When "Science Journalism" Is National Enquirer Journalism
A friend of Gregg's sent him a link to "Women and gay men are 'worst drivers'" from the Telegraph/UK. That's actually not what the study they're referencing says. The first commenter, a Gordon Rae, straightens things out:
This research was done in the biology department at London's Queen Mary University. It's not "social science". It was about gender differences in spatial awareness, not driving. And it says people are "different", not "worse".Please don't insult scientists because a Telegraph journalist decided to put some spin on the story.
The original (un-spun) report is at link.
The study is by Dr. Qazi Rahman, a cognitive biologist, with Johanna Koerting. Their findings (on straight women, at least) are similar to stuff Silverman and Eals discovered, published in Barkow, Cosmides, Tooby's book of ev. psych studies, The Adapted Mind.
I wrote a column referencing Silverman and Eals to explain why men fail to notice messes around the house that drive women crazy in short order (men tend to have greater distance vision and women tend to have better detail vision within a small radius). Here's an excerpt from that column:
It isn’t that guys don’t notice the filth, it just takes them a little longer -- like until the crud impedes access to the bathroom or the fuzz on the dishes evolves to the point where it hisses at the dog.Now, not every straight guy is a slob, and not every gay guy is fastidious, but there’s a reason the TV hit was “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” and not “Straight Eye For The Queer Guy” -- the home makeover show to help all the gay men whose living spaces have been featured in “Architectural Digest.” And, sure, there are squalor-dwelling chicks out there, but when a woman apologizes for her “disaster area” it’s likely she’s telling you she’s run out of color-coordinated Kleenex and forgotten to pick up fresh flowers.
Because many women can’t imagine that a man would think differently than they do (thanks, in part, to the toxic mold that is radical feminism) they often take it personally when a man invites them into what looks to be a one-bedroom/one-bath Petri dish decorated in a landfill motif. The perceived insult may be magnified if he’s a guy who typically looks shaved and bathed, and like he picked his clothes out at a department store, not out of a dumpster. I mean, jeez, in honor of your presence, couldn’t he have at least hosed the place down?
The truth is, as you suspected, straight guys just don’t have the filth and disarray vision that women and gay men do. Studies show gay men’s attention to environmental detail is similar to that of straight women, but in general, “the female brain takes in more sensory data than does the male,” writes brain researcher Michael Gurian in “What Could He Be Thinking?” How much more visual detail does the female brain take in? Well, in an object recall test by York University psychologists Irwin Silverman and Marion Eals, women remembered the name and placement of 70 percent more items than the men did. At that rate, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if a guy doesn’t notice the dog hair, beer cans, and Taco Bell wrappers -- at least, not until they start blocking his view of the game.
Men can be obsessive about detail, explains Gurian, but their mental and visual attention is usually single-minded and achievement-oriented. Gurian gives the example of a man’s meticulousness in building a model ship in a tiny glass bottle. “He is focused on doing whatever it takes to succeed in reaching his goal,” but in his day-to-day life, “he doesn’t experience the mess in the house as a challenge over which to triumph.” (There’s still hope somebody will come up with a Pro-Am tournament of housekeeping.)
According to Silverman, Eals, and other researchers, a guy’s tendency to let his home become a pizza crust wilderness refuge probably traces back to our hunter-gatherer past. Men’s current visual and attentional strengths correspond to what would’ve made them successful hunters: the distance vision and mental focus needed to track and bring home dinner -- instead of being eaten by what was supposed to be dinner. Women’s superior peripheral vision and ability to process detail would’ve helped them spot the family’s favorite edible plants in a big tangle of vegetation -- while making sure the children weren’t playing in wildebeest traffic.
Culture or training may mitigate the modern man’s natural crud-blindness. My German friend Thomas, for example, can be awakened from a deep sleep by a lone crumb in the middle of the counter. If you’re a clean freak, find a guy like him. Otherwise, if a guy’s a slob, but a quality slob, maybe resign yourself to living alone and having him come over to your place. If you must live with him, keep in mind that he probably isn’t leaving a trail of trash because he’s a bad guy, but simply because he’s a guy. To keep the peace, hire a good cleaning person -- hard to find but nowhere near as scarce as really great men you click with. When you find one, why let a little thick, green bacteria keep you apart?
Men and women are biologically different, and have different capabilities. No, it probably isn't, as one commenter over at the Telegraph suggested, "the toys you play with as a child." And by the way, other researchers have shown that girls, even those of the most P.C. parents, tend to gravitate to dolls, and boys will go for trucks, or turn a carrot into a gun (when denied toy weaponry), despite attempts of idiot biology-deniers to change that -- like this silly person who claims "Educators help young children grow beyond gender." Right.
