Talk:Sex differences in psychology

Untitled

 * Parent: Sex differences in psychology
 * Sex differences in cognition
 * Sex differences in memory
 * Sex differences in emotional intelligence
 * Sex differences in intelligence
 * Variability hypothesis
 * Sex differences in memory
 * Mental disorders and gender
 * Gender differences in suicide
 * Sex differences in schizophrenia
 * Sex differences in autism
 * Empathising–systemising theory
 * Imprinted brain hypothesis
 * Autism and LGBT identities
 * Neuroscience of sex differences
 * Social construction of gender difference
 * Other psychology-related sex difference articles
 * Sex differences in eyewitness memory
 * Neurosexism
 * Sex differences in narcissism
 * Age disparity in sexual relationships
 * Gender bias in psychological diagnosis

Reverted edit 11-21 - The case of David Reimer
My edit was reverted on November 21 on adding the case of David Reimer to the gender reassignment section. While I am not usually a proponent of single cases, the particular case of David Reimer is ubiquitously well-know and unique in the medical literature in regards to gender reassignment. No similar cases are known where gender reassignment happened in similar circumstances to a completely healthy infant with no sexual differentiation disorder. The section lacks content and has been "expand section" tagged which was one of the reasons for my contribution. Until or unless there are rigorous studies or research on gender reassignment (which is highly unlikely for ethical reasons), I believe that the case or Reimer serves its purpose for the section of gender reassignment.147.129.136.33 (talk) 18:58, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, looking back it does seem well sourced, and one of the faults I had with it at first was that it used the NYtimes (but I now see that isn't the main source). Anyway, the text is decent, it would preferably be sourced to a review article/book (although for biographical information that may be hard even though for this case there should be a bit), but is just somewhat too long for this article. It fits better in either of the sub-articles Gender identity or Gender role with a much shorter summary in this article. For example instead of mentioning his twin brother as a control, when he stopped identifying as female, or his suicide – and it may be better to say that he from an early age never identified as female, and how this likely caused mental health problems throughout most of his adult life.
 * I know I might be picky, but I have this article as one of those I really want to give a decent runthrough and clean up/improve, so while the content isn't perfect, I want to avoid introducing too much bloat. CFCF   💌 📧 21:49, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. I will abridge the original text and add additional sources according to what you have mentioned. There was actually book written about the case. I will include that as a new source. 147.129.138.165 (talk) 13:17, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's a WP:MEDRS study of 14 subjects, not just one.
 * http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022236
 * Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth
 * William G. Reiner and John P. Gearhart
 * N Engl J Med 2004; 350:333-341
 * 10.1056/NEJMoa022236


 * Cloacal exstrophy is a rare, complex defect of the entire pelvis and its contents that occurs during embryogenesis and is associated with severe phallic inadequacy or phallic absence in genetic males.


 * --Nbauman (talk) 06:40, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Sexual strategies theory
I've removed this paragraph to avoid placing undue WP:WEIGHT on the theories of individual researchers, or on non-mainstream theories; while this paragraph uses WP:WEASEL words to describe the theory, there's no indication here of its actual standing of among mainstream scholars. I've also added a summary of the use of evolutionary biology and other theories to explain gender differences in human sexuality, so the topic is currently well covered in the article. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:00, 14 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Evolutionary psychology theories are prominent in explaining sexual differences. Very far from "individual researcher" hobby implied.


 * example 1: "The evolution of Desire" which summarizes David Buss massive sexual desire studies is cited 2500 times per google scholar (massive = 37 cultures huge number of cultures and studies with huge number of collaborators involved)


 * I have no doubt the edit was in good faith. But Sexual strategies theory is hugely known.


 * example 2: "Sexual strategies theory" is cited 3744 per google scholar . Hardly a fringe section to remove Jazi Zilber (talk) 18:33, 16 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree that we should mention something about sexual strategy theories, but Sangdeboeuf has a point about not placing too much weight on individual researchers' theories/studies. Often, a lot of WP:Student editors add a lot of David Buss material, when the material should usually be minimal. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:24, 17 June 2017 (UTC)


 * David Buss is a mere name. There is a huge scholarship body that builds and develops on those key insights. This is just the base on which a huge scholarship is developing and has developed.


 * I personally find many other theories to be flimsy. But my editing tries to reflects whether a mentioned thing is a known view in the literature vs. some blogger of Op-Ed.


