The Google Memo: What Does the Research Say About Gender Differences?

by | Aug 10, 2017 | Benefits of heterodoxy, Diversity, empirical evidence, gender, In the News, psychology, Workplace | 310 comments

This post is authored by Sean Stevens (HxA’s Research Director) and Jonathan Haidt (Director of HxA)

The recent Google Memo on diversity, and the immediate firing of its author, James Damore, have raised a number of questions relevant to the mission of Heterodox Academy. Large corporations deal with many of the same issues that we wrestle with at universities, such as how to seek truth and achieve the kinds of diversity we want, being cognizant that we are tribal creatures often engaged in motivated reasoning, operating within organizations that are at risk of ideological polarization.

We’ll write a separate post soon on the memo’s assertions about the value of viewpoint diversity at Google. But first, in this post, we address the central empirical claim of Damore’s memo, which is contained in its second sentence. Let us quote the first three sentences:

I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.

The heart of Damore’s memo is a section titled “Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech.” Damore argues that there are “population level differences” between men and women in some psychological or behavioral traits that might influence people’s career choices, and their success in those careers. He illustrates his basic framework for looking at potential “population differences” with this figure:

 

Damore challenges the way that Google is currently pursuing diversity–with a heavy emphasis on implicit bias training–and its assumption that gender gaps necessarily show the existence of some form of bias. Damore argues that a company that was completely free of bias and discrimination would not end up with a 50/50 gender split in all job functions because there are population differences in some traits that might influence the jobs men and women seek out and succeed at. His memo is structured as an argument against a position he refers to as “the extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment.” 

Is Damore correct that such “population level differences” exist? It’s very hard to evaluate empirical claims about politicized topics because everyone can “cherry pick” the studies that support their side (for longer discussions, see here and here). The best way to establish the truth in such cases is to examine meta-analyses, which are studies that integrate the findings from many other studies.  

We list all the relevant meta-analyses and large sample studies we have found so far in section 2, below, along with their abstracts. But first, in section 1, we collect all the commentary we can find from experts who are writing about the Google memo specifically. And finally, in section 3, we give our own views about how to make sense of the complicated and conflicting set of research findings. If you think we have left out any major experts or meta-analyses, please let us know in the comments at the end, and if appropriate we will add it to this list.  We intend this post to be a living document that brings together in one place the best empirically grounded arguments on all sides. It will be updated regularly.

We focus here on research on sex differences in interests, traits, and abilities that might be related to coding/engineering/STEM. We do not address Damore’s claims about sex differences in traits said to be related to leadership abilities. Leadership is a messy topic, in part because there are many styles of leadership. See Eagly & Johnson, 1990, for a review of sex differences in that literature, and Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003 for a meta-analysis of gender and leadership style.

In this review, we also do not address Damore’s claims that some gender differences are rooted in biological factors, such as the effect of prenatal hormones on brain development.  Meta-analyses cannot tell us the origins of differences. Most researchers studying these questions assume that biology, childhood socialization, and current context interact in complex ways, and most psychologists know that pointing to a biological contribution (such as a genetic or hormonal influence) does not mean that an effect is “hard wired,” unmalleable, or immune to contextual variables (see Eagly & Wood, 2012; this is a point that Damore did not acknowledge). In this review we focus only on whether “population level differences” exist. (See this essay on why it is mostly claims other than this one that have generated most of the outrage.) A company like Google must hire from the existing population of adults. Google and other tech companies can surely take steps that will influence the next generation of boys and girls, but to make progress toward its diversity goals Google must have an accurate understanding of the current population of men and women from which it is trying to recruit.  Do population level differences exist between men and women?

1) CURRENT COMMENTARY ON DAMORE’S MEMO

A) GENERALLY SUPPORTIVE

Here are the experts who have said that Damore’s main assertions about gender differences are, for the most part, correct (and backed up their arguments with citations).

B) GENERALLY CRITICAL

Here are the experts who have written that the memo’s assertions about gender differences are, for the most part, wrong (and backed up their arguments with citations):

C) IN BETWEEN

Here are the experts who have written that the memo’s assertions (that gender differences exist and that biology plays a role) are correct, but are interpreted overly simplistically to reach incorrect or premature conclusions.