"toxic mold that is radical feminism"? I've fallen out of my chair and I'm laughing too hard to stand up... you realize that they may take up arms against you, yeah? Although at least the Point Of View Gun [Thank you Douglas Adams for the amusememnt] won't work on you... although maybe if Marvin...
wait... you don't s'pose the radicals are actually...
Vogons?
Perhaps I'm a centrist, because I'm near-sighted then... If I was planning on having a femme over, I would use the excuse to clean within an inch of my apartment's life [having worked at a 5star resort once, I can do that...]
Day in and out? Yeah you gotta watch the dust bunnies, 'cuz they'll bite your bloddy kneecaps off...
Dunno, I'd respectfully submit that it isn't about seeing stuff, but seeing it as a threat, and caring about what other people think about cleanliness...
SwissArmyD at January 10, 2008 2:58 AM
I actually have a very male 2D/4D ratio (which is mentioned in the abstract of Rahman and Koerting's study), with my second finger much shorter than my fourth. Women tend to have their second finger longer or the same length as their fourth. More about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio
Anyway, I tend to have quite a bit of clutter in my environment. And then, I don't have baby lust. Wonder if that relates to my digit ratio/in-utero hormonal exposure. Interestingly, I also have large hooters. Haven't read, except in passing, on 2D4D ratios, so I have no idea what it all might mean.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 3:07 AM
Anecdotal evidence: we are reasonably PC parents. Our two sons were presented with the full array of toys. Both of them spend their time pretending things are weapons, vehicles, etc. - and have from the very beginning.
Their preferences became apparent when they were too young to have experienced any sort of peer pressure - by age 2, it was quite clear what they liked and didn't. TV was not a factor either, as at that age they didn't watch any.
Summary: their choice of toys is stereotypical, and entirely self-selected. Nature clearly has it over nurture.
bradley13 at January 10, 2008 4:15 AM
I have 3 girls, 2 on the autistic spectrum. Autism and male patterns of cognition and behavior seem to go together-Baron-Cohen at Cambridge has been working on this.
My 11 year-old doesn't clean well, but will be a great engineer. My youngest, girly-girl is the only one to like dolls more than Legos.
Ruth at January 10, 2008 4:23 AM
The truth is, as you suspected, straight guys just don’t have the filth and disarray vision that women and gay men do.
oh-ho, so us clean guys who dress well and appreciate the finer things in life (like art and wine) in our apartments gotta be "teh gay" now?
This is totally harshing my buzz, man.
Ayn_Randian at January 10, 2008 5:32 AM
Hmmm, verrrrry interesting. My BF is a hunter, and keeps his gear clean, neat and out of the way, except when he's preparing the night before to leave early in the morning, and then his gear is in a neat pile in the dining room. BUT, he has bought new curtains for the kitchen, without my even asking (and they actually matched the decor!), he cooks, he cleans up, he does laundry, and he even changes the roll of tp! My mom calls him "Mr. Domestic". o_O
On the other hand, both of my daughters are pack-rats. Their rooms are full of all kinds of stuff, but it's all in kind of neat piles, and they know where everything is. Drives me nuts. And while they will (once a week or so) dust and vacuum their rooms, it's done while moving their piles of stuff from one part of the room to another, and then moving it back! Don't even get me started on #2's Lego collection.
Flynne at January 10, 2008 5:35 AM
Autism and male patterns of cognition and behavior seem to go together
I smell a load. If 50% of the world's population conforms to the new definition of "autism", is that really a useful concept?
Autism is the new fashion disease. "Oh my little Johnny's autistic! Isn't that great...he'll be a brilliant mathematician but he won't know how to match his socks."
Autism is like, the disease everybody wants to have, like bipolar disorder was in the '90s.
Ayn_Randian at January 10, 2008 5:35 AM
Flynne - it looks like your facts spoiled this great, grand theory that "gay men and women" are fastidious creatures and straight men are slobs, all based on 10,000-year-old pseudo-evolutionary guesswork.
This isn't science. It's fun talking points for cocktail parties.
Kudos to you! People are complex and generally are ill-fitted to supertheories that move to define us all.
Ayn_Randian at January 10, 2008 5:39 AM
Autism is like, the disease everybody wants to have, like bipolar disorder was in the '90s.
Oooooo, that was mean. Obviously you've never lived with/known someone who has an autistic child. It's not fun and games, or "trendy". It can be, and is, for most, quite a nightmare at times.