 * If we want to prune out anything that is not an absolute consensus we will start having multiple judgment calls that are far beyond wikipedia work, and more like journal editor work etc. neither of us can consider such nuanced issues decisively unless we have very solid grounds to build on Jazi Zilber (talk) 23:30, 17 June 2017 (UTC)


 * When it comes to consensus in the literature, we do need to keep WP:Due and WP:Fringe in mind; I think that is the main point regarding what is well known, lesser known, or barely discussed regarding this topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:34, 22 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Sexual strategies theory is a big thing - certainly not a WP:Fringe theory. It is unpopular among social constructionists but strongly supported by evolutionary theory. A section about sexual strategies theory and evolutionary psychology is much needed here. Unfortunately, an WP:Edit warring is likely here because students from different disciplines are taught widely different "truths". Here are some more relevant references:   Agnerf (talk) 07:00, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

LSE project

 * Note: A discussion similar to this one is going on at the Wikipedia:Education Noticeboard.

We will be improving the "Controversy" section over the next week as part of the LSE project "Genes, Brains and Society". J.birch2 (talk) 11:40, 1 February 2019 (UTC)


 * J.birch2, like I stated here, I reverted. Generally stick to WP:MEDRS-compliant sources. Do not engage in WP:Editorializing or WP:Synthesis, and do not give any one study WP:Undue weight. Also see WP:SCHOLARSHIP on avoiding primary sources. I suppose some of what you added can be included in a "Society and culture" section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:39, 2 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi Flyer 22, as noted here, I was sad to see that you reverted quite a few good-faith edits while an editing project is still in progress. I fully agree the material added by students on Friday was unfinished and required better referencing and a somewhat different tone, and these are tasks we will pursue on Monday. To be clear, we will be working on this page intermittently until 15 Feb. I am willing to organize the new material under the heading "Society and Culture" rather than "Controversy". J.birch2 (talk) 19:33, 2 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi Flyer 22, I was sad to see that you again reverted a lot of good-faith edits on a section that is clearly a work in progress. This is disruptive. Please wait for the work to be finished and discuss it here before reverting. J.birch2 (talk) 11:51, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * J.birch2, after I reverted, it seems that a member of your class restored what I removed. So I have reverted again. I ask that you and others take the time to read and follow what WP:MEDRS and WP:SCHOLARSHIP state. Also read WP:Tone. Using wording like "This section briefly explains, in an impartial way, the study itself and the criticism it received" is an unneeded WP:Self reference. We avoid including that much material about a press release. We try to avoid press release material in general. See WP:PRESSRELEASE. And we avoid pseudo-headings, per MOS:PSEUDOHEAD. That piece was essay-like. That you and your class are editing in good-faith does not mean that you all should not be reverted. I am not being disruptive. See WP:Disruptive. See what WP:Student assignments state. It would be best if your class attempted to collaborate with experienced editors such as myself instead of just adding material for a grade. It is a simple act for a class to propose changes on the article's talk page, including via their sandbox, before adding material. That way the regular editors can collaborate with the class and advise the class. Student editing generally turns out better that way. I ask that you and your class take the time to discuss first, and not to WP:Edit war. Otherwise, I will feel the need to go to WP:Med and/or the WP:Education noticeboard for help. I know that Wikipedia has a lot of rules to abide by, but this is why new editors taking the time to talk with experienced Wikipedia editors is encouraged. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