2) META-ANALYSES AND LARGE SAMPLE STUDIES OF GENDER DIFFERENCES

Meta-analysis is a method of examining the effects found (or not found) in dozens or hundreds of studies, converting the effect sizes to a common scale, and then finding the average across all the studies. It’s a very powerful technique that allows researchers to examine questions such as: Does the effect get larger or smaller as we limit our analysis to only the best-done studies?  What broad statements can be made about a body of literature?

Although meta-analysis is a powerful technique, it is not perfect (for an overview of strengths and weaknesses see Rosenthal & DiMatteo, 2001).  It would be ideal if a researcher could not only identify, but also obtain all of the relevant data on the phenomenon of interest.  However, this is an impossible task for any single meta-analysis to achieve.  Statistically significant findings are more likely to be published (see Rosenthal, 1979), and thus included in meta-analyses, compared to null findings which often remain unpublished. No single meta-analysis will be able to identify all of the relevant studies.  This is why we have decided to bring together many meta-analyses in one place. 

We have included relevant meta-analyses on sex differences in interests, personality traits, behaviors and abilities that might be related to coding/engineering from 1990 to the present.  We also included large cross-national empirical investigations (N > 15,000) and large sample empirical investigations (N > 10,000) of gender differences.  Again, we acknowledge that the evidence we present is incomplete; this is a first pass, which we will update with the input and help of others. (Please add citations in the comments section, or email them to stevens at heterodoxacademy dot org). 

We show findings that generally support Damore’s claims in green, and findings that generally oppose his claims (or support his critics) in red. Effect sizes (d) are measures of how far apart two group means are, expressed as a proportion of the standard deviation (averaged between the two groups). By convention, an effect is considered trivially small if d is below .20, small if d is greater than or equal to .20, medium if d is greater than or equal to .50, and large if d is greater than or equal to .80.

Byrnes, J.P., Miller, D.C., & Schafer, W.D. (1999). Gender differences in risk-taking: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 125(3), 367-383.The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 150 studies in which the risk-taking tendencies of male and female participants were compared.  Studies were coded with respect to type of task (e.g., self-reported behaviors vs. observed behaviors), task content (e.g., smoking vs. sex), and 5 age levels. Results showed that the average effects for 14 out of 16 types of risk-taking were significantly larger than 0 (indicating greater risk taking in male participants) and that nearly half of the effects were greater than .20.  However, certain topics (e.g., intellectual risk-  taking and physical skills) produced larger gender differences than others (e.g., smoking).  In addition, the authors found that (a) there were significant shifts in the size of the gender gap between successive age levels, and (b) the gender gap seems to be growing smaller over time.  The discussion focuses on the meaning of the results for theories of risk-taking and the need for additional studies to clarify age trends. [HxA note: the weighted mean effect size was very small — d=.13. Other studies have shown that women take more risks than men on some kinds of risk, e.g., living organ donation; see Becker & Eagley, 2004. Thanks to Alice Eagly for this note]
Costa Jr., P.T., Terracciano, A., & McCrae, R.R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(2), 322-331.Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality Inventory data from 26 cultures (N = 23,031) suggest that gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures. Contrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized. Possible explanations for this surprising finding are discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine behaviors to roles rather than traits in traditional cultures.
Del Giudice, M. Booth, T., & Irwing, P. (2012). The distance between Mars and Venus: Measuring global sex differences in personality. PLos ONE, 7(1): e29265. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029265

Background
Sex differences in personality are believed to be comparatively small. However, research in this area has suffered from significant methodological limitations. We advance a set of guidelines for overcoming those limitations: (a) measure personality with a higher resolution than that afforded by the Big Five; (b) estimate sex differences on latent factors; and (c) assess global sex differences with multivariate effect sizes. We then apply these guidelines to a large, representative adult sample, and obtain what is presently the best estimate of global sex differences in personality.

