A new study published in the February issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that men and women aren’t all that different. Lead author Bobbi Carothers, a senior data analyst for the Center for Public Health System Science at Washington University in St. Louis, states, “Sex is not nearly as confining a category as stereotypes and even some academic studies would have us believe.”
The study, which was done as the basis for Dr. Carothers’ doctoral thesis at the University of Rochester, involved analyzing more than 13,000 individuals on 122 different characteristics. The authors found that men and women cannot be grouped into separate categories when it comes to most personality traits. They state, “those who score in a stereotypical way on one measure, do not necessarily do so on another. The possession of traits associated with gender is not as simple as ‘this or that.’ Contrary to the assertions of pop psychology titles like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, it is untrue that men and women think about their relationships in qualitatively different ways.”
The article may be accessed here.