User:J.birch2, was quite correct to revert these changes, even though I understand it must be frustrating when you notice this happening. Verifiability is one of Wikipedia's core standards, and to provide for this, citations to reliable sources should be added for all assertions added to the article. The research to find reliable sources and create citations for them should be done prior to writing the content you wish to add; in fact, it has to be that way, because if you are writing without having first consulted reliable sources, then your addition would be considered original research, which is prohibited. The policies and guidelines for adding content to articles that are subject to WP:MEDRS are even more stringent than for topics not in this field. Content that is added without required referencing may be removed by other editors; you may see this happening within hours, minutes, or even seconds, if someone happens to be online and notices it because the article is on their watchlist. There are a few approaches you can try, any of which will prevent further problems of this kind going forward, and avoid the frustration of having your students' edits undone, so I put them out here for your consideration: Some of the things you mentioned you were working on or that could stand improvement, like "improved tone" are not in the same league as verifiability issues; your content can go into the article with tone problems, bad grammar, typos, awkward phrasing, and a host of other sins, and get fixed up later, either by you, or by someone else. However, if content goes in without proper sourcing to a reliable source, then it may properly be challenged and removed, and should be. If you find a lot of reverts happening to content added by students in the class, may I respectfully suggest that you consider one of the bulleted proposals above. If I can be of any assistance to you in making your project a success, please don't hesitate to contact me here, by pinging me, or by writing to me on my talk page. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 13:17, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * add citations at the same time as the content is added. If the citation isn't ready yet, don't add the content until it is.
 * Add the content here on the Talk page, in a new section; say you are working on it, ask for feedback, and add the references to the same section, on your own time schedule. No one will revert you here. When the content and all the references are in place, move it to the proper place in the article. This approach has the additional advantage that other editors can review your content, and let you know if it's ready to be published in the article or not.
 * Develop the new content in one of the sandbox pages of the students, and move it to the article from there. See Help:My sandbox.


 * Hi Mathglot, I have created a sandbox page for the time being. The students are beginner editors, learning the ropes by trying to improve poor quality pages in need of improvement. I feel as though there are steps short of immediate reversion, such as use of the tag (or one of the various similar tags), that would provide them with a warmer welcome to Wikipedia. J.birch2 (talk) 13:52, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I will get in touch to ask for feedback when the sandbox page is ready. J.birch2 (talk) 15:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Please explain to the students that they cannot use primary sources in an article like this (about a broad well-studied topic). They must use secondary and tertiary sources (like textbooks and meta review articles). Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 21:01, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks Kaldari. The plan was to improve the "Controversy" section, as requested by the maintenance template on that section. This section is aiming to report on controversies and is not aiming to make medical claims. An informative "Controversy" section would inevitably cite critiques of the science, not just textbooks and meta-analyses. J.birch2 (talk) 21:49, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The sources for a controversy section may not need to meet WP:MEDRS (if they don't make any medical claims), but primary sources are generally not appropriate for making controversial claims on Wikipedia. According to WP:PRIMARY: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts... any interpretation needs a secondary source." Since there are plenty of secondary sources available about this topic (even its controversies), no primary sources should be needed. A good secondary source that comes to mind is Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Professor Cordelia Fine. It deals largely with controversies concerning sex differences in psychology. Your students' use of the secondary source Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences by Professor Rebecca M. Jordan-Young is fine within a controversy section, in my opinion, but writing an entire section about one primary source, such as the "structural connectome" study isn't appropriate, per WP:WEIGHT and WP:PRIMARY. Hope that's helpful. Kaldari (talk) 22:14, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * - Do you have any opinions about the use of secondary sources such as the two books mentioned above in a "Controversies" section (if given proper attribution)? They're a bit on the pop-science side, but they are written by academics in the field and seem like reputable sources concerning controversies around this topic. I would hesitate, however, to use a source like Inferior: The True Power of Women and the Science that Shows It that is written by a science journalist rather an accredited academic. Kaldari (talk) 22:37, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Your choice of Fine's book was spot on; check the reading list for PH427 at LSE. As far as science writers, I think they can be even better than academics. Science writers are in the business of writing about science and explaining it to non-scientists (the majority of Wikipedia readers), whereas an academic might be excellent in what they do, but the audience for their publications is primarily other academics, or students of their specialty hoping to join that group. Some academics are also excellent writers for a general public, but not all are, whereas a science writer who isn't good at it, won't find employment. I haven't looked at the Saini book so I can't give an opinion about it in particular.
 * The maintenance templates were placed on that section in 2015. I'm not sure why just on that section in particular rather than at the top of article, which, like many articles, suffers from WP:SYSTEMICBIAS. interestingly, the content of that section now is virtually the same as it was in 2015. Mathglot (talk) 05:27, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Mention of Cordelia Fine reminded me of her Wikipedia article, which is on my watchlist, and I revisited a matter there (because I'd missed a revert). Anyway, I'd rather that editors stick to academic sources than non-academic sources even for controversy matters on a topic like this. But like I stated, controversy material is a society and culture matter. And our society and culture sections tend to include non-academic sources (media sources too as an aspect of that), including in our medical articles. As seen at WP:MEDSECTIONS, we include a "Society and culture" section in our medical articles when there is enough material for one. Such a section can include social perceptions, cultural history, stigma, economics, religious aspects, legal issues, and so on (with WP:Due weight in mind, of course). Fines is an academic, but like the lead of her Wikipedia article currently states, she "has written three popular science books on the topics of social cognition, neuroscience, and the popular myths of sex differences." So, yeah, she's within the popular science realm in addition to the more academic realm. I don't mind the books Kaldari suggested for including in the Controversy section, which can also be titled "Society and culture" and consist of more than just controversy information. But WP:In-text attribution should be used, since a lot of what Fine and others state is their opinion. It's just like when student editors or other types of editors are all about citing Julia Serano and cite what she states as fact/in Wikipedia's voice. Per WP:In-text attribution and WP:YESPOV, non-fact statements need in-text attribution. As seen with this revert I made, J.birch2's class is also looking to add controversy material to the Neuroscience of sex differences article. The same standards for such a section apply there as well. And when it comes to the word medical for non-society and culture material, I'm going to go ahead and note that WP:Med and WP:MEDRS include biomedical matters such as how the brain works (whether it's about a mental disorder, memory, or something else). That is why the Neuroscience of sex differences article and this article should generally stick to WP:MEDRS-compliant sources. Of course, the Sex differences in psychology article also addresses social issues; so WP:MEDRS-compliant sources are not needed for that unless it's about the interaction between biology and social environment. That stated, an academic source, not a media source or popular science source, should still be used in that case; see WP:MEDPOP. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

