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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Many situations require us to make categorical decisions. Jurors look at testimony and judge whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. Police officers take aim at suspects and have to determine whether they see a gun in the suspect’s hand, or something that just resembles a gun. A man in his 40s begins to sweat and experience mild pain in his arms, and needs to decide whether it’s serious or not.
New research suggests gender plays a role in these decisions because men tend to organize the world into distinct categories whereas women see things as more conditional and in shades of gray.
Psychologists at the University of Warwick had men and women judge how each of 50 objects fit into a certain category—whether it belonged, did not belong, or only partially (somewhat) belonged. For example, is a cucumber a fruit? Is a horse a vehicle? After making each judgment, people reported how confident they were about their decision.
Men were more likely to see an object as fully belonging or not belonging to a category, while women more often judged that objects only partially belonged. The more intriguing finding, though, was that men and women were equally confident about their decisions. This means the gender difference was not due to men simply being more certain or women more uncertain about their judgments. Instead, it suggests men and women perceive the world differently.
This may happen for a couple of reasons. One possibility is that societal gender roles promote more absolute, black-and-white views in men and more detailed, complex views in women. Traditionally, cultures have rewarded males for being decisive and proactive, even if it means jumping to conclusions. In contrast, females are socialized to be more thoughtful and receptive to others’ views, even if it means being more self-critical. This socialization not only affects behavior and personality; it also colors our perceptions. For instance , women perceive greater risk across many real and hypothetical scenarios relative to men, partly because risk-taking is a central and esteemed component of the masculine gender role.
The inclination to make categorical judgments—along with a person’s comfort in making them—can have important implications. For one thing, it influences the types of professions people pursue, especially for jobs that require decisions to be made frequently and without hesitation.
Emergency medical workers—such as paramedics and emergency room doctors—need to look at a set of symptoms and diagnose a patient with a particular medical condition. Judges have to make decisions about the legality of evidence, testimony, objections raised, etc., throughout a trial. Managers and CEOs must be comfortable making definitive judgments over and over. All of these professions are heavily male-dominated, by about 2:1 in the U.S. Of course, there are many reasons for gender imbalances in occupations like these, and one might be the prospect of making all these decisions. At the same time, though, women’s more nuanced views are probably an asset in many settings, particularly when there is time to deliberate.
Let’s consider a second way to understand the gender difference in categorization. For this, imagine a simple study. People are shown 3 objects (e.g., seagull, squirrel, and tree) and asked to select the 2 they think should be grouped together. That is, they pick whichever 2 of the 3 things seem to “go together.” (These instructions are deliberately vague; nothing is mentioned about categorizing.)
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16 Comments
Add CommentI think the reason some women aren't represented as highly in some of occupations as men are in is because we are often less driven to seek prestige and power and to sacrifice family commitments for it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm becoming less interested in the differences between men and women as there is a risk it justifies discrimination. I would rather see focus on the differences in thinking and decision making across all people and what the related strengths and weaknesses are.
Also, that photo is ridiculous.
If the difference is "small but persistent" then it would seem obvious to me that it cannot explain a 2:1 ration of men to women in upper management generally.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArticles like this should refrain from attempting to explain such social phenomena. Social training is a huge variable. Until society stops giving men and women different messages about the relative value of considering nuances vs. making black & white decisions, there's no way you can say whether the difference you've observed is truly biological or not, much less whether it explains a complicated social phenomenon like the lack of women in leadership positions.
i think men think linearly (a+b) and women use their "intuition" (feelings) to see the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthere is a study which was reported in SA about the difference between male and female marathon runners. Each gender had its A group that ran at the front of the back but men had a very large B group that ran right behind the A group and women DID NOT. This means overall, men are more competitive and work harder that women as group, but not individually.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article sounds like it's making a broad generalisation. Have the scientists considered whether differences are greater between men and women, or within the sexes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, and the article also happens to point out one of the many failings of IQ tests.
