Trivial to state that gender is not equal biological sex; yet over and over again studies are 'marketed' as gender studies without measuring it properly. A comparison on the variables discussed here should not compare men and women (biological) but e.g. groups which have similar role and sex-role orientations. Some oldies on this subject, see below.

Archer, J. (1989). The relationship between gender-role measures: A review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 173-184.

Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162.

Brogan, D., & Kutner, N. (1976). Measuring sex-role orientations: A normative approach. Journal of Marriage and The Family, 38, 31-40.

Perhapes the many studies that sugest that women are more empathic and report more compassion than male could be associated with the Gender effect for the Internalization dimension.

As far as the Symbolization dimension, males might use less products than women, and maybe they do not consider that their hobbies or group membership defines their identity.

Perhaps this question can be interpreted by the thought of Carol Gilligan and the ethics of care.

There are several studies, investigating trustworthiness in economic games or in evaluation of faces, and all the results suggest, that women are more trustworthy. They are concerned more about social norms in general and tend to emphasize equality and harmony in interpersonal relationships more than men.

(e.g.:Buchan, N.R., Crosonb, R.T.A., Solnickc, S. (2008): Trust and gender: An examination of behavior and beliefs in the Investment Game. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 68, 466–476

Cross, S. & Markus, H., (1993): Gender in thought, belief, and action: a cognitive approach. In: Beall, A., Sternberg, R. (Eds.), The Psychology of Gender. Guilford Press, New York, pp. 55–98.

Bereczkei T., Birkás B. and Kerekes Zs. (2010): The presence of others, prosocial traits, Machiavellianism: a Personality X Situation approach. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41 (4) 238-245.

Bereczkei T., Birkás B. and Kerekes Zs. (2007): Public charity offer as a proximate factor of evolved reputation-building trategy: an experimental analysis of a real-life situation Evolution and Human Behavior, 28 (4) 277-284)

Thanks Béla! This helps a lot. From just screening the titles of the references, it seems that this research focuses on how women are perceived by others. Do they also refer to how women see themselves? Because this is the thing that puzzles me most in our results, the differences occur on a moral identity scale, thus refer to how women see themselves. Thanks in advance!

Dear Susanne,

Unfortunately, I do not know about any papers, which are investigating this question, leastwise, not so directly. For instance, in our study, we asked subjects to offer support to unfamiliar persons in need (e.g.: Organizing a blood donation day or Providing assistance for mentally handicapped children.). According to our results, significantly more subjects are willing to give assistance if they make charity offers in

the presence of their group members than when the offers are made in secret (others did not get any information about it). In general, women were more likely than men to offer help to the needy persons irrespectively of their reputation (e.g.: if other group members were infromed or not about it). They answered the TCI, Temperament and Character Inventory ( by Cloninger) - subjects who were willing to offer help to a needy person characterized themselves as highly prosocial persons (according to TCI). They received higher scores in Social Cooperation scale and we found significant differences were found on the subscale of social approval. empathy, and helpfulness.

In sum, we did not asked participants about themselves directly, but TCI revealed some information about them....

I know, this is not, what you are seeking, but it is possibly helpful....!

Maybe, the paper of Cross & Markus is more helpful.

Indeed, I think that women are traditionally seen as morally superior, as reflected in the claims by various feminist movements. Women are less aggressive, they give birth to children, they are more responsible and they better control their impulses (so less addiction, violence, etc.). This can be seen as a stereotype and thus women's higher scores on moral identity might be a form of self-stereotyping.

Trivial to state that gender is not equal biological sex; yet over and over again studies are 'marketed' as gender studies without measuring it properly. A comparison on the variables discussed here should not compare men and women (biological) but e.g. groups which have similar role and sex-role orientations. Some oldies on this subject, see below.

Archer, J. (1989). The relationship between gender-role measures: A review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 173-184.

Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162.

Brogan, D., & Kutner, N. (1976). Measuring sex-role orientations: A normative approach. Journal of Marriage and The Family, 38, 31-40.

Excellent discussion. I will be trolling for some of those papers.

Wow, thank you all so much for this inspiring discussion! I will need a bit of time to work through all of your comments and suggestions, but will come back to you as soon as possible. It seems I have been neglecting a fascinating topic for years.

A brief reply to Harald: Indeed, we asked for sex as part of the demographic package, not for gender. I should make sure we are referring to the effect the correct way.

Sorry if this is of no relevance, but: In a TED conference a woman was speaking of women as 'gate keepers' of tradition and cultural norms. As morality ( in my view) is mostly cultural, I wonder if this is something worth looking into. Also there recently was an article in the papers finding that there is a correlation between physically stronger men leaning politically to the right ( wich the authors associate with imore self interest) and physically weaker men lean towards the left. So there might be something about what kind of position of power you perceive yourself to have in society. Sorry that I do not have references.