Methodology/Principal Findings
Personality measures were obtained from a large US sample (N = 10,261) with the 16PF Questionnaire. Multigroup latent variable modeling was used to estimate sex differences on individual personality dimensions, which were then aggregated to yield a multivariate effect size (Mahalanobis D). We found a global effect size D = 2.71, corresponding to an overlap of only 10% between the male and female distributions. Even excluding the factor showing the largest univariate ES, the global effect size was D = 1.71 (24% overlap). These are extremely large differences by psychological standards.

Significance
The idea that there are only minor differences between the personality profiles of males and females should be rejected as based on inadequate methodology. [HxA NOTE: This study computes multivariate effect sizes. For more information on multivariate effects sizes please see here, here, and here] 

Else-Quest, N.M., Hyde, J.S., Goldsmith, H.H., Van Hulle, C.A. (2006). Gender differences in temperament: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1), 33-72.The authors used meta-analytical techniques to estimate the magnitude of gender differences in mean level and variability of 35 dimensions and 3 factors of temperament in children ages 3 months to 13 years. Effortful control showed a large difference favoring girls and the dimensions within that factor (e.g., inhibitory control: d = 0.41, perceptual sensitivity: d = 0.38) showed moderate gender differences favoring girls, consistent with boys’ greater incidence of externalizing disorders. Surgency showed a difference favoring boys, as did some of the dimensions within that factor (e.g., activity: d = 0.33, high-intensity pleasure: d = 0.30), consistent with boys’ greater involvement in active rough-and-tumble play. Negative affectivity showed negligible gender differences. [HxA note: Damore’s memo is not about male superiority; it is about population differences that might explain why we find gender gaps in many occupations, sometimes favoring women, and that might point to ways to make coding more attractive to women]
Else-Quest, N.M, Hyde, J.S., & Linn, M.C. (2010). Cross-national patterns of gender differences in mathematics: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136(1), 103-127.A gender gap in mathematics achievement persists in some nations but not in others. In light of the underrepresentation of women in careers in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering, increasing research attention is being devoted to understanding gender differences in mathematics achievement, attitudes, and affect. The gender stratification hypothesis maintains that such gender differences are closely related to cultural variations in opportunity structures for girls and women. We meta-analyzed 2 major international data sets, the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and the Programme for International Student Assessment, representing 493,495 students 14-16 years of age, to estimate the magnitude of gender differences in mathematics achievement, attitudes, and affect across 69 nations throughout the world. Consistent with the gender similarities hypothesis, all of the mean effect sizes in mathematics achievement were very small (d < 0.15); however, national effect sizes showed considerable variability (ds = -0.42 to 0.40). Despite gender similarities in achievement, boys reported more positive math attitudes and affect (ds = 0.10 to 0.33); national effect sizes ranged from d = -0.61 to 0.89. In contrast to those of previous tests of the gender stratification hypothesis, our results point to specific domains of gender equity responsible for gender gaps in math. Gender equity in school enrollment, women’s share of research jobs, and women’s parliamentary representation were the most powerful predictors of cross-national variability in gender gaps in math.Results are situated within the context of existing research demonstrating apparently paradoxical effects of societal gender equity and highlight the significance of increasing girls’ and women’s agency cross-nationally. [HxA NOTE: “paradoxical” refers to the finding that the more gender-equal societies, such as in Scandinavia, show LARGER gender differences in math attitudes, consistent with the idea that freedom allows men and women to express differing desires]
Hyde, J.S. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60(6), 581-592.The differences model, which argues that males and females are vastly different psychologically, dominates the popular media. Here, the author advances a very different view, the gender similarities hypothesis, which holds that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. Results from a review of 46 meta-analyses support the gender similarities hypothesis. Gender differences can vary substantially in magnitude at different ages and depend on the context in which measurement occurs. Overinflated claims of gender differences carry substantial costs in areas such as the workplace and relationships. [HxA NOTE: Men and women are clearly similar on most psychological constructs, but Hyde’s table of results shows there are a few domains with medium to large differences that could be relevant to the Damore memo, including mechanical reasoning, mental rotation, and spatial visualization]
Hyde, J.S., Fennema, E., & Lamon, S.J. (1990). Gender differences in mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 107(2), 139-155.Reviewers have consistently concluded that males perform better on mathematics tests than females do. To make a refined assessment of the magnitude of gender differences in mathematics performance, we performed a meta-analysis of 100 studies. They yielded 254 independent effect sizes, representing the testing of 3,175,188 Ss. Averaged over all effect sizes based on samples of the general population, d was -0.05, indicating that females outperformed males by only a negligible amount. For computation, d was -0.14 (the negative value indicating superior performance by females). For understanding of mathematical concepts, d was -0.03; for complex problem solving, d was 0.08. An examination of age trends indicated that girls showed a slight superiority in computation in elementary school and middle school. There were no gender differences in problem-solving in elementary or middle school; differences favoring men emerged in high school (d = 0.29) and in college (d = 0.32). Gender differences were smallest and actually favored females in samples of the general population, grew larger with increasingly selective samples, and were largest for highly selected samples and samples of highly precocious persons. The magnitude of the gender difference has declined over the years; for studies published in 1973 or earlier d was 0.31, whereas it was 0.14 for studies published in 1974 or later. We conclude that gender differences in mathematics performance are small. Nonetheless, the lower performance of women in problem-solving that is evident in high school requires attention.
Hyde, J.S., Lindberg, S.M., Linn, M.C., Ellis, A.B., & Williams, C.C. (2008). Gender similarities characterize  math performance. Science, 321(5888), 494-495.[HxA Note: There is no abstract for this paper, we therefore present the conclusion] 