Flynne at January 10, 2008 5:41 AM
A_R: my cousin has a mild Autistic like disorder. It's nearly impossible to forge a connection with him. I take care of him and his sister quite frequently when my aunt/uncle go away on their many vacations...the difference b/w him and his sister is night and day. I have a brother and, while he gravitated to "boy" things he was still a warm person. Still is...even if he's a goofy, "I'm so cool" 14 year old.
Autism is painful. You wonder what you did wrong. You wonder why your kid doesn't express love. You're kid flips out and displays extreme frustration and anger and isn't able to let you know why or what. It's taken a heavy toll on his parents' marriage (thus, the three times/year vacations alone - it really helped them a lot). They've had to go to counseling to deal w/ blame issues and to try and understand their child.
Is he smarter than most kids his age? I'd say so. But it's as a very expensive price. It's not trendy, it's just diagnosed more. People used to be considered weird or anti-social. Now their symptoms are called something. Good thing? Bad thing? I dunno.
Gretchen at January 10, 2008 6:12 AM
Gretchen-can I adopt you into our family? Most of my family blamed us for how weird our kids were. I was weird as a kid, too-it hurt to hear stuff relatives said, even though we weren't given a diagnostic label.
Ayn, check out the Online Mendelalian Genetics site under Pubmed. Autism is a part of the human genome. My brother's face blindness wasn't diagnosed as a kid either. Luckily, he is a good engineer, even if he doesn't always recognize his boss. (I always thought Any Rand was an Aspie-her book heros are definitely on the spectrum).
Ruth at January 10, 2008 6:25 AM
People are complex and generally are ill-fitted to supertheories that move to define us all.
Wrong. There are generalizations about people that don't fit every person, but when most people of a certain, say, gender, stack up a certain way, it says something about us as people. Men, for example, go for beautiful women. They do not care so much whether a woman is a "provider," or rules the world. In fact, this can be a big detriment as far as a woman's dating prospects go, as can being a tall woman.
It's very popular to say people are only individuals, but mountains of data shows that, for example, boys will gravitate to trucks and weapons when given a choice of toys.
In short, you're wrong, AR.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 6:39 AM
Honestly the variation within one gender is probably not that different from the variation between the two genders. I bet that one could not reliably predict what gender lived in a room or an apartment based on the level of messiness of that apartment. I'd be interested to see if they could try. (But they'd have to make sure they got photos of how people actually live, not how their house looks when company is over.)
I guess I really resent these studies because I get tired of hearing that women are "like this" and since I am rarely "like this" I start to feel like there is something wrong with me. I'm obviously not a "real" woman because I can live with pizza boxes for months and enjoy math. I feel like all they do is set some unrealistic expectation that all men are X and all women are Y, when in reality there are variations of X and Y in both genders. I just don't think celebrating studies that put people in little gender boxes is a great plan.
Ruth, I think I and my dad have mild forms of face blindness. I am terrible at recognizing people. They all look the same to me, I use hairstyles until people get really familiar. (Seriously, if an actor in a movie changes hair I get instantly lost.) I didn't know it was actually a disorder, I thought we were just really super weird.
Shinobi at January 10, 2008 6:48 AM
I'm an atypical woman (see the 2D 4D comment above - perhaps due to a shot of androgens in the womb) and an atypical person: a friend just wrote me to thank me for my comment that I celebrate no holidays and find them unimportant. What I don't understand is why people "resent" studies that suggest many or most women are a certain way. It's reportage, not a bad report card for you as a human being. I have ADHD, and I'm clutter-prone. Men are more likely to be color-blind than women (if memory serves me), but I'm sure there are a number of women who are color-blind. Men in 37 cultures prefer women with hourglass figures. Maybe 12 of the guys in each of those cultures prefer women shaped like men (android instead of gynoid). Okay, but they're the exceptions.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 6:55 AM
> many women can’t imagine
> that a man would think
> differently than they do
> (thanks, in part, to the
> toxic mold that is radical
> feminism)
I think that's absolutely true, and feminism deserves blame for helping to convince women that everything that's wrong with life is something that's been done to them. (In her Salon column this week, Paglia talks about "the snobby clubbiness and reactionary sentimentality of the fossilized feminist establishment.")
But on the other hand, I think nature conspires to convince women that masculine conduct is all socially constructed. In the years of life when men most strongly feel the physiological impacts of gender, women most strongly feel the cultural impacts.
We can't blame everything on Steinem, though the temptation is powerful.