---

emoticons
"Women are twice as likely as men to use emoticons in text messages"

Would this be relevant in this article? Benjamin (talk) 19:54, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If you can find a source for it, then yes. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 03:32, 17 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Of course. Which section? Benjamin (talk) 08:18, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems trivial and like a WP:RSBREAKING matter at first. And it would be a trivial matter if the research didn't touch on why the difference exists. But looking here, I do see that a source states, "The study also confirms previous research that women are more emotionally expressive in nonverbal communication; however, in this research, the authors found that while women may use emoticons more than men, the men used a larger variety of emoticons to express themselves." I'm not opposed to something being added to the article about this, but I'd prefer that it's coming from an academic/non-primary source...per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. As for which section, seems it would best fit in the "Emotion" section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:07, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

van Hemert
I've removed this. The source, a research paper, is a primary source for the claims made. Per WP:MEDRS, we generally rely on secondary and tertiary sources such as review articles and textbooks for scientific and/or medical claims. "On the other hand" is textbook WP:SYNTH. Besides which, the authors seem to be using their own idiosyncratic notion of "feminine countries". Even if this were duly weighted with more high-level sources, this concept would need explanation and attribution. Femininity is generally considered (rightly or wrongly) a property of individuals, not countries. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Source 68 not reachable
Source 68 is down — Preceding unsigned comment added by Animusel (talk • contribs) 11:47, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Are there any specific ideas on how I can improve upon this article? Acates07 (talk) 21:51, 29 September 2021 (UTC)Acates07

Merger proposal with Gender psychology
I propose to merge Gender psychology into Sex differences in psychology. These articles have the same scope (WP:DUP), or if there is some slight difference I can't perceive, they nevertheless significantly overlap. If each article was expanded to featured article, they would continue to discuss the same topics as each other. They also do not represent different perspectives on the issue; both cover biology, cognition, sociocultural influences and history in essentially the same way, and I can only assume that they would continue to do so for the other content in each. While gender and sex are different concepts, both of these two articles are discussing both concepts (with both primarily discussing sex), which is in line with how the literature approaches them in this subject area. Continuing on from that, the literature does also most commonly use the term sex differences, and generally the topic is primarily referring to sex not to gender. This is the basis of my proposed direction for the merge. The name Sex differences in psychology is also more consistent with similar articles - e.g. other psychology articles Sex differences in memory, Sex differences in cognition, and Sex differences in intelligence, and the "parent" article Sex differences in humans. Cheers.--Xurizuri (talk) 08:08, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Support and agree with the direction of the merge. The "gender psychology" article is also much shorter, and appears to be more of a hodgepodge. Crossroads -talk- 04:23, 4 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Merge completed. --Xurizuri (talk) 05:40, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Three empathy sections
Sex differences in psychology is also covered within two other articles: Sex differences in emotional intelligence and Empathy. It would make a lot more sense to combine these three as they have a duplicate scope, following the conventions of WP:SUMMARY. That is, the section would exist primarily within one article, and the other two articles would summarise the section.

