Elsevier

Brain and Cognition

Volume 45, Issue 3, April 2001, Pages 392-414
Brain and Cognition

Regular Article
Stereotypes and Steroids: Using a Psychobiosocial Model to Understand Cognitive Sex Differences

https://doi.org/10.1006/brcg.2001.1287Get rights and content

Abstract

To further our understanding of cognitive sex differences, we studied the relationship between menstrual phase (via serum estradiol and progesterone levels) and cognitive abilities and cognitive performance in a sample of medical students in eastern Turkey. As expected, we found no sex differences on the Cattell “Culture Fair Intelligence Test” (a figural reasoning test), with females scoring significantly higher on a Turkish version of the Finding A's Test (rapid word knowledge) and males scoring significantly higher on a paper-and-pencil mental rotation test. The women showed a slight enhancement on the Finding A's Test and a slight decrement in Cattell scores during the preovulatory phase of their cycle that (probably) coincided with a rise in estrogen. There were also small cycle-related enhancements in performance for these women on the mental rotation test that may reflect cyclical increases in estrogen and progesterone. Additional analyses showed an inverted U-shaped function in level of estradiol and the Cattell Test. Finally, for women who were tested on Day 10 of their menstrual cycle, there was a negative linear relationship between their Cattell scores and level of progesterone. Stereotypes about the cognitive abilities of males and females did not correspond to performance on the mental rotation or Finding A's Test, so the sex-typical results could not be attributed to either stereotype threat or stereotype activation. For practical purposes, hormone-related effects were generally small. Variations over the menstrual cycle do not provide evidence for a “smarter” sex, but they do further our understanding of steroidal action on human cognitive performance.

References (98)

  • F. Nourhashemi et al.

    Alzheimer disease: Protective factors

    American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

    (2000)
  • H. Nyborg

    Spatial ability in men and women: Review and new theory

    Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy

    (1983)
  • K. Phillips et al.

    Differences in the relationship of menstrual cycle phase to spatial performance on two- and three-dimensional tasks

    Hormones & Behavior

    (1997)
  • P. Polo-Kantola et al.

    The effect of short-term estrogen replacement therapy on cognition: a randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial in postmenopausal women

    Obstetrics and Gynecology

    (1998)
  • I. Silverman et al.

    Testosterone levels and spatial ability in men

    Psychoneuroendocrinology

    (1999)
  • D. Slabbekoorn et al.

    Activating effects of cross-sex hormones on cognitive functioning: a study of short-term and long-term hormone effects in transsexuals

    Psychoneuroendocrinology

    (1999)
  • C.A. Smith et al.

    Lifelong estrogen exposure and cognitive performance in elderly women

    Brain & Cognition

    (1999)
  • J.F. Stein

    Developmental dyslexia, neural timing and hemispheric lateralisation

    International Journal of Psychophysiology

    (1994)
  • S.H.M. Van Goozen et al.

    Gender differences in behaviour: Activating effects of cross-sex hormones

    Psychoneuroendocrinology

    (1995)
  • E. Vilain et al.

    Mammalian sex determination: From gonads to brains

    Molecular Genetics and Metabolism

    (1998)
  • N.V. Watson et al.

    Nontrivial sex differences in throwing and intercepting: Relation to psychometrically-defined spatial functions

    Personality and Individual Differences

    (1991)
  • M.R. Banaji et al.

    Automatic stereotyping

    Psychological Science

    (1996)
  • M. Beller et al.

    The 1991 international assessment of educational progress in mathematics and sciences: The gender differences perspective

    Journal of Educational Psychology

    (1996)
  • C.P. Benbow

    Sex differences in mathematical reasoning ability in intellectually talented preadolescents: Their nature, effects, and possible causes

    Behavioral and Brain Sciences

    (1988)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    Test of “g”: Culture Fair Scale 3, Form A.

    (1963)
  • M.M. Cherrier

    Androgens, ageing, behavior and cognition: complex interactions and novel areas of inquiry

    New Zealand Journal of Psychology

    (1999)
  • M.L. Collaer et al.

    Human behavioral sex differences: A role for gonadal hormones during early development?

