The Correlation of Gender in the Study of Intelligence - Literature review Example

The Correlation of Gender in the Study of Intelligence Who is more intelligent, the males or females? This question has long been debated and critically analyzed by many researchers all over the world. To ascertain if, indeed, gender has correlation with individual’s intelligence, many researchers conducted investigations to find out any significant difference in the cognitive ability between males and females base on academic performance and intelligence testing tools. Some researchers further investigated on the neurobiological aspect of studying the similarities and differences of the brain structure of both genders to find out any significant difference that may contribute as an edge of one gender to another, as cognitive functioning of an individual originates in the brain. However, since other variables (age, socio-cultural, and environmental factors, etc.) may also affect brain activity and behavior, the amount of certainty for the differences in cognitive ability between genders base on the innate neuroanatomical brain structure pose complexity for the researchers in measuring individual’s intelligence. To begin with, clinical/educational psychologist Richard Pratt (2009) defined human intelligence as a very special mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience, and it is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smartness, but rather but rather reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings. Academic achievement is one of the most widely accepted aspects of life that reflects intelligence and because achievement is expected to accompany intelligence, a test that correlates with achievements has some evidence that it is measuring intelligence (Hersen, 2004, p. 26). IQ (Intelligent Quotient) test generally measures cognitive ability in the form of intelligence assessment tools. It attempts to measure the individual’s intellectual functioning or the basic ability to understand and assimilate the world and how this knowledge is being applied in life. Various qualities such as factual knowledge, short-term memory, abstract reasoning, visual-spatial abilities, and common sense are measured by IQ test (Rich, n.d.). Commonly-used IQ test tools that provide verbal and nonverbal assessments of intelligence are Stanford-Binet test, Wechsler Scales, and SAT (scholastic assessment test). However, SAT has been criticized for the possible effects of gender bias (Santrock, 2005). In connection to measuring intelligence among individuals, whether gender plays a significant factor that may predict one’s cognitive ability edge has been an interesting issue subjected under many investigations. Various studies were made in different countries all over the world to find any significant difference between the performances of both genders. In Turkey, one study to determine significant gender differences in academic performance among undergraduate students in a large university was conducted in Turkey by Dayioglu and Turut-Asik (2004). This study was based on three indicators; university entrance scores, performance in the English preparatory school, and performance (based on cumulative grade point average or CGPA) in the program where the student is majoring in. Results showed a gender gap in favor of male students in terms of university entrance score, as well as in the performance in English preparatory school. However, female students outperformed their male counterparts in the program where they major in based on CGPA. The authors concluded that despite their lower university entrance scores and under-representation in most departments, female undergraduate students outperform the males during their college years. Derived results have implications on the gender segregation by fields of study to open and encourage female students to get into lucrative study fields as the study have shown their competence in terms of intellectual ability. In Iran, a study to examine if a relationship exists between intelligence and academic achievement and if this relationship differs between males and females was conducted by Naderi, Abdullah, Aizan, and Sharir (2009), participated by 105 males and 48 females Iranian students who completed the creativity test. Participants were selected through the use of cumulative grade point average (CGPA) and intelligence was measured using the Catell Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT-3a & b). Using Pearson Correlation analysis, results showed an interesting finding that aspects of intelligence were not related to academic achievement for both males and females. One limitation traced on this study is the small size population investigated, thus the relation between intelligence and academic achievement is complex. While in Pakistan, researchers Ali, Suliman, Kareem, and Iqbal (2009) conducted a study to find out any significant difference between male and female medical students in scores on a structured, standard, robust test of intellectual ability. Participants were 150 medical students (75 males and 75 females) assessed on Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and data was analyzed using SPSS-12. Results of the study showed that male medical students as a group, scored higher than the female students as a group with a small but statistically significant difference. Thus, the authors concluded that the systematic difference in performance on the SPM favored the male gender group. Limitation on the small sample size was again trace as one weakness of this