Cognitive Sex Differences
The cognitive study of the mental faculties of males and females
has always been of great interest to psychologists. Before 1990, books
on such issues presented theoretical discussion or general impressions some of
which are still believed to be accurate. According to these ideas woman was
considered all around weaker counterpart to man because of their physical
weakness as compared to man.
What is Cognition?
Cognition is a generic term used to designate all mental
processes involved in the act of knowing.
It begins with immediate awareness of objects in perception and extends to all forms of reasoning.
In other words, cognition includes perception, thinking, attention,
language, reasoning, classifying, problem-solving, memory, and creativity
cognitive processes are also referred to as intellectual processes. That is
why intelligence is sometimes considered synonymous with cognition.
Research in Cognitive Differences
Quantitative research to study the differences in mental
faculties began by the end of the 19th century and expanded very
rapidly. Some quantitative research was limited to the count of eminent men and
women in history and it is a fact that history has recorded the names and achievements
of a large number of men but only a small number of women. Ellis 1904 in the history
of British geneses found only 55 women in his total group 1030personds. J.
MckCattells’ some of these were distinguished by circumstances such as royal birth
rather than the intellectual achievement of their own. In the 1927 edition of
American Men of science, only 725 women were listed out of 9875 entries, and out
of 250 names starred out of special Eminence only 3 were women. Even in fields
traditionally assigned to women, the most eminently successful persons are
likely to be men. For instance in dress, design, and interior decoration the
leaders in the field are men. Most of the world’s cooking is done by women, but
great chefs have always been men. Similar trends are observed in other
fields.
Some explanations of such differences could be the cultural
and sociological factors and role sex typing which delimit and adversely affect
the workings of women. For instance, due to men-dominated social structures, women are not permitted to work long hours outside the home in almost all
societies of the world. Women’s failure in making notable accomplishments is also
due to childbearing. Due to these and similar other reasons women did not participate
in the world of affairs. Therefore, all great doers and thinkers in history
were men. By the end of the last century, women also started changing. Now the
proportion of women in the list of 1000 eminent persons of the world is
increasing.