Crid at January 10, 2008 7:00 AM
People vary, depending on sex, racial or ethnic group, and family inherited traits. As long as these variations are not the basis of discrimination (racism or sexism), I don't think it hurts to study this.
My interests fit with what is usually thought of as 'male' interests. Just as long as I am not banned from science and Star Trek because I'm a girl, I don't have a problem with that. Most women I know are more social and better at housekeeping. My husband is the neat one, but doesn't like sports. So I hate to shop and he has no idea when the Super Bowl is. Live and let live.
My daughters have different talents and need different ways of teaching. The goal is to get them to be independent adults. I wish I had known about Asperger's as a teen, so many hours of wondering why I was different could have been spent doing something usefull.
Ruth at January 10, 2008 7:34 AM
We can't blame everything on Steinem...
What about if we're just feeling just a bit lazy intellectually? Is it OK then?
I guess I really resent these studies because I get tired of hearing that women are "like this" and since I am rarely "like this" I start to feel like there is something wrong with me.
If people are stating things accurately, it should be that "women are more likely to be like this. Many writers (and people in general) don't grasp statistics and probability very well, which leads to lazy expressions that imply a greater certitude of individual traits than the theory implies. Evolutionary theory necessarily applies best to large samples where general population trends should be evident. That your own experience varies isn't surprising.
justin case at January 10, 2008 7:40 AM
Agree, Justin, which is why I'm careful to write like so:
I do a lot of thinking about logic and thinking, especially lately. My latest book purchase is this one by Thomas Gilovich -- How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. Haven't read it yet, but I've skimmed it, and it looks good.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 8:06 AM
More anecdotal evidence that proves nothing:
I've always considered myself a messy woman, and my husband constantly complains that I never put anything away. We live in a small space and he takes the challenge of keeping it organized very seriously. That having been said, he never seems to see dust or the little hairs he leaves behind when he trims his beard (yuck!!!). We've both always considered the other's untidiness a bad habit in need of modification and I don't think there's anything particularly "radical" about that view.
stephanie at January 10, 2008 8:07 AM
That having been said, he never seems to see dust or the little hairs he leaves behind when he trims his beard (yuck!!!).
Uh, see above, Stephanie.
Is it possible that, just as boys tend to play with weaponry or transportation items, your husband's way of seeing mirrors that generally found in men?
People have such fear that they might not be blank slates. Why not just accept that there are hard-wired male and female and human behaviors that tend to be common to many or most people in that gender or the entire population? For example, another book I'm reading is Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, by Tavris and Aronson.
People in general, when holding cognitively dissonant thoughts, tend to justify whatever preserves their ego. Now, perhaps you, like me, try to check for irrational thinking and do your best to be honest with yourself. Being human means that you have this propensity, hard-wired.
Regarding this and other stuff studies show to be generally true: Don't be mad, be aware, and use the information to improve your life and/or your life with others. The column I wrote above might help you understand that a guy isn't leaving his hairs in the sink because he doesn't care about you, and maybe it'll help a guy realize that a woman's going nuts about them because she's more prone to notice them. Not all women, but many of them.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 8:19 AM
It's true that guys have to really train themselves to clean. It can be done but it's definitely not easy. I gave up for the most part.
Instead I've solved my "my guy won't pick up anything" problem by living in a place with two bathrooms and two bedrooms. We sleep in the same bed but he uses the spare bedroom (IE nuclear disaster area) as his closet. He's messy, but at least it's a contained mess. Although about once every six months I have to go kill the monster growing in his toilet with industrial strength bleach. Haha.
Bad Kitty at January 10, 2008 8:50 AM
Amy, I'm getting your drift about the exceptions and I'm in a agreement with justin: general trends for large samples.
The truth is, as you suspected, straight guys just don’t have the filth and disarray vision that women and gay men do.
This paragraph you wrote didn't seem to take that into account. Granted you said that not every straight guy is a slob etc. etc., but if you recognize this, what would compel you to write the above?
(I always thought Any Rand was an Aspie-her book heros are definitely on the spectrum).
See., Flynee, this is what I'm talking about. Ruth thinks she can diagnose a person with Asperger's by reading the author's fiction. Like I said, trendy new disease. Just like ADD was. The whole reason I said what I said is because I do know what a person who has these actual diseases goes through, and the eagerness that some people have to throw those diagnoses around not only belittles those with the actual diseases but makes autism and Asperger's excuses: maybe you're just anti-social 'cause you're a dick...you don't get to claim that you can't help being a dick.
