Reactions to Research on Sex Differences
My appearance on the Science Unscripted radio show
Last week, I appeared on the Science Unscripted radio show and podcast with Conor Dillon and Gabriel Borrud, discussing my lab’s latest paper on how people react to research on sex differences. The episode is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. It’s also available on the Science Unscripted YouTube channel. I really enjoyed the conversation; hope you do too!
If you want to know more about the research, or if you prefer your interviews in written rather than audio form, here’s an earlier interview I gave on the topic:
Why People React Less Positively to Research Favoring Men
Over the last few years, my colleagues and I have conducted a series of studies looking at how people react to research on sex differences. Our latest paper on the topic came out earlier this year. Led by myself and my PhD student Xiu Ling Wong, it explores how perceptions of harm to women help to shape people’s reactions to sex-differences research.
In Other News
Later this week, I’m planning to drop my latest “12 Things Everyone Should Know” post. Check out my earlier entries in the series here:
12 Things Everyone Should Know About IQ
IQ is one of the best-known concepts in psychology, on a par with self-esteem, positive reinforcement, and the Freudian unconscious mind. Everyone is familiar with the term, and everyone seems to have an opinion on the topic. But like many ideas in psychology, IQ is the subject of a lot of misunderstandings and misinformation. Some believe that IQ tests are basically meaningless - that they don’t measure intelligence in any real sense or tell us anything about IQ-test takers except how good they are at taking IQ tests. Others go further, arguing that IQ research is malign pseudoscience aimed only at justifying discrimination.
12 Things Everyone Should Know About Personality
This is the second post in my “12 Things Everyone Should Know” series. You can read the first post - “12 Things Everyone Should Know about IQ” - here. Personality is one of the most perennially popular topics in psychology. It refers to patterns of thought, feelings, and behavior that are relatively stable over time, and which make each individual unique. Psychologists have made considerable progress in unravelling the mysteries of personality, including the extent to which it’s shaped by nature vs. nurture, how it contributes to our success and wellbeing, and how men and women differ in their personality profiles. In this post, I’ll explore 12 things everyone should know about personality. I hope you find it interesting and informative!
On a whim, I used my Gen AI toolkit to write a refutation of Gender in the style of Judith Butler last Sunday, (it wrote as Judith Butler and an array of other writers in 9 languages). The one written by plucky Nancy Drew was nicely done, and actually had some nicely readable sections on sex-based differences between ‘boys and girls’ you might enjoy.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l64vkkcs9q1z3hzt5tyi1/ButlerDrew_112233full.pdf?rlkey=d1k8968emvlmvkhw9i6s1hm61&dl=0
And the original pseudo-Butler
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5vwtrgnc06kipela6muug/Butler_112233full.pdf?rlkey=39zh8v4p2dsluni0xznlt1k8j&dl=0