Our analysis shows that, for grades 2 to 11, the general population no longer shows a gender difference in math skills, consistent with the gender similarities hypothesis (19). There is evidence of slightly greater male variability in scores, although the causes remain unexplained. Gender differences in math performance, even among high scorers, are insufficient to explain lopsided gender patterns in participation in some STEM fields. An unexpected finding was that state assessments designed to meet NCLB requirements fail to test complex problem-solving of the kind
needed for success in STEM careers, a lacuna that should be fixed.
Lindberg, S.M., Hyde, J.S., Petersen, J.L., & Linn, M.C. (2010). New trends in gender and mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136(6), 1123-1135.In this paper, we use meta-analysis to analyze gender differences in recent studies of mathematics performance. First, we meta-analyzed data from 242 studies published between 1990 and 2007, representing the testing of 1,286,350 people. Overall, d = .05, indicating no gender difference, and VR = 1.08, indicating nearly equal male and female variances. Second, we analyzed data from large data sets based on probability sampling of U.S. adolescents over the past 20 years: the NLSY, NELS88, LSAY, and NAEP. Effect sizes for the gender difference ranged between −0.15 and +0.22. Variance ratios ranged from 0.88 to 1.34. Taken together these findings support the view that males and females perform similarly in mathematics.
Lippa, R.A. (2010). Sex differences in personality traits and gender-related occupational preferences across 53 nations: Testing evolutionary and social-environmental theories. Archives of Sexual Behavior 39(3), 619-636.Using data from over 200,000 participants from 53 nations, I examined the cross-cultural consistency of sex differences for four traits: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and male-versus-female-typical occupational preferences. Across nations, men and women differed significantly on all four traits (mean ds = -.15, -.56, -.41, and 1.40, respectively, with negative values indicating women scoring higher). The strongest evidence for sex differences in SDs was for extraversion (women more variable) and for agreeableness (men more variable). United Nations indices of gender equality and economic development were associated with larger sex differences in agreeableness, but not with sex differences in other traits. Gender equality and economic development were negatively associated with mean national levels of neuroticism, suggesting that economic stress was associated with higher neuroticism. Regression analyses explored the power of sex, gender equality, and their interaction to predict men’s and women’s 106 national trait means for each of the four traits. Only sex predicted means for all four traits, and sex predicted trait means much more strongly than did gender equality or the interaction between sex and gender equality. These results suggest that biological factors may contribute to sex differences in personality and that culture plays a negligible to small role in moderating sex differences in personality. [HxA NOTE: the correlation of agreeableness with gender equality was “paradoxical” — larger in more gender-equal societies]
Lippa, R.A. (2010). Gender differences in personality and interests: When, where, and why? Social Psychological and Personality Compass, 4, 1098-1110.How big are gender differences in personality and interests, and how stable are these differences across cultures and over time? To answer these questions, I summarize data from two meta-analyses and three cross-cultural studies on gender differences in personality and interests. Results show that gender differences in Big Five personality traits are ‘small’ to ‘moderate,’ with the largest differences occurring for agreeableness and neuroticism (respective ds = 0.40 and 0.34; women higher than men). In contrast, gender differences on the people–things dimension of interests are ‘very large’ (d = 1.18), with women more people-oriented and less thing-oriented than men. Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender-egalitarian societies than in gender-inegalitarian societies, a finding that contradicts social role theory but is consistent with evolutionary, attributional, and social comparison theories. In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences.
Lippa, R.A., Collaer, M.L., & Peters, M. (2010). Sex differences in mental rotation and line angle judgments are positively associated with gender equality and economic development across 53 nations. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(4), 990-997.Mental rotation and line angle judgment performance were assessed in more than 90,000 women and 111,000 men from 53 nations. In all nations, men’s mean performance exceeded women’s on these two visuospatial tasks. Gender equality (as assessed by United Nations indices) and economic development (as assessed by per capita income and life expectancy) were significantly associated, across nations, with larger sex differences, contrary to the predictions of social role theory. For both men and women, across nations, gender equality and economic development were significantly associated with better performance on the two visuospatial tasks.  However, these associations were stronger for the mental rotation task than for the line angle judgment task, and they were stronger for men than for women. Results were discussed in terms of evolutionary, social role, and stereotype threat theories of sex differences.
