Men and Women More Similar

¶ … men and women more similar than different?

ARE WOMEN and MEN MORE SIMILAR THAN DIFFERENT

Traditionally and historically women and men have be held to be very different. This work intends to examine the scientific evidence of the recent past in order to disseminate whether men and women are in actuality as different as one would be led to believe by popular assumption. It has been long held that men were stronger than women and that they were more aggressive and less emotional. There has also been the long-held assumption that men are better leaders than are women.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION REPORT

The American Psychological Association report entitled: "Men and Women: No Big Difference" states that the sex differences in the Mars-Venus assumption "appear as mythical as the Man in the Moon." (APA, 2008) Reported is a 2005 analysis of 46 meta-analyses which tested the likeness of men and women in terms of their personality, cognitive ability and leadership. Findings in the study conducted by psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde state that "males and females from childhood to adulthood are more alike on most psychological variables, resulting in what she calls a genders similarities hypothesis." (APA, 2008) Findings in Hyde's study include the fact that differences between the genders "seem to depend on the context in which they were measured. In studies designed to eliminate gender norms, researchers demonstrated that gender roles and social context strongly determined a person's actions. For example, after participants in one experiment were told that they would not be identified as male or female, nor did they wear any identification, none conformed to stereotypes about their sex when given the chance to be aggressive. In fact, they did the opposite of what would be expected - women were more aggressive and men were more passive." (APA, 2008)

II. PSYCHOLOGICAL SIMILARITIES

The work of Serge Guimond (2007) entitled: 'Psychological Similarities and Differences between Women and Men across Cultures" states that the majority of research on psychological similarities and differences between men and women has been pursued in the United States and Western Europe. Reported by Guimond is a study with findings that "much less-pronounced gender differences are observed, in Asian and African countries." According to Guimond recent research has shown that "social comparison and self-categorization theories suggest a promising approach to explain why more egalitarian societies can paradoxically create greater psychological differences between men and women." (Guimond, 2007)

III. COMMUNICATION STYLES of MEN and WOMEN

The work of Erina L. MacGeorge entitled: "The Myth of Gender Cultures: Similarities Outweigh Differences in Men and Women's a Provision of and Reponses to Supportive Communication," published in the Journal of Sex Roles in February 2004 relates that the 'different cultures thesis' has been popular for more than twenty years. MacGeorge states: "In brief, the different cultures thesis maintains that gender-specific socialization of boys and girls leads to different masculine and feminine speech communities. These communities represent different cultures -- people who have different ways of speaking, acting, and interpreting, as well as different values, priorities, and agendas. According to the different cultures thesis, masculine and feminine modes of thinking, speaking, and interpreting represent stylistic differences, not functional differences; each community is held to develop its own characteristic styles of addressing communication goals. Different styles are assumed to be equally valid and functionally equivalent; that is, within their respective communities, different styles are assumed to be equally effective at achieving intended outcomes." (2007) MacGeorge reports having conducted a study to test the communicative differences between genders and states findings that the result of the study "...provide very little support for the hypotheses' stated in the gender communicative theory. (2007)

IV. EXPERIENTIAL SIMILARITIES in GRIEF