Ayn_Randian at January 10, 2008 9:02 AM
I don't think he's leaving hairs in the sink because he doesn't care about me. I think you're right - he leaves hairs in the sink because he just doesn't see them. It doesn't hurt me, but I do find it annoying in the same way he finds the shoes and books I leave all over the apartment annoying. When he asks me to pick them up, I usually look around, think "Shit, where did all of this come from?" and get to work, because I realize it's unfair to ask someone else to live in my mess. Similarly, I don't think it's horrible to ask someone to clean up a mess they've made, especially if they make it five minutes after I've finished cleaning the bathroom.
As far as gender differences go, I completely realize there are some things about my husband and step-sons that are completely fueled by testosterone. Their passion for football, their preference for expressing their emotions physically rather than verbally, their obsession with things mechanical -- all of these things are foreign to me and unchangeable. Probably the dust-and-little hairs issue is as well. But (to use Virginia Woolf's metaphor) we all have those little spots on the back of our necks that we can't see, and it doesn't hurt us to have someone else tell us that our own little spot is dirty.
stephanie at January 10, 2008 9:22 AM
Yes, it's much more common in men because it's an X-chromosome trait. Women only express color blindness if both X's contain a faulty gene while men lack a spare X to compensate for a single bad gene.
Anecdotal cleanliness bit: I once had a friend who was neat to the point of demanding the use of coasters and folding laundry before he put it in the hamper. None of the other single guys I knew, including myself, even owned coasters or a hamper. Once I asked him about it and he told me it was because he didn't have much growing up and what he had was crap, so now he's damn sure to keep his things nice.
I'd be willing to bet that even among tidy men their motivation for it generally differs from women's and they literally do "experience the mess in the house as a challenge over which to triumph” or some such.
SeanH at January 10, 2008 9:35 AM
Huh. I never noticed it before until I read the comments in here, but my second finger is shorter than my ring finger. It's not by much, but it's definitely noticeable.
My husband tries to keep it clean, but he mostly just looks at the big picture. I tend to think of this as a nice thing-- I can clean up as nice as I want to depending on my mood and he's happy about it either way. He also does me a solid by adhering to my request that if he wants to keep random bits of paper and junk around that he do it in a box or something. I adhere to his philosophy that if we have company over and I'm embarrassed about the state of the bedroom, we simply close the door. Not too hard to live with.
Jean at January 10, 2008 9:45 AM
>London's Queen Mary University...
My Alma Mater!!!
....and no, the new server forgets me as quickly as did the old one.
Stu "El Inglés" Harris at January 10, 2008 9:48 AM
It's Joe Esterhasz. He lies in wait, and sees you about to post, then pulls the cgi rug out.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 9:53 AM
Bradley, my grandson too! He'll build a gun out of legos. I have given way on that. I bought him a knight and dragon set for Christmas. He is absolutely nuts about knights, dragons and Lightning McQueen and cars and vehicles of any kind. Spongebob and Spiderman/superheroes come in second to these. Third are animals even though he's allergic to cats and dogs but I blame myself for this. I am just plain weird about cats.
What's comical and I'm not sure just how this plays into the topic at hand but for some reason he finds me just plain imitatable. He copies everything I do; even my smallest actions I will find repeated back. This may be in part due to his personality is very like mine and my daughter is the opposite of us both and his father pretty bland and boring. (I think I'm boring but must not be because I find people either love me or hate me with few in between.) He's outspoken and rebellious and curious about everything. But he also imitates sounds. In a different era, he'd have had quite a career as a sound-effects man because he hears noises and echoes them back perfectly -- everything from birds to trains to a squeaky hinge, anything that catches his ear. Oddly, at 4, he talks clearly only about half the time (and is currently being evaluated for speech therapy even though he's very bright).
"maybe you're just anti-social 'cause you're a dick...you don't get to claim that you can't help being a dick." LOL! You confessing something here, AR?
Donna at January 10, 2008 10:27 AM
"maybe you're just anti-social 'cause you're a dick...you don't get to claim that you can't help being a dick." LOL! You confessing something here, AR?
BWAAHAhahahaha! Thank you Donna, I couldn't have said it better! Sorry AR, but that was too good -go ahead and take a shot at me, if you want! o_O
Flynne at January 10, 2008 10:43 AM
I forgot the little emoticon after my comment about Ayn Rand-it was meant to be a joke. But just because something was not diagnosed 50 years ago, doesn't mean it didn't exist. We now know schizophrenia is not witchcraft, some problems with language/sensation/social skills are now placed under a label, 'autism'.