Lytton, H. & Romney, D.M. (1991). Parents’ differential socialization of boys and girls: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 109(2), 267-296.A meta-analysis of 172 studies attempted to resolve the conflict between previous narrative reviews on whether parents make systematic differences in their rearing of boys and girls. Most effect sizes were found to be nonsignificant and small. In North American studies, the only socialization area of 19 to display a significant effect for both parents is encouragement of sex-typed activities. In other Western countries, physical punishment is applied significantly more to boys. Fathers tend to differentiate more than mothers between boys and girls. Over all socialization areas, effect size is not related to sample size or year of publication. Effect size decreases with child’s age and increases with higher quality. No grouping by any of these variables changes a nonsignificant effect to a significant effect. Because little differential socialization for social behavior or abilities can be found, other factors that may explain the genesis of documented sex differences are discussed.
Morris, M.L. (2016). Vocational interests in the United States: Sex, age, ethnicity, and year effects. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63(5), 604-615.Vocational interests predict educational and career choices, job performance, and career success (Rounds & Su, 2014). Although sex differences in vocational interests have long been observed (Thorndike, 1911), an appropriate overall measure has been lacking from the literature. Using a cross-sectional sample of United States residents aged 14 to 63 who completed the Strong Interest Inventory assessment between 2005 and 2014 (N = 1,283,110), I examined sex, age, ethnicity, and year effects on work related interest levels using both multivariate and univariate effect size estimates of individual dimensions (Holland’s Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional). Men scored higher on Realistic (d = -1.14), Investigative (d = -.32), Enterprising (d = -.22), and Conventional (d = -.23), while women scored higher on Artistic (d = .19) and Social (d = .38), mostly replicating previous univariate findings. Multivariate, overall sex differences were very large (disattenuated Mahalanobis’ D = 1.61; 27% overlap). Interest levels were slightly lower and overall sex differences larger in younger samples. Overall sex differences have narrowed slightly for 18-22 year-olds in more recent samples. Generally very small ethnicity effects included relatively higher Investigative and Enterprising scores for Asians, Indians, and Middle Easterners, lower Realistic scores for Blacks and Native Americans, higher Realistic, Artistic, and Social scores for Pacific Islanders, and lower Conventional scores for Whites. Using Prediger’s (1982) model, women were more interested in people (d = 1.01) and ideas (d = .18), while men were more interested in things and data. These results, consistent with previous reviews showing large sex differences and small year effects, suggest that large sex differences in work related interests will continue to be observed for decades.
Richard, F.D., Bond, Jr., C.F., & Stokes-Zoota, J.J. (2003). One hundred years of social psychology quantitatively described. Review of General Psychology, 7(4), 331-363.This article compiles results from a century of social psychological research, more than 25,000 studies of 8 million people. A large number of social psychological conclusions are listed alongside meta-analytic information about the magnitude and variability of the corresponding effects. References to 322 meta-analyses of social psychological phenomena are presented, as well as statistical effect-size summaries.  Analyses reveal that social psychological effects typically yield a value of r equal to .21 and that, in the typical research literature, effects vary from study to study in ways that produce a standard deviation in r of.15. Uses, limitations, and implications of this large-scale compilation are noted. [HxA NOTE: Richard et al. used meta-analysis to investigate a wide range of social psychological effects.  They reported a d = 0.26 for sex differences, an effect size that was smaller than the average effect size for social psychology as a whole (d = 0.46)]
Schmitt, D.P., Realo, A., Voracek, M., & Allik, J. (2008). Why can’t a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(1), 168-182.Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development–including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth–were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men’s personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated. Overall, higher levels of human development–including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth–were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men’s personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated.
