Introduction
Cognitive Abilities refers to abilities such as concept formation, intelligent quotient, memory, problem solving, perception, visualization, attention, language learning abilities, mental imagery and actions. It has been argued variously about the cognitive skills of men and women and while some argue that men have better cognitive skills others argue that women are equally adept in certain grades of cognitive skills. The paper would argue that there is no difference between men and women as far as general cognitive skills are concerned. However, there are certain patterns observed where men and women show different scores for different types of cognitive abilities.
Main body
The question of women’s intelligence in comparison to men has been debated since the past few centuries with Charles Darwin arguing that women were inferior to men as far as the mental ability was concerned. This may have been true to a certain extent since in the medieval era and even in the 18th century, women were vain creatures who were only interested in gossip and dressing. Learning and writing was a rarity in those days and even many Kings were illiterate and it was only scholars who could read and write. The issue came up again while deciding if women should be allowed to vote. However, all argument pro and con were based on anecdotal data and no proper scientific tests were conducted. Paul Broca discovered in 1861 after weighing brains from male and female cadavers that male brains weighted 1.325 kilograms on an average while female brains weighted 1.144 kilograms. The conclusion drawn was that since men’s brains were larger, they had more intelligence. This study did not consider factors such as body weight to brain ratio and the social background of the subjects and hence the results are rejected for this paper (Colom, 2002).
The American Psychological Association conducted a study among a number of male and female graduates and undergraduates to asses their IQ levels. The professionally administered and conducted tests showed that there was no statistically significant difference in the IQ of men and women. Lynn (1999) on the other hand reviewed published results of standard tests and concluded that men had an IQ of 3 to 4 points higher than women. He further conducted tests using Standard and Advanced Progressive Matrices and concluded that men had an IQ greater than 5 points than women. However, Ankney (2002) conducted tests on 2404 people by subjecting them to the California Verbal Learning Test. The author concluded that there were certain mediating variables that influenced the scores for men and women. When these variables were in favour of men, they tended to score higher and the reverse was also true and the author concluded that there was no evidence to show that men were essentially more intelligent than women. The series of tests show that both APA and Ankney conducted tests that were designed to prevent certain variables that influenced either men’s or women’s scores and these results are more admissible. On the other hand, the tests conducted by Lynn are not acceptable since there was no effort to control these variables.
Janowsky (2004) that significant distribution among scores on different types of tests existed among men and women. Men scored higher in tests that tested spatial abilities such as mental rotation, tracking of moving object that goes through space. Men also scored higher on the digit span backwards tests and on the reaction time tests. On the other hand, women scored much higher in short term memory test and symbol digit modalities test. The author also noted that scores of both boys and girls were the same for standardized math tests. The author concludes that as more girls take advanced maths courses, girls have started scoring equally well in such tests and this was not the case about 20 years back when the number of girls enrolling for advanced maths was much less. These results are much more scientific and thus it can be seen that the pattern, nature of tests influence the IQ scores of both men and women. The results also show that if girls are given suitable opportunities for learning and education, then they too would score equally well in tests and show a higher IQ and this line of argument has been debated since many centuries. With increased exposure and education, the gender factor has been removed and both men and women have equal cognitive skills and these would depend on their social class, education and exposure and not on gender.
Conclusion
The paper has discussed the research of different scientists with regards to IQ and cognitive abilities. The review shows that there are a number of spatial variables that can lead to skewed results, if they are not controlled. In some cases, these variables tend to increase the scores of men and in other they work in the favour of women. In general, it can thus be seen that given the same set of conditions, gender does not appear to influence the cognitive abilities and skills of men and women. Women have increased abilities for tasks related to short term memory and symbol digit modalities test while men score higher on mental rotation, tracking of moving object that goes through space, digit span backwards tests and on the reaction time tests. In other words, intelligence has nothing to do with the gender of a person.
References
Ankney, C.D., 2002. Sex Differences in Relative Brain Size: The Mismeasure of Woman, Too?. Intelligence, 16, pp. 329-336.
Colom. Roberto, 2002. Null Sex Differences in General Intelligence: Evidence from the WAIS-III. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 5(1), pp. 29-35.
Janowsky. J. S, April 2004. Testosterone influences spatial cognition in older men. Behavioral Neuro science, 108(2), pp. 325–32.
Lynn. Richard, 1999. Sex differences in intelligence and brain size: a developmental theory. Intelligence, 27, pp: 1–12.