differences on the progressive matrices: A meta-analysis. Intelligence, 32(5), 481-498. This website Copyright Rodrigo de la Jara. If you want to publish or otherwise disseminate anything from my site that I own the rights to, just e-mail me first, telling me where you will use it. In almost all cases, I'll give permission if I am given credit and a link to my site is given. You do not need permission to simply link to my site.