Stoet, G. & Geary, D.C. (2013). Sex differences in mathematics and reading achievement are inversely related: Within- and across-nation assessment of 10 years of PISA data. PLoS ONE 8(3): e57988. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057988We analyzed one decade of data collected by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), including the mathematics and reading performance of nearly 1.5 million 15 year olds in 75 countries. Across nations, boys scored higher than girls in mathematics, but lower than girls in reading. The sex difference in reading was three times as large as in mathematics. There was considerable variation in the extent of the sex differences between nations. There are countries without a sex difference in mathematics performance, and in some countries girls scored higher than boys. Boys scored lower in reading in all nations in all four PISA assessments (2000, 2003, 2006, 2009). Contrary to several previous studies, we found no evidence that the sex differences were related to nations’ gender equality indicators. Further, paradoxically, sex differences in mathematics were consistently and strongly inversely correlated with sex differences in reading: Countries with a smaller sex difference in mathematics had a larger sex difference in reading and vice versa. We demonstrate that this was not merely a between-nation, but also a within-nation effect. This effect is related to relative changes in these sex differences across the performance continuum: We did not find a sex difference in mathematics among the lowest performing students, but this is where the sex difference in reading was largest. In contrast, the sex difference in mathematics was largest among the higher performing students, and this is where the sex difference in reading was smallest. The implication is that if policy makers decide that changes in these sex differences are desired, different approaches will be needed to achieve this for reading and mathematics. Interventions that focus on high-achieving girls in mathematics and on low achieving boys in reading are likely to yield the strongest educational benefits.
Su, R., Rounds, J., & Armstrong, P.I. (2009). Men and things, women and people: A meta-analysis of sex differences in interests. Psychological Bulletin, 135(6), 859-884.The magnitude and variability of sex differences in vocational interests were examined in the present meta-analysis for Holland’s (1959, 1997) categories (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional), Prediger’s (1982) Things-People and Data-Ideas dimensions, and the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) interest areas. Technical manuals for 47 interest inventories were used, yielding 503,188 respondents. Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things-People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and Investigative (d = 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (d = -0.35), Social (d = -0.68), and Conventional (d = -0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and mathematics (d = 0.34) interests. Average effect sizes varied across interest inventories, ranging from 0.08 to 0.79. The quality of interest inventories, based on professional reputation, was not differentially related to the magnitude of sex differences. Moderators of the effect sizes included interest inventory item development strategy, scoring method, theoretical framework, and sample variables of age and cohort. Application of some item development strategies can substantially reduce sex differences. The present study suggests that interests may play a critical role in gendered occupational choices and gender disparity in the STEM fields.
Su, R. & Rounds, J. (2015). All STEM fields are not created equal: People and things interests explains gender disparities across fields. Frontiers in Psychology, 6: 189.The degree of women’s underrepresentation varies by STEM fields. Women are now overrepresented in social sciences, yet only constitute a fraction of the engineering workforce. In the current study, we investigated the gender differences in interests as an explanation for the differential distribution of women across sub-disciplines of STEM as well as the overall underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. Specifically, we meta-analytically reviewed norm data on basic interests from 52 samples in 33 interest inventories published between 1964 and 2007, with a total of 209,810 male and 223,268 female respondents. We found gender differences in interests to vary largely by STEM field, with the largest gender differences in interests favoring men observed in engineering disciplines (d = 0.83–1.21), and in contrast, gender differences in interests favoring women in social sciences and medical services (d = −0.33 and −0.40, respectively). Importantly, the gender composition (percentages of women) in STEM fields reflects these gender differences in interests. The patterns of gender differences in interests and the actual gender composition in STEM fields were explained by the people-orientation and things-orientation of work environments, and were not associated with the level of quantitative ability required. These findings suggest potential interventions targeting interests in STEM education to facilitate individuals’ ability and career development and strategies to reform work environments to better attract and retain women in STEM occupations.