I propose that the three sections are merged into this article, under the existing section Sex differences in psychology. This should be the primary location of the section because of the size of the resulting section.
 * It would be WP:UNDUE within Empathy, however a summary section there would not be.
 * While empathy is absolutely relevant to emotional intelligence, it doesn't rest entirely comfortably within its scope. As such, it would be WP:UNDUE there, however a summary section would not be.
 * It would be undue to have a full section in this article.

While this situation isn't the typical definition of a merge, it's the closest thing to it that I can think of. As such, I plan to follow the merging procedure for this. -- Xurizuri (talk) 12:52, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per the guideline on related articles. It says, "Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. This does not make either of the two articles a content fork. As an example, clearly Joséphine de Beauharnais will contain a significant amount of information also in Napoleon I of France; this does not make it a fork. Another example is where two articles cover the same topic, but are clearly directed at different audiences. In such cases, one of the articles will be prefixed by the text 'Introduction to ...', for example General relativity and Introduction to general relativity."
 * As you've said, what you've proposed isn't the typical definition of a merge. What examples can you point to this being done? Regardless, I don't think it'll be helpful for the reader base. This information is pertinent to all three articles and it should be developed according its relationship to the the article in question. We shouldn't have them be copies of each other. GBFEE (talk) 19:44, 5 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose, and GBFEE put it well. This is not what merges are and this is not necessary or helpful to readers. Crossroads -talk- 19:50, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * From my reading of the articles, the sections are very much directed at the same audience, they're just also incomplete. All of them attempt to very directly describe what sex differences there are in empathy. They don't just all happen to discuss it, that is the function of the section. Re-reading what I wrote, I think I didn't explain well enough about the merge thing. I am not proposing a merge. I am just using the merge procedures and language, because there isn't a specific procedure for deciding which of multiple options is most appropriate for the target of the summaries. I will also agree that this isn't a conventional use of WP:SUMMARY. However, that doesn't mean it isn't allowed or appropriate. My very strong view is that these three sections are duplicates but wouldn't be best served as a full article. This is the most helpful way of dealing with it that I can think of. I know I certainly wouldn't want to check three places to get a full understanding of the issue. --Xurizuri (talk) 12:52, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If all the information is in one place, the readers will still have to click on an extra article to get the information they may need or want if they aren't already at the article that has all of the material. The sections can be developed according to their relationships to the articles. Some information in a section can be trimmed if it's not necessary that readers get that information right there, and they can find additional information through the "main" or "see also" navigational templates. It's understandable that the empathy page would hold the most empathy material since it's the main page for empathy. The other sections in the other articles can be trimmed accordingly, but I don't think they should be trimmed down to tiny versions. If information in the sections very much help understanding the topic, it should stay there. More peripheral stuff can be cut, leaving readers to go to the main empathy article for more information. I'm not certain what you mean by "they're just also incomplete", as Wikipedia in general is incomplete. GBFEE (talk) 21:00, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * on reflection and having re-read your comments, I had a bad idea. --Xurizuri (talk) 01:01, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Links within the article
I've noticed that there are several sections that give a single sentence of information. There is a link to a different article within, but would it not be easier to put more information within those sections rather than a link to a different page? RyCo13 (talk) 17:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
— Assignment last updated by Rahneli (talk) 02:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Disputed content from student editor
I encourage to discuss the content they wish to change and/or include here. As I mentioned in my recent edit summary, there were numerous issues with this large edit. I've partially reverted it a second time, but retained a couple of solid grammatical fixes made by this editor. The other aspects of this edit do not seem to me to be improvements, and would need to be discussed individually before they can be re-added. Generalrelative (talk) 19:48, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Honestly, a significant portion of that material, perhaps even most (I'd have to check some of the sources to see their nature), seems to be sourced to exactly the sort of sources we strongly prefer, that of academic reviews and books. I really think the material cited to such a source should be restored, with grammar fixes and in-text attribution as necessary. If there are still NPOV issues then that should be resolved by adding countervailing sources of high quality. Crossroads -talk- 14:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * By all means, go ahead, Crossroads. I'd be happy to evaluate each edit individually. Generalrelative (talk) 15:41, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender, Race and Computing
— Assignment last updated by BingoBongoBungo (talk) 23:37, 10 November 2023 (UTC)