study. Consequently, more recent reviews of various large-scale studies conducted globally were integrated by other researchers for investigation. In the article of Zembar and Blume (2009) which is actually an excerpt from the book the authors have written, their investigations on various studies conducted in 2002 and 2003 about high school academic performances of boys and girls showed that, on average, most girls do better in school than boys, same with standardized achievement tests favoring females who performed better in spelling, literacy, writing, and general knowledge. In one large-size population study that they reviewed covering fourth graders in 35 countries, female outscored males in reading literacy but boys performed better than girls in science tests, while no differences found in boys’ and girls’ performances in mathematics. After fourth grade, boys outperformed the girls on tests of both mathematical and science ability (Zembar & Blume, 2009). Thus, these results have implications on the future careers of high school students concerning the educators, as well. In a summarized article of Machin and Pekkarinen (2009), the focus was on the differences in mean and variance in test scores, particularly in mathematics and reading, among 15-year-old students in 41 industrialized countries, where data were gathered from the OECD’s (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey. Analysis of test scores revealed that on both tests (mathematics and reading), the boys predominate extreme scores in low reading but high mathematics, while the girls predominate in high reading and low mathematics. Moreover with finding ways to trace any significant difference in the cognitive ability between males and females, some researchers attempted to focus their investigation on the neuroanatomical brain structure of both genders that may be significant to the study of intelligence. The University of California, Irvin (2005) study found significant differences in brain areas where males and females manifest their intelligence. Men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, while women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain (the reason why men are superior in spatial ability, thus they excel in mathematics) and white matter represents the networking of these processing centers (the reason why women excel in the aspect that requires language facility). Nevertheless, the difference in neurological pathways and activity centers in male and female result in equivalent overall performance on broad measures of cognitive ability such as those found on intelligence tests (University of California, Irvine, 2005). Haier, Jung, Yeo, Head, and Alkire (2005), purport similar findings when they investigated the 48 volunteers (26 women and 22 men) to examine the relationship between structural brain variation and general intelligence using voxel-based morphometric analysis of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) data in men and women with equivalent IQ scores. Results showed that women have more white matter and fewer gray matter areas related to intelligence compared to men, vice-versa. As gray matter is associated to function on tasks that require more local processing (such as mathematics), while white matter functions on integrating information (in language skills), thus, men predominates in mathematical skills while women predominates in language skills. IQ/gray matter correlations in men are strongest in frontal and parietal lobes, whereas in women, the strongest correlations are in the frontal lobe along with Broca’s area. However, both genders apparently achieved similar IQ results with different brain regions, suggesting that there is no singular underlying neuroanatomical structure to general intelligence and that different types of brain designs may manifest equivalent intellectual performance (Haier, et al., 2005). In addition to the neuroanatomical basis of understanding differences in gender in relation to intelligence, Dr. McPherson (2010) emphasized that, in general, males are better in spatial tasks involving rotation, while females have superior verbal skills. Dr. McPherson (2010) further explained that males outperform females on tasks involving mental rotation and spatial navigation, while females tend to outperform males on tasks involving object location, relational object location memory, and spatial working memory, thus they do better in arithmetic. As to the hemispheres of the brain in face recognition and identifying expressions, boys showed greater activity in the right hemisphere, indicating that they tend to process faces at a global level. On the contrary, girls showed greater activity in their left hemisphere, indicating that they process faces at a more local level. As to remembering emotional memories, women showed a more tightly integrated memory than men (McPherson, 2010). Another aspect to trace any significant difference in gender intelligence is on the basis of age. In Dr. McPherson’s (2010) article, his review of a study of 600 (85-year-old) participants, women tended to have better cognitive speed and memory than men, of which the result is attributable to women’s better health. In a study of 18-25 years old participants, found that men’s brain cells can transmit nerve impulses 4% faster than women’s possibly due to the faster increase of white matter in male brain during adolescence (McPherson, 2010). In children, Kanazawa (2010) analyzed the National Child Development Study (NCDS) in United Kingdom covering 17, 419 children who were followed for