Uttal, D.H., Meadow, N.G., Tipton, E., Hand, L.L., Alden, A.R., Warren, C., & Newcombe, N.S. (2013). The malleability of spatial skills: A meta-analysis of training studies. Psychological Bulletin, 139(2), 352-402.Having good spatial skills strongly predicts achievement and attainment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields (e.g., Shea, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2001; Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009). Improving spatial skills is therefore of both theoretical and practical importance. To determine whether and to what extent training and experience can improve these skills, we meta-analyzed 217 research studies investigating the magnitude, moderators, durability, and generalizability of training on spatial skills.  After eliminating outliers, the average effect size (Hedges’s g) for training relative to control was 0.47 (SE = 0.04).  Training effects were stable and were not affected by delays between training and posttesting. Training also transferred to other spatial tasks that were not directly trained. We analyzed the effects of several moderators, including the presence and type of control groups, sex, age, and type of training. Additionally, we included a theoretically motivated typology of spatial skills that emphasizes 2 dimensions: intrinsic versus extrinsic and static versus dynamic (Newcombe & Shipley, in press). Finally, we consider the potential educational and policy implications of directly training spatial skills.  Considered together, the results suggest that spatially enriched education could pay substantial dividends in increasing participation in mathematics, science, and engineering.
Voyer, D., & Voyer, S. D. (2014). Gender differences in scholastic achievement: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 1174-1204.A female advantage in school marks is a common finding in education research, and it extends to most course subjects (e.g., language, math, science), unlike what is found on achievement tests. However, questions remain concerning the quantification of these gender differences and the identification of relevant moderator variables. The present meta-analysis answered these questions by examining studies that included an evaluation of gender differences in teacher-assigned school marks in elementary, junior/middle, or high school or at the university level (both undergraduate and graduate). The final analysis was based on 502 effect sizes drawn from 369 samples. A multilevel approach to meta-analysis was used to handle the presence of nonindependent effect sizes in the overall sample. This method was complemented with an examination of results in separate subject matters with a mixed-effects meta-analytic model. A small but significant female advantage (mean d = 0.225, 95% CI [0.201, 0.249]) was demonstrated for the overall sample of effect sizes. Noteworthy findings were that the female advantage was largest for language courses (mean d = 0.374, 95% CI [0.316, 0.432]) and smallest for math courses (mean d = 0.069, 95% CI [0.014, 0.124]). Source of marks, nationality, racial composition of samples, and gender composition of samples were significant moderators of effect sizes. Finally, results showed that the magnitude of the female advantage was not affected by year of publication, thereby contradicting claims of a recent “boy crisis” in school achievement. The present meta-analysis demonstrated the presence of a stable female advantage in school marks while also identifying critical moderators. Implications for future educational and psychological research are discussed.
Voyer, D., Voyer, S., & Bryden, M.P. (1995). Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: A meta-analysis and consideration of critical variables. Psychological Bulletin, 117(2), 250-270.In recent years, the magnitude, consistency, and stability across time of cognitive sex differences have been questioned. The present study examined these issues in the context of spatial abilities. A meta-analysis of 286 effect sizes from a variety of spatial ability measures was conducted. Effect sizes were partitioned by the specific test used and by a number of variables related to the experimental procedure in order to achieve homogeneity. Results showed that sex differences are significant in several tests but that some intertest differences exist.  Partial support was found for the notion that the magnitude of sex differences has decreased in recent years.  Finally, it was found that the age of emergence of sex differences depends on the test used.  Results are discussed with regard to their implications for the study of sex differences in spatial abilities.