I used this measure twice in recent times. I had borderline sig. findings both times, in the direction you report. There were no differences on the Internalising sub-scale across gender in either study. The difference between Symbolization and Internalization is key. The former is about the outward projection of morality. Also the first two items on the Symbolization scale are 'I often buy products that communicate....' and 'I often wear clothes that...' (someone else can comment on that one!).... In any case, the Internalization aspect of morality is supposed to be how you view your moral self (rather than as an outward projection of how you might like others to view you), and this did not differ across gender in my datasets.

Social norm may decide the basis in morality, however, which not distinguish gender differences in moral identity.

More general, cultural evolution and moral constrain seem to provide men have the manifest aspect in competion and cooperation than women. Of course, this suggestion is merely explaining men have the competion in cooperation.

In this study gender-related differences in moral imagination were examined. Data were

obtained from 241 employees at a bank in Ankara, Turkey. The participants were lower- and

middle-level managers, head economist, and workers at the head office. According to t test

results, there were differences between females and males in the moral imagination scale and

subscales (Yurtsever, 2006). The mean of moral imagination and its subscales for females was

higher than that for males. Implications for business practice are discussed.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2010, 38(4), 515-522

© Society for Personality Research

Hi Susanne, I used the measure in two studies as well. One is a dyadic study with leaders and followers. Interesstingly, I found no differences between in moral identity symbolization and internalization for leader gender. But I found the difference for follower gender on symbolization (same as you have found). In a second study, I only used follwers. Here, there have been signiificant differences for both moral identity subscales regarding gender. Female score higher than men. In preliminary analyses, I controlled for gender effects on my DV's (in these two studies). Gender did not have a significant impact on the my dependent variables.

Once again please let us stop talking 'gender' if our data provide information on 'biological sex' only

@ Harald: I ams sorry for my use of the word gender. I was indeed talking about biological sex.

@ Larry: Iguess one simpel answer might be the unequal division between women/men for leaders (i.e., more men) and the lower statistical power. But this seems not to be the explanation alone. The effect size was about 3 times stronger for followers. Still the sample was only circa 100 dyads. Therefore, it might be to early to draw conclusions as the directon was the same for both leaders and followers. If I speculate theoretically, I thinl it might have to do with the question of what women promote to leadership positions. Give that ample of research shows taht we stereotypically perceive and overlap between male characteristics and leader characterisitcs, it might be that more women with male characteristics promote. This would make the point Harald refered to as very important (i.e. differentiating between biological sex and gender).

Whether biological differences alone affect male/female behavior is a question without a lever attached.... It cannot be scientifically approached in a direct manner because human beings, human development, and human evolution are inextricably bounded by the nature of the human being. Modern and historical human beings are irretrievably cultural AND physiological beings. This biological versus cultural debate only has one answer that is certain: BOTH.

While it seems fairly obvious that cultural traditions now pass along many/much of our gender/sex-linked behavior patterns, there may well be biological foundations for some of these cultural patterns.

Differences by gender/sex in physical size and bio-chemical makeup of the pre-historic human, for example, may very well explain the generally more domineering and violent patterns found in modern human males...not unlike many other primates. Culture has the potential of being either or both amplifier and damper of what has come before.

Nancy Howell, I don't think anyone here claimed some kind of complete and total distinction between sexes across species, nor that this works the same in all species or individual members of species, nor that any behavioral distinctions that may exist are entirely predetermined by biology. And no one in this discussion (nor, in fact, can I remember ever talking with anyone in my entire life who...) has asserted that social/cultural factors are unimportant in the development of identity with respect to gender/sex. That social/cultural factors influence and even largely determine sexual/gender identity is so obvious as to be axiomatic. It may be new to you, but this is not a particularly new understanding.

The challenge with your statements is how far and fast you run with this CONCEPTION that sex only exists in culture. When your statements are taken at their face value they are so inaccurate as to astound.

It is an important idea you are communicating: we should not assume certain characteristics or behaviors as definitively "female" or "male." Maybe you do. I do not see anything in this discussion that is contrary to this idea.

But you seem to be so in love with this one idea that you are having a hard time seeing the world empirically, for what it is.

I think you do harm to your position by adopting such a rigidly stereotypical conception of reality.

You have the physical size and strength of humans as culturally determined? (Food supply, of course, and other physiological factors, but culture? We think and talk and sing and believe our way to different body sizes? Is this what you are saying?)

You assert that there is a "lack of scientific evidence to show there is a distinct difference between male and female." (Allow me to examine without invasive procedures a random sample of 100,000 naked human beings and I can predict sex with an accuracy that can be confirmed at the genetic level with a certainty well beyond the 99.9th percentile. I will be wrong now and then but less than 1 time in a thousand).