more than half a century. In this study, female children aged 7 and 11 reportedly showed higher mean IQ than males but at aged 16, males outscored females in mean IQ. Thus, Kanazawa (2010) concluded that females’ faster rate of maturity from childhood until puberty is a significant factor of the higher intelligence compared to males. Base on the preceding theories and literatures related to the study of intelligence covered in this research, it can be noticed that there is actually no succinct evidence of homogeneity in the results of various studies conducted by renowned researchers and psychologists all over the world that consistently favored one gender from another in terms of intelligence. This observation indicates that gender has no correlation to intelligence, taking into account the differences in academic performance, scores in intelligence testing tools, and neuroanatomical brain structure, between males and females. Predicting the edge of one gender to another in relation to intelligence is arbitrary because human intelligence is influence by many factors including the broad aspects of biological, socio-cultural, and environmental influences. Though more weight can be attributed to the neuroanatomical explanation of the differences on the brain structure between males and females, as studies showed homogeneity in the results that men have more gray matter than women, while women have more white matter than men, justifying why men excel in spatial intelligence, such as mathematics, and women excel in language and verbal skills. However, general intelligence is affected by other variables such as age, socio-cultural, and environmental factors. Say for instance, a boy and girl twin grew-up in separate environments where one receives more opportunities (such as proper parenting, good training, sufficient economic resources, education, etc.) to develop his or her knowledge, while the other receives lesser opportunities for honed knowledge, the general intelligence then between these twin will more likely be affected by these environmental factors. The idea that intelligence is malleable was discussed in the book of Kauffman and Lichtenberger (2006, p. 36-42), pointing out that IQ gains among individuals are certainly due to environment and not heredity. An article that also supports the idea of the malleability of intelligence which is significantly affected by environmental factors was presented by Figes (2011) as he stressed that intelligence is an acquired ability that reflects opportunity and experience such as comes from effective schooling and home environments, and that research has shown how the effects of poverty and restricted educational opportunities can negatively influence human development, including intelligence. Thus, whether it is the males or the females who is more intelligent is still uncertain. What is clear is that gender has no correlation to individual intelligence, in general. Male and female brains are different in anatomical structure, development, and ways of processing and responding to stimuli. Considering gender as a basis in predicting intelligence may be unreliable because human intelligence is a broad spectrum that is being influence by many variables including age, biological factors (such as neuroanatomical structure, genetics, and hormones), socio-cultural factors (such as gender-bias culture), and environmental factors (such as parenting, training, economic status, education, etc.), and upon which the extent of influence to intelligence may vary from one person to another. References Ali, M.S., Suliman, M.I., Kareem, A., & Iqbal, M. (2009). Comparison of gender performance on an intelligence test among medical students. Journal of Ayub Medical College, Vol. 21, No. 3. Retrieved 03 May 2011 from . Dayioglu, M. & Turut-Asik, S. (2004). Gender differences in academic performance in a large public university in Turkey. Retrieved 02 May 2011 from . Figes, O. (2011). Intelligence quotient. Retrieved 02 May 2011 from . Haier, R.J., Jung, R.E., Yeo, R.A., Head, K., & Alkire, M.T. (2005). The neuroanatomy of general intelligence: sex matters. Retrieved 04 May 2011 from Hersen, M. (2004). Comprehensive Handbook of Psychological Assessment, Intellectual and Neuropsychological Assessment, Vol. 1. (p. 26). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Kanazawa, S. (2010). Girls are more intelligent than boys, but men are more intelligent than women. Retrieved 04 May 2011 from . Kauffman, A.S. & Lichtenberger, E.O. (2006). Assessing Adolescent and Adult Intelligence, 3rd Edition (p. 36-42). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Machin, S. & Pekkarenin, T. (2009). Gender differences in test scores. Retrieved 03 May 2011 from . McPherson, F. (2010). Gender differences. Retrieved 03 May 2011 from . Naderi, H., Abdullah, R., Aizan, T.H., & Sharir, J. (2009). Intelligence and academic achievement: an investigation of gender differences. Life Science Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1. Retrieved 03 May 2011 from . Pratt, R. (2009). Human intelligence, can it be measured? Retrieved on 02 May 2011 from . Rich, J. (n.d.). Intelligence Testing. Retrieved 02 May 2011 from Santrock, J.W. (2005). Intelligence, the big picture: chapter overview. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Retrieve 03 May 2011 from University of California, Irvin (2005). Intelligence in men and women is a gray and white matter. ScienceDaily. Retrieved 03 May 2011 from . Zembar, M.J. & Blume, L.B. (2009). Gender and academic achievement. Retrieved 03 May 2011 from . Read More