Question

Gender differences in verbal communication

Answer 1

Janet S Hyde, Marcia C Linn
Psychological bulletin 104 (1), 53, 1988
Many regard gender differences in verbal ability to be one of the well-established findings in psychology. To reassess this belief, we located 165 studies that reported data on gender differences in verbal ability. The weighted mean effect size (d) was+ 0.11, indicating a slight female superiority in performance. The difference is so small that we argue that gender differences in verbal ability no longer exist. Analyses of effect sizes for different measures of verbal ability showed almost all to be small in magnitude: for vocabulary, d= 0.02; for analogies, d=− 0.16 (slight male superiority in performance); for reading comprehension, d= 0.03; for speech production, d= 0.33 (the largest effect size); for essay writing, d= 0.09; for anagrams, d= 0.22; and for tests of general verbal ability, d= 0.20. For the 1985 administration of the Scholastic Aptitude Test-Verbal, d=− 0.11, indicating superior male performance. Analysis of tests requiring different cognitive processes involved in verbal ability yielded no evidence of substantial gender differences in any aspect of processing. Similarly, an analysis by age indicated no striking changes in the magnitude of gender differences at different ages, countering Maccoby and Jacklin’s (1974) conclusion that gender differences in verbal ability emerge around age 11. For studies published in 1973 or earlier, d= 0.23 and for studies published after 1973, d= 0.10, indicating a slight decline in the magnitude of the gender difference in recent years. The implications of these findings are discussed, including their implications for theories of sex differences in brain lateralization and their relation to changing gender roles.