It's an isteresting article. First of all it determines the way of thinking. People have to chose 2 out of 3. I would have prefered more open association; not demanding that like life vs immaterial. Because what you chose says also something about what you didn't chose.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFuther more one has not considered the fact that people can alternate between black and white thinking and nuances. The test doesn't ask for alternatives. If the test did people could argue why they chose what they did. As different situations call for different levels of details.
And last but not least context. If I have to fire 100 people whom I don't know I'm at a distance and I have to fall back on generalizations. At the other hand when I have to fire my co-worker I can't use generalizations because the relationship and cultural customs hinder generalizations in that context. So thinking about something is subjected to adaptation if we like it or not. Better experiment is to follow a fifty fifty trial in the same setting and problems. Judges, paramedics etc. As someone above mentioned how do you filter out the different kind of messages that have conditioned many.
Interesting article. I thought first of tree and squirrel, what did you all think of?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ Eric
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTree and squirrel.
Tree and squirrel go together. Gulls fly and squirrels climb trees.
discrimination is what we display our attitude towards male or female.what i think is that the basic difference in sexual role in males and females is matter of concern.women even if want can't enjoy sex with male if that male resists.on the other side man can have sex even if women resists.this what aggressive nature of males which dominated the society in past.as far as the role of aggression is considered,historically one needed aggressive so as to exist.now with evolution the role is changed.it is not only sex that one need to do.but n number of jobs have changed the demand charactristic.women can be as equal as mens.only the difference remains where aggressiveness do matter.there the difference is possible.discrimination is a quality person specific and can be changed with circumstances
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe reson for your opionion is that man is not dependable with feelings he need to involve with others (especially sexual concerns-u may b aware of sigmund freud,as per him sex and aggression r basic instincts.those who r more emotional do stagger with these.those who evolve above don't.a woman who is well evolved out of these two instincts are as man like in decision.contrary,men who r more sexual or aggressive r simillar to women.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbasic instinct of aggressiveness -what else
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto b equal one need to master-'relaxed alartness,detached involvement and effortless efforts'.once mastered one will b equal-pradip
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have had a couple of women say that women think more practical than men, that men are all into theory. However, I interpret it as women being more short-sighted, thinking only of today, while men hypothesize and think about what will happen in the long term. I also think we are not given the correct psychological tools to categorize things. A U.S. judge once declared that a tomato was a vegetable, whereas a botanist would call it a fruit. We have to think in two dimensions to answer this. One dimension is the origin (or past) of the object, the other is the purpose (or future) we shall apply to the object. For example, what category is a wooden spoon in, wood or spoon. If one axis of the graph shows wood, metal, stone etc., and the other axis shows fork, knife, spoon, chopsticks etc., then we can say it belongs to both categories. The graph is one box you can learn to think in.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeagull and Tree because neither is a squirrel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust kidding. I instantly thought seagull and squirrel because both are in the animal kingdom. They are both actually annoying pests too. I didn't group the squirrel and tree because that is a contextual dependency. In a cyprus grove the sea is right there and there may not be squirrels. It is difficult to decide without contextual clues, thus my categorical decision.
Is been more interesting to read the coments than the article itself. The article show us two diferent way of categorize three items, in this exercise there is no correct answer, it only show us two diferent aproches to formulate an abstract of reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnone of those are rigth or wrong, but certanly both can help us to formulate acurate knowlege from basic premises.
Both, Logic and fuzz logic are equaly efective metods depending on the context (uff!!! always the context...)
For example in Ecology may be more important study interactions beetwen spicies than separate them by taxonomi and in a warehouse is more important to separate items by class weigh volume, client or other criteria.
More important than comparate them is to put it together for a better analisis of information.
The "seagull-squirrel-tree" test is also said to differentiate a typical Western person from a typical East Asian person. So it's unclear how the gender differences should be combined to this cultural differences.
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