My daughter worked out square roots on her own, but needed to be taught what a smile and frown meant. That is a real difference in brain wiring, not being a jerk. Understanding that, I can help her find a place in the world that uses her strengths and not her weak points. So our family goes into science and engineering, not sales. Society needs both, just don't force the the square pegs into your narrow round holes.
Ruth at January 10, 2008 10:48 AM
I agree with Amy's take in general, but still wonder - how do you balance an acceptance that many generalizations and stereotypes are likely to be true for lots of people of a given gender (or other group) and still be able to be fair?
Often you have to evaluate people on imperfect or incomplete info. So do you say, well, this male and this female look very similar on paper, but the woman's likely to be neater and quieter so I'll rent her the apartment, and the man's likelier to be stronger with math so I'll give him the accounting job?
This I think is most people's gut objection to generalizations like these... not that they aren't frequently true but that they will be used - sometimes quite unfairly - to make decisions that affect real people who don't necessarily match the stereotype.
BerthaMinerva at January 10, 2008 11:47 AM
Society needs both, just don't force the the square pegs into your narrow round holes.
Ruth, due respect, but I'm not the one jumping up to label people as "diseased" who act in contravention to social norms. I'm advocating that not everyone who exhibits anti-social tendencies but a tendency towards brightness be force into the narrow hole of "autism/Asperger's" Diseases are bad things to be treated and cured. Acting differently should not be classified as a disease...kind of like how there's nothing particularly wrong with introversion, but some people want to classify that as a psychological ill.
I see a lot of the ADD overdiagnosing problem in the current rash of autism/Asperger's. Kids bored with school (and why shouldn't they be?) were quickly labeled as diseased and dosed. The same thing is happening with autism.
"maybe you're just anti-social 'cause you're a dick...you don't get to claim that you can't help being a dick." LOL! You confessing something here, AR?
You guys take me well, so props for that. Thanks for the teasing...I was raised in a teasing/caustic sort of family, so I know I'm loved.
Yeah, I'm kind of a dick. It happens.
Ayn_Randian at January 10, 2008 12:01 PM
Stereotypes are useful, and that's why we have them. They are a mental shortcut that we use rather than process the mass of information around us, or in the lack of information. I think it's called heuristics. We're wired to conserve mental resources so that we're not so busy working some finer point out that the cave lion sneaks up and eats us.
We are capable of overriding these shortcuts if we are motivated to do so. For instance, we desire to preserve our ego, but we also desire to be accurate, so if our desire to be accurate outweighs our cognitive laziness we can overcome the stereotype. Also, being aware of our tendency to stereotype helps us to prioritize accuracy over quick judgments.
So, if you want to hire equally, or want to rent fairly, you can. What we need to do is inspire the desire to be fair, not deemphasize our differences because some people aren't fair.
That's the lecture for today folks. A whole semester of social psych distilled in one easy blathering.
christina at January 10, 2008 12:20 PM
There is a more general (pardon the pun) form of this aversion: the total rejection of generlizations. Time and time again, I encounter people who think all generalizations are illegitimate. On the principle of charity, they have a small point. It's easy to find examples of the fallacy of division. It's even easier to find examples of the fallacy of extent. From these examples, the opponent of generalizations concludes all generalizations are false.
Ironically, this is a false generalization, an example of the fallacy of converse accident. Exceptions don't necessarily (but may) invalidate generalizations.
A generalization can be mathematically characterized. Such is the science of statistics. If judgments of some sort approximate a normal distribution, we can get all sorts of useful information about the group. And that's the rub. Generalizations are facts about the group not the individuals comprising the group. This fact is hard for some people to grasp. I'm not sure why.
From valid generalizations, we can make judgments about probabilities and relative frequencies: just the kind of information needed to inform policy judgments. It takes only a little imagination to see that deciding not to nag a man for different cleaning priorities is an answer to a policy question.
Jeff at January 10, 2008 2:17 PM
Thanks, Jeff -- good stuff.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 2:20 PM
Heuristics are "rules of thumb."
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 2:21 PM
Yeah, I'm kind of a dick. It happens.
We love dick.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2008 2:23 PM
Harvey Mansfield has throughly analyzed the concept of stereotype as cognitive shortcut in his book Manliness. He criticizes the idea of a cognitive shortcut on the basis that sexual stereotypes are true and valid generalizations, on the science. In the chapter "Manliness as Stereotype," he writes
Stereotype as "cognitive shortcut" is pregnant with triplets: a false language, a false objectivity, a fraudulent goal.Jeff at January 10, 2008 2:47 PM
Wow... I try to make it clearer and others try to make it more opaque.