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1995)
  • J. Cohen et al.

    Applied multiple regression/correlational analysis for behavioral sciences

    (1983)
  • Colvin, R. L. 1996, November, Global study finds U.S. students weak in math, Los Angeles Times,, A1,...
  • A. Dijksterhuis et al.

    Of men and mackerels: Attention and automatic behavior

  • A. Dijksterhuis et al.

    The relation between perception and behavior or how to win a game of Trivial Pursuit

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1998)
  • A. Dijksterhuis et al.

    Behavioral indecision: Effects of self-focus on automatic behavior

    Social Cognition

    (2000)
  • A.H. Eagly

    The science and politics of comparing women and men

    American Psychologist

    (1995)
  • Encyclopedia of the Orient, 2000, Turkey: Religions & Peoples. Retrieved 2000, August 5 from the world wide web,...
  • G. Englehard

    Gender differences in performance on mathematics items: Evidence from USA and Thailand

    Contemporary Educational Psychology

    (1990)
  • S.J.C. Gaulin

    Does evolutionary theory predict sex differences in the brain?

  • D.C. Geary

    Male, female: The evolution of human sex differences

    (1998)
  • R.C. Gur et al.

    Sex differences in brain gray and white matter in healthy young adults: Correlations with cognitive performance

    Journal of Neuroscience

    (1999)
  • D.F. Halpern

    Sex differences in intelligence: Implications for education

    American Psychologist

    (1997)
  • D.F. Halpern

    Sex differences in cognitive abilities

    (2000)
  • E. Hampson et al.

    Reciprocal effects of hormonal fluctuations on human motor and perceptual-spatial skills

    Behavioral Neuroscience

    (1988)
  • L.V. Hedges et al.

    Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals

    Science

    (1995)
  • J.B. Hellige

    Hemispheric asymmetry: What's right and what's left

    (1993)
  • V.W. Henderson et al.

    Estrogen replacement therapy in older women: Comparisons between Alzheimer's disease cases and nondemented control subjects

    Archives of Neurology

    (1994)
  • A. Herlitz et al.

    Sex differences in episodic memory: The impact of verbal and visuospatial ability

    Neuropsychology

    (1999)
  • A. Herlitz et al.

    Gender differences in episodic memory

    Memory & Cognition

    (1997)
  • M. Hines

    Gonadal hormones and human cognitive development

  • J. Huttenlocher et al.

    Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender

    Developmental Psychology

    (1991)
  • Cited by (91)

    • Sex/gender differences in cognitive abilities

      2023, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
    • Mental rotation with colored cube figures

      2022, Consciousness and Cognition
      Citation Excerpt :

      All six items were rated as significantly masculine (all ps < 0.01). In a second step and in line with Hausmann et al. (2009) and Halpern and Tan (2001), self-ratings on the same items were measured using a 7-point scale from 1 (not at all descriptive of me) to 7 (highly descriptive of me). The mean score on the seven remaining items related to spatial abilities was calculated for each participant.

    • Sex/Gender differences in the human brain

      2021, Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience: Second Edition
    • Are implicit affective evaluations related to mental rotation performance?

      2021, Consciousness and Cognition
      Citation Excerpt :

      This was done because a higher probability that the person was male should lead to a stereotype lift for men and a stereotype threat for women. In a second step and in line with Hausmann et al. (2009) and Halpern and Tan (2001), self-ratings on the all items were measured using a 7-point scale from 1 (not at all descriptive of me) to 7 (highly descriptive of me). Cronbach’s Alpha for the eight questions was 0.61.

    View all citing articles on Scopus

    Address correspondence and reprint requests to to Diane F. Halpern, Department of Psychology, California State University, San Bernardino, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407. Fax: (909) 880-7003. E-mail: [email protected].

    We thank Simay Ikier for assistance with the Turkish language version of the Finding A's Test and Dr. Marcia Collaer at Middlebury College for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. We thank the faculty in the Department of Psychology at Bosphorus University, Istanbul, Turkey, for supporting the first author during her stay in Turkey and for assistance with the Turkish language and data collection.

    View full text