You write that "it would be stretching it to say that in the animal kingdom, there is a delineable distinction between male and female." (It is fortunate for animals themselves that they themselves usually do (but NOT always) differentiate some of their behavior toward each other on this basis. I suspect the rooster, if possessed of self-consciousness and the power of expression, would express being especially grateful for not having to lay eggs. I guess you know that roosters also behave different than hens (but NOT always!).

If we take your comments at face value, are we to take as fantasies or lies all the knowledge that does show important (but NOT universal and "black and white") distinctions between the sexes in the fields of agricultural sciences, biology, physiology, primatology, genetics, medical research, and so on?

And is it really so hard for you to imagine that the general (NOT of one kind and degree, but general) physiological differences that exist between sexes generally (NOT always and without exception) would affect behavior?

I mean, do you believe that the physiological differences between humans and, say, planaria have nothing to do with our behavioral differences? Would not much smaller physiological differences find expression in smaller behavioral differences?

It's true that when we arrive at the issue of human behavior that is sexually differentiated there is magnificent overlap and a great deal of variation...but to say that human males are not generally (not always!) larger and generally (not always!) more violent, across cultures and across histories (but NOT in all instances!) flies in the face of so much evidence that it would take a thousand lifetimes just to compile it all. It would be a sickening task. But it would also be a pointless task, since your assertion is simply not face valid. To remain in the realm of behavior alone, and to test the face validity of your assertion that there is no difference, ask 50 historians, 50 anthropologists and 50 primatologists. Ask 50 poets while you're at it.

You may adopt such extreme and counter-factual positions because you think of yourself as at the cutting edge, and needing to use a loud voice for a good cause. And maybe it is so. Maybe your passion for your idea is helping advance understanding somewhere for someone. But what you write seems much more akin to an ancient and fixed dogma (an unshakeable stereotype) than a contemporary and evidence-based appreciation of our many similarities and our rich differences, across types and degrees.

Nancy, I responded exactly to what you wrote. Perhaps what you wrote is what you do not agree with.

Given that nature and nurture always interact this discussion is of limited value. Perhaps the debate would be more fruitful if we examine it in the light of what differentiation works best in which environments. For instance, following the conquest of Rwanda by Tutsi invaders following the genocide by Hutus of Tutsis,most of which was carried out by men. General Kagame did not take advantage of his power as commanding gneneral to appoint male army officers to run the country ,he chose women. Twenty years on Rwanda is now the only country in the world in which the number of female and male politicians are equal. And it has twenty years of peace despite the battles between tustis and hutu that continue to rage in neighbouring Congo. This said, it was a male army that brought the genocide to an end and created the peace by conquest.

Yesterday, I attended a webinar by Dr. Lise Eliot, Associate Professor in Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School, on "Pink Brain, Blue Brain: Neurobehavioral sex differences and implications for developing talent in STEM." She asserted that while behavior differences do exist between the sexes, these are "largely acquired through learning" and those few physical brain differences are small. How these differences are created or developed in our young people is important to learn more about.

The link to the webinar archive & PowerPoint can be found on the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) site. http://wepan.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=15

Larry, you make many reasoned points. I can't speak from the authority of any expertise in neuroscience. Eliot in her talk did not speak like these slides/findings/research/sharing were the full and final answer. For me, she seemed to probe and open windows of questions. From my own perspective, the urban myths that have developed she was trying to debunk and those indeed need to be challenged. I know many peers and executives in my prior life in engineering believed women's brains were simply not fully capable to enter the executive suite. That said, I agree with you. While nurture I am positive has the most to do with human development, nature has its own influences. I think she was trying to help others see how little a dfifference those nature differences are for people entering and succeeding in STEM careers.

Hi Susanne,

I am currently preparing a manuscript that focuses on gender differences on a number of recently-developed morality measures, including moral identity. I am using both a nationally-representative sample and a very large volunteer web sample (over 3000 participants for the moral identity measure)

To sum up, in both samples I find the same differences as your student - women score higher on both dimensions. Some interesting observations:

-- In the original Moral Identity paper (Aquino $ Reed, 2002) they report that men score higher than women on Symbolization. I haven't seen any other papers about gender from that team. So what we are finding here is the opposite.

-- The Intern. and Symbol. scores are far more correlated ( r = .50) in the web sample (which is more liberal and educated than the general population) than in the nat. rep. sample (r = .25). This is interesting and worth exploring in and of itself, but to be safe, when testing the effects on each dimension, I controlled for the other.

-- Controlling for age and education, I find that women are higher than men on both dimensions in the nat. rep. sample and the effect is stronger of Internal. In the web sample women are higher on both as well, but the effect is much stronger for Symbolization and smaller but significant for Internalization.

- In the web sample we also have measures of empathy which fully mediates the gender effect on Internalization and partially mediates the effect on Symbolization.