Sometimes science is congruent with common belief because we're not idiots and we occasionally notice things that happen again. We knew about gravity before we knew about the physics of it. Maybe I'm missing something, but because they are sometimes parallel doesn't mean it's wrong because it's not complex enough. And I would like to see where it was decided that "stereotype is a concept designed to improve on common belief." Eh?
"the duty of science to sit in judgment over popular prejudice" Where did you come up with this duty?
"Evasion of any attempt to learn." Ummm... duh. We know that stereotypes are fallible, and just because they're wrong sometimes doesn't mean they're not a useful tool.
Christina at January 10, 2008 4:38 PM
Ah. But that's the problem. Social Science is quite unlike Physical Science. The physical world is universally regular, so we can induce conclusions from experiment. Human action lacks universal regularity, so we cannot induce conclusions from experiment. Weber's critique of Comte's positivism is rather decisive on this point, IMHO.
For information on the notion of stereotype as an antidote to common belief, see Fiske, "Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination" in Gilbert, Fiske, Lindzey, eds. Handbook of Social Psychology.
Oh no. Mansfield wrote, "prejudice is a claim to know, in that sense 'cognitive,' but one mustn't forget that it's also an evasion of any attempt to learn." He wasn't saying that stereotype is an evasion, but rather that prejudice is an evasion. Social scientists equivocate and lose an important distinction. Some cognizing intends to learn, and some intends to avoid learning.
Mansfield is pointing out that stereotype is itself a cognitive shortcut, stereotyping common belief, basing itself in a scientific prejudice against common sense observations of sex differences. Mansfield again,
The social sciences smuggle premises, they want to condescend to common sense even while they take advantage of it. General observations, like those offered by Amy, are often part stereotype and part common sense. One difficulty is to sort one from the other. A more interesting problem is to go beyond both.I like Amy's blog precisely because she attempts to do the latter. And because she's a freakin' goddess, too. ;-)
Jeff at January 10, 2008 6:07 PM
As a generally untidy male who has dated both tidy and untidy females (though more tidy than not) and lived with both tidy and untidy straight males as roommates, I feel the difference is more that it is probably an innate characteristic than anything. The characteristic seems on annectodal evidence to be slanted towards women and gay men.
My girlfriend has helped me clean my apartment and always asks me "Doesn't that feel better?" My answer is usually yes it certainly looks better, but as per feeling, it only feels minimally better (and that's mainly because I know it makes her feel better). Really as much as I'd like it to, being in a clean environment doesn't "feel" much different to me. I'm trying, but I really don't care that much.
As for the tidy straight men, all of their moms have told me they were always like that.
This also goes with the fact that it's always the neater person who decides what constitutes what is "clean." This makes sense becasue the cleaner person feels uncomfortable quicker.
Overall though it's a messy situation, but I'd love to read about statistics. I'd love a good broad survey broken down by gender and sexual orientation just showing the participants photos and having them rank dirtyness.
flighty at January 10, 2008 7:14 PM
Rita Rudner said it best. "Men are like bears with furniture."
Guilty as charged.
Bikerken at January 10, 2008 10:48 PM
> It was about gender differences
> in spatial awareness
I've never met a woman who was sufficiently impressed with Google Earth.
Crid at January 11, 2008 12:14 AM
"Men are like bears with furniture."
Oh cute. Men are animals...ah ha ha ha.
Hilarious.
Ayn_Randian at January 11, 2008 11:36 AM
I don't care how many studies show girls preferring to play with dolls or boys with guns: sex-role training begins AT BIRTH, if not before, when parents know the sex of the child. There may very well be inherent differences between male and female, but none of the things you reference are any proof of it. It sounds like you're the one with the agenda.
Maya at January 11, 2008 1:27 PM
> There may very well be
> inherent differences between
> male and female
You have doubts?
This is what I was getting at the other day. There's a particular kinda woman, sometimes young but almost always too sheltered, who wants very badly to believe that men are that way because society makes them that way.
That shit makes me crazy. Feminine minds are already disposed to smothering... A bad attitude shouldn't be tolerated....
Crid at January 11, 2008 2:06 PM
"sex-role training begins AT BIRTH, if not before"
Um, yeah, if you want to call evolution "training," then it did start way before anyone currently living was born.
Seriously, I was raised by a feminist mother and I used to think the same thing as you, because it seems like the simplest, neatest, fairest way that the world could operate and, of course, it's good to be very skeptical of studies involving human psychology.
