Sex difference in intelligence under different culture and ages
- Pages:
- 7
- Academic Level:
- Masters
- Paper Type:
- Book Report/Review
- Discipline:
- Psychology
Paper detalis:
Write a critical review on individual difference based on the three articles The file named" id-luo" is a review that I have already written, which can be rewritten on this basis. word count is up to 2500 words for the main text. This includes your citations but not your References section. Try to develop evidence based arguments and clearly explain how the evaluative points raised impact on the findings and conclusions of the research you are reviewing.Carefully lead the reader through the steps in your reasoning and evidence each claim during the argumentThe purpose is to evaluate the scientific worth of the research you are reviewing - and crucially to demonstrate that you can develop strong evidence-based evaluative arguments. Finally, two excellent sample essays are given for reference.
Sex Difference in Intelligence Under Different Culture and Ages
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Introduction.
The topic of whether girls are more intelligent than boys has always been controversial, having been frequently investigated across ages and cultures. The results obtained have been inconclusive because some studies suggest that girls are more intelligent than boys at some point in their development, and other studies suggest that males are superior in their quantitative and visuospatial abilities than females who are superior in verbal abilities. Regardless of their age, these abilities are visible among males and females. While the exact age that these abilities emerge is not clear, the male advantage is reported to emerge at the age of five with their visuospatial abilities. Girls' advantage over boys in intelligence is explained by their high rate of brain maturation, which is faster than in boys. The common assumption is that females have an advantage because they achieve puberty faster than boys, leading them to mature faster. This assumption was countered by Lynn, who claimed that when boys catch up with girls during puberty, their intelligence becomes equal to that of the girls (2018). After puberty, boys develop faster than girls because their brain is bigger than theirs. Therefore, studies that suggest an intellectual difference between boys and girls yield questionable results. For example, according to a study by Dorota et al., neuroimaging evidence showed that girls have a faster brain development than boys, resulting in sex-specific developmental pathways (2019). The interaction explains the sex differences that boys and girls have with their environment based on their education and cultural experiences. This essay uses three studies to explain why age and culture contribute to sex differences in intelligence.
The three studies suggest that girls have a higher IQ compared to boys at a younger age. Dorota et al. conducted a cross-sectional study with children ages 2 to 8 from Germany and the Netherlands (2019). She used the Snijders-Oomen non-verbal intelligence test (SON-R 2-8) to analyze the differences in IQ scores. The findings were that before boys were four years old, their average IQ was lower and that of the girls was higher. At the age of six and seven, the IQ scores for boys changed because they achieved the same IQ level as girls. This indicates that girls, at a younger age, are more intelligent than boys. In the same study, Dorota et al. explain that the existing intellectual differences among males and females at a young age are small because when boys attain ages six and seven, their amount of intelligence levels with the girls. However, while Dorota et al. provide this information, they add that the similarities and differences in sex and cognitive development require more studies (2019). This is because there is no specific proof that differences in intelligence appear at a certain age. Being a cross-sectional study, the challenges associated with it make it unreliable. For example, to emphasize that girls are more intelligent than boys, it would be more effective if the same study was conducted on the same participants after some years. Larger samples are also recommended to provide better results. This is similar to a study by Chao et al., who concluded that boys obtained the same IQ as girls between 8 and 10 years (2020). At the age of 12, girls' IQ develops faster than boys until they are 16 years old. Similarly, intelligence differences also influence behavior among females and females at various ages in their lives. Chao et al. used Levin's standard progressive matrix to examine Chinese children and adolescents aged 8 to 16 (2020). They also used the standard progressive rectangle (SPM) and the color progressive rectangle (CPM) to conduct the study. The color progressive triangle is designed for children aged between 5 and 12 and is the easiest tool for testing and scoring. It has 36 items presented as three sets of 12 items. The standard progressive rectangle is designed for people aged between 6 and 18 years and is a 60-item test presented to children as five sets of 12 items. The color progressive rectangle (CPM) was proven to provide younger children with better scores and a higher completion rate. At the age of eight, girls performed better on the color progressive rectangle than boys, while boys from ages 9 and 10 performed better on the same test than girls. Some cultures, such as Oman, relate behavior to culture, contradicting the study that boys are less intelligent than girls. In an Oman study, there is a patriarchal society, and teenage girls are more interested in domestic tasks than boys, making them less interested in school tasks. Girls begin to think of marriage and family earlier, which makes their thinking less analytical than boys. This causes boys to have a higher IQ compared to boys. This shows the difference between patriarchal and non-patriarchal societies, where boys and girls have the same IQ at the teenage level. Like the other studies, Dutton et al. contradicted this study with the conclusion that adult IQs in developing countries lack sex differences that would be deemed consistent, primarily in Arab countries (2018). In Saudi Arabia, girls are considered to have a higher IQ than boys in their late teens because girls are more conservative than boys. Girls behave differently because they are kept at home to study, and their movement is more restricted than boys. Dutton et al.'s reasons were evolutionary and consistent with the study that sex differences in personality are weaker in developing countries than in the developed ones (2018). This creates a fascination for future research.