There are a number of other cool things related to moral identity, and all of it and more ( we have upwards of 8 studies with over 150,000 participants total!!!) is getting written up literally this week and next. I hope to have a full draft of the paper before long and I would be happy to share once it's submitted if you are interested.

Hope this helps!

You say "We no longer live in an era where men subjugate women by barring them from higher education on the basis of spurious claims to the effect that women are not as intelligent as men." I do not agree. First it depends on where you live. Second, we are, today, better at creating a social veneer that almost eliminates the obvious. Just because we've elected a black president, does not eliminate racism in American society. Look at the fallout from the recent Cheerios commercial. Like race, we must still work to debunk the myths that allow for persistent inequality in today's society.

Larry Carlson- I contend that the work of Fausto-Sterling, Jordan-Young, and Bleier among others offers the technical and specific engagements with the evolutionary psychology and biology literature that you suggest is missing from Eliot's work.

Relative to the OP's question, I can scan those works for specific mentions of morality and the development of traits typically measured relative to morality and identity, but I don't recall that specifically. What you (or your students) will find, if they consult that literature for help with interpretation, is that the evidence devoted to a biological basis for sex-gender differentiation is tenuous at best.

also, on this point:

"We no longer live in an era where men subjugate women by barring them from higher education on the basis of spurious claims to the effect that women are not as intelligent as men."

You must recall a previous Harvard University president's comments to the contrary:

POSTED: 1:06 pm PST January 17, 2005

UPDATED: 1:19 pm PST January 17, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass -- The president of Harvard University prompted criticism for suggesting that innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers.

Lawrence H. Summers, speaking Friday at an economic conference, also questioned how great a role discrimination plays in keeping female scientists and engineers from advancing at elite universities.

The remarks prompted Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist Nancy Hopkins - a Harvard graduate - to walk out on Summers' talk, The Boston Globe reported.

"It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women (at Harvard) are being led by a man who views them this way," Hopkins said later.

more...

http://www.thekcrachannel.com/education/4090001/detail....

It is troubling to see societies and political groups that do not recognise the essential equality among men and women, and which force women into an "inferior status." In so doing, the society is being deprived of an enormously creative and intelligent input. There are surely as many brilliant women as there are men, and society benefits from having women active in all aspects of life and work. Moreover, we need urgently to study the other gender realities, such as intersex and transgender, not to mention those who are born homosexual, in order to seek and more just and productive society. There is no "black and white," in human nature, there are only "shades of grey." Absolutes have no place in scholarly, scientific or true academic activity. I submit that all absolutes are a form of emotional delusion coloured by political orientations rather than honest science. Intelligence, creativity and capacity to make positive contributions to society is certainly not limited by gender differences.

hmmm.. I just read back through and want to clarify that I was commenting to the "OP" (original post) and not about your students (Larry Carlson). I'm not sure what Amherst has to do with it but there seemed to be some confusion.

In any case, I happen to believe that what is important is that there IS ample proof; not for a model of nature OR nurture, a biology of difference OR the effective social construction of difference that leverages biology and genetics among other fields.

I believe instead that there is ample proof in support of abandoning programs of research searching for the means to establish biological bases for human difference. Over and over again this "proof" has turned out to be, in the worst cases, bad science in the business of lending legitimacy to the consolidation of wealth and power in whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality and cisgender. In the best cases, bad science done by good people...where bad science means that although it may be repeated, it will be repeated under the same rosy shades of objectivity that it was first conducted...where the very notion that male humans and female humans should have some basic difference in their brain structure, function and capacity is taken as a legitimate starting point rather than a question imbued with centuries of claims to social power and privilege.

I haven't seen (although I could have missed it) anyone mention Carol Gilligan's book, In a different voice. She presents different stages of moral development of women. Previously women scored lower on Lawrence Kohlberg's scale of moral development. Gilligan's position is that women think differently. They score higher on moral development when the questions fit their framework.

To some extent the evaluation of men and women's performance has to do with the gender biases innate in the measurement.

Differences there are , and recognising this is valuable. We do not, however, recognise a relative value between men, women, Gay or gender X.

I am afraid the discussion here seems to have strayed away from the original question. The origian question was not about the biological or social equality/inequality of gender or sexes.

Dr Khan: The discussion must of necessity turn toward this sort of thing, since cultrural and religious tend to distort and deform the issues of male-female differences in brain function. Religion in particular seeks means to misuse the issues in order to persecute women and subject them. This is why the turn you mention inevitable occurs in such a discussion.

Thanks for pointing this out. I would be willing to bet that the Japanese will score higher on the symbolisation factor too. Markus and Kitayama's famous paper on the interdependent self of the Japanese (1991) started as a paper about women (by Hazel Markus and Susan Cross, in 1990), influenced I believe by Carol Gilligan's book, In a different voice.