Anyway, I read a few books, started observing the world around me more honestly and woke-the-fuck-up. On the whole, I recommend it. Amy has an excellent book list that you could consult. I'd start with Richard Dawkins to get a good background on evolution and then move to the evolutionary psychologists.
Shawn at January 11, 2008 3:05 PM
This is a senselessly big topic with me. Some lady commenter in the last two weeks talked about how men raised by single women tend to be exceptionally twitchy about feminine manipulation. (I may have some energy like that.) If you're the one who made that comment, please identify yourself... No biggie, I'm just too lazy to go back and look it up. Raise your hand and I'll have Amy shoot you some premium blog swag... Maybe the pink Advice Goddess Sports Bottle with the chartreuse stripes, or the Tall 'n Laconic Boyfriend bobblehead doll, or perhaps the adorable LucyLink™ keychain ornament. Who knows what treats your mailbox may bring!
Crid at January 11, 2008 4:05 PM
Naturally anyone is free to disagree with every sentence I posted, but I would like to point out a few things:
1. I am not female.
2. I am not young.
3. I have not led a sheltered life.
4. I don't know what Crid means by "the way" that men are; apparently I have missed out on this particular brain washing.
5. I've read plenty of Richard Dawkins, thank you.
My last sentence about Amy being the one with an agenda was inflammatory, and in retrospect it was counter-productive to include it, as it made my comments seem more flame-inducing than I intended them to be. But I think it also provoked an excellent example of the close-mindedness of those who believe themselves to be logical or unemotional thinkers. You've invented an entire persona for me based on one opinion.
Maya at January 12, 2008 9:48 AM
Maya, I'm still groggy from anesthesia from a procedure I had done yesterday, but, in short, you're wrong, and girls with CAH disprove what you wrote.
There's more than that that -- but I have to go back to bed now.
Amy Alkon at January 12, 2008 9:50 AM
If somebody with more awake brain matter than I have at the moment wants to look this up: try sex differences in infants. Etc.
Amy Alkon at January 12, 2008 9:56 AM
> 1. I am not female.
We'll be the judge of that! (see also, Ayn_Randian)
2. I am not young.
We'll be the judge of that, too! (see also, Ayn_Randian)
3. I have not led a sheltered life.
Did you ever shoot a man in Reno, just to watch him die?
> apparently I have missed out
> on this particular brain washing.
You should put your case in the affirmative, rather than backhandedly ('...but you never prooooooooved there are "inherent sex differences"...').
How do you think it works? Take a risk. Express yourself.
Crid at January 12, 2008 11:24 AM
I think some of you are succumbing to the false logic of the idea that “what is now, always has been and always shall be.” Evolutionarily speaking, humans are the most adaptable species that has ever existed. Our great success is due to our ability to survive and thrive in changing environments, even when that change is caused by humans ourselves. This argues for LESS "hard-wiring" of the brain, not more. But again, I am not disputing the idea of differences between male and female, I am saying that these studies are worthless in proving them. They tend to ignore the fact that little girls also play with guns and little boys also play with dolls. If these differences are so innate, then why are males even capable of nurturing a child, or females even capable of taking up a weapon?
Maya at January 14, 2008 8:14 AM
Maya, across cultures, in cultures without television, boys and girls behave like boys and girls from a very young age. Even boys and girls socialized by parents who are dim enough to believe gender is merely a social construct. Those parents, to their dismay, find the (hormonally normal) little boys generally picking up guns and trucks and the (hormonally normal) little girls generally playing with their dollies. Few girls and boys will go in the reverse.
Amy Alkon at January 14, 2008 8:33 AM
> Evolutionarily speaking, humans
> are the most adaptable species
> that has ever existed.
What on Earth makes you think so? We're maybe 100,000 years old, 200,000 tops. Until very recently, each human life was a flashing glimpse of starvation and misery. What are you so proud of?
> Our great success
...again...
> is due to our ability to survive
> and thrive in changing environments
Says who? I think our achievement is better explained by our ability to record our adaptive efforts, successful and otherwise, in offline compendia, i.e., we can write shit down. Others can learn from our notes, even from our mistakes, long after we're dead. It's not just that we're good at taking punches.
> I am saying that these studies
> are worthless in proving them
Now, why would you be so eager to do that?
> why are males even capable
> of nurturing
Why wouldn't they be?
Amy nailed this earlier: Some truths are general. People who try to dispute them by noting specific instances where they don't apply seem always to be (1.) quibblers, (2.) irony-deficient, and (3.) nihilist.
If you had to live your life based only on specific, laboratory-tested proofs, you'd be dead before sundown.
Crid at January 15, 2008 10:12 PM
Leave a comment