The three studies also address environmental factors and their contribution to sex differences in intelligence. A study by Chao et al. investigated the relationship between children and adolescents in China, observing their intelligence based on sex differences, which helped explain why many Chinese parents choose day schools for their children instead of day schools (2020). The results indicated that SPM and CPM are related among students of the same population. However, girls aged between 8 and 11 and those 16 outperformed boys on both the SPM and CPM. Boys between ages 9 and 10 outperformed girls in the CPM test. Day students had an advantage over borders because they had higher SPM and IQ scores, but this intelligence increased from 12 to 16. The reason for girls outperforming boys in IQ was due to them maturing earlier than boys at this age. However, Lynn explained that when boys reach age 15, they perform better than girls (2018). Lynn also concurred with the study that cultures affected the growth curves of sex differences and investigated the differences in cognitive assessment among Chinese day students as boarding students. As the age of students in boarding school continues to increase, the differences in intelligence continue to decrease. In China, girls in higher grades have better test scores than boys (Xu & Li, 2018), but Lynn pointed out that when students reach age 15, boys start performing better than girls according to the SPM test. While Chao claims that intelligence differences between boys and girls are caused by children being in day schools or boarding school, Lynn explains that the difference is determined by psychological well-being that arises from the schooling that boys and girls get. In China, the family environment determines the schooling that children will undergo. Naturally, children who are taken to boarding school have less intensive care from their families compared to children in boarding school, which impacts their cognitive development in early childhood. However, this study is limited because it covered cities in Eastern China. China has higher economic and education levels than other regions. Thus, to determine whether girls are more intelligent than boys, more studies would require to be carried out in different regions for more conclusive results. The study also had more day students than boarding students, making the average results ineffective. Similarly, Dorota et al. claim that environmental factors like equality of gender, education background, socialization practices and employment may cause an increase or decrease in cognition among boys and girls (2019). Further research should be conducted to determine the differences and similarities that boys and girls have in cognitive development to determine when they began.
Arguments have also been made, claiming that culture creates differences in intellect between girls and boys due to the growth pattern. This was according to a study conducted in Eastern China cities, which are regarded as having developed more economically and academically. Intelligence has been associated with the economy, and people with a lower IQ have poor socio-economic development. Lynn conducted a study to demonstrate sex differences in intelligence. Children and adolescents involved in the study completed Raven's Progressive Matrices, the SPM and the CPM. 6970 Chinese school students aged between 8 and 16 years were selected for the study. There was a rapid increase in IQ scores of children aged 10 and 11, and this score increased smoothly from ages 10 to 16. From the ages of 12 to 16, girls had a higher IQ than boys because they had a higher SPM score. However, Nasser et al. disagreed with this study when they conducted intelligence studies among different sexes in Oman (2020). The results were in line with the Development Theory of Sex Difference in intelligence, which indicates that girls and boys have no sex differences in IQ until 16 when boys start to perform better than girls. While Nasser et al.'s study contradicts Lynn's, it adds that boys have a higher IQ than girls because the culture in Oman does not promote female education in its religious and conservative society. This consideration validates Lynn's study because it would be expected that girls that are less intelligent be withdrawn from due to the negative relationship between conservatism and IQ and religiousness and IQ. This is because according to Oman data ranging from 2009, by the time girls are 16 years old, most of them have dropped from school more than males, which leads to the study concluding that boys have a higher IQ than girls. Thus, regardless of whether the girls perform better than boys, fewer numbers lead boys to record a higher number on SPM.
In summary, based on the studies above, the evidence of sex differences in intelligence remains inconclusive based on the three articles presented. First, while Dorota et al. argues that girls have a higher IQ than boys due to their brains maturing faster, they argue that girls' high IQ is due to their overrepresentation. Dorota et al. also argue that as girls and boys develop, their differences may become negligible, especially due to cognitive impairments and abilities. This leads Dorota et al. to conclude that more studies on the matter are necessary. Secondly, while Nasser et al. compare the IQs of girls and boys from different cultures in Asian countries, their results lead to the requirement of further research (2020). Nasser et al. state that more research is required to prove that the differences in intelligence between girls and boys are weaker in developing countries than in developed countries. In their study to offer insight into cognitive development and intelligence differences in China, Chao et al. explain that more studies are required to provide better findings. Their study investigates cognitive development in intelligence among Chinese children through Raven's progressive matrices (Raven, 2000). However, the study requires an extension of the present study to examine more factors that impact cognitive development among different populations in China.
References
Dorota et al. (2019). Sex Similarities and Differences in Intelligence in Children Aged Two to Eight: Analysis of SON-R 2–8 Scores. Journal of Intelligence. 7(2), 11. doi: 10.3390/jintelligence7020011.
Dutton, E., Bakhiet, S. F. A., Madison, G., Essa, Y. A. S., & Rajeh, M. Y. M. (2018). Sex differences on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices within Saudi Arabia and across the Arab world: Females' advantage decreases from childhood to adolescence. Personality and Individual Differences, 134, 66-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.05.048
Chao et al. (2020). Variations in Raven's Progressive Matrices scores among Chinese children and adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences. 164(1). doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.110064
Lynn, R. (2017). Sex differences in intelligence: The developmental theory. Mankind Quarterly, 58(1). http://doi.org/10.46469/mq.2017.58.1.2
Nasser et al. (2020). Sex differences in intelligence on the SPM+ in Dhofar in the Sultanate of Oman. Personality and Individual Differences. 159(1). doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.109880
Raven, J. (2000). The Raven’s progressive matrices: Change and stability over culture and time. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 1-48. https://doi.org/10.1006/cogp.1999.0735
Xu, D., & Li, Q. (2018). Gender achievement gaps among Chinese middle school students and the role of teachers’ gender. Economics of Education Review, 67, 82-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2018.10.002