Weinburgh, M. (1995). Gender differences in student attitudes towards science: A meta-analysis of the literature from 1970 to 1991. Journal of Research in Science Training, 32(4), 387-398.A meta-analysis covering the literature between 1970 and 1991 was conducted using an approach similar to that suggested by Glass, McGaw, and Smith (1981) and Hedges, Shymansky, and Woodworth (1989). This analysis examined gender differences in student attitudes toward science, and correlations between attitudes toward science and achievement in science. Thirty-one effect sizes and seven correlations representing the testing of 6,753 subjects were found in 18 studies. The mean of the unweighted effect sizes was .20 (SD = .50) and the mean of the weighted effect size was .16 (SD = .50), indicating that boys have more positive attitudes toward science than girls. The mean correlation between attitude and achievement was .50 for boys and .55 for girls, suggesting that the correlations are comparable. Results of the analysis of gender differences in attitude as a function of science type indicate that boys show a more positive attitude toward science than girls in all types of science. The correlation between attitude and achievement for boys and girls as a function of science type indicates that for biology and physics the correlation is positive for both, but stronger for girls than for boys. Gender differences and correlations between attitude and achievement by gender as a function of publication date show no pattern. The results for the analysis of gender differences as a function of the selectivity of the sample indicate that general level students reflect a greater positive attitude for boys, whereas the high-performance students indicate a greater positive attitude for girls. The correlation between attitude and achievement as a function of selectivity indicates that in all cases a positive attitude results in higher achievement. This is particularly true for low-performance girls. The implications of these finding are discussed and further research suggested.
Zell, E., Krizan, Z., & Teeter, S.R. (2015). Evaluating gender similarities and differences using metasynthesis. American Psychologist, 70(1), 10-20.Despite the common lay assumption that males and females are profoundly different, Hyde (2005) used data from 46 meta-analyses to demonstrate that males and females are highly similar. Nonetheless, the gender similarities hypothesis has remained controversial. Since Hyde’s provocative report, there has been an explosion of meta-analytic interest in psychological gender differences. We utilized this enormous collection of 106 meta-analyses and 386 individual meta-analytic effects to reevaluate the gender similarities hypothesis. Furthermore, we employed a novel data-analytic approach called metasynthesis (Zell & Krizan, 2014) to estimate the average difference between males and females and to explore moderators of gender differences. The average, absolute difference between males and females across domains was relatively small (d = 0.21, SD = 0.14), with the majority of effects being either small (46%) or very small (39%). Magnitude of differences fluctuated somewhat as a function of the psychological domain (e.g., cognitive variables, social and personality variables, well-being), but remained largely constant across age, culture, and generations. These findings provide compelling support for the gender similarities hypothesis, but also underscore conditions under which gender differences are most pronounced. [HxA NOTE: metasynthesis differs from meta-analysis, please see the Zell & Krizan, 2014 paper for a longer discussion of metasynthesis]

 

3) OUR CONCLUSIONS

The research findings are complicated, as you can see from the many abstracts containing both red and green text, and from the presence on both sides of the debate of some of the top researchers in psychology. Nonetheless, we think that the situation can be greatly clarified by distinguishing abilities from interests. We think the following three statements are supported by the research reviewed above:

1. Gender differences in math/science ability, achievement, and performance are small or nil. (See especially the studies by Hyde; see also this review paper by Spelke, 2005). There are two exceptions to this statement:
A)Men (on average) score higher than women on most tests of spatial abilities, but the size of this advantage depends on the task and varies from small to large (e.g., Lindberg et al., 2010).  There is at least one spatial task that favors females (spatial location memory; see e.g., Galea & Kimura, 1993; Kimura, 1996; Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978).  Men also (on average) score higher on mechanical reasoning and tests of mathematical ability, although this latter advantage is small.  Women get better grades at all levels of schooling and score higher on a few abilities that are relevant to success in any job (e.g., reading comprehension, writing, social skills).  Thus, we assume that this one area of male superiority is not likely to outweigh areas of male inferiority to become a major source of differential outcomes.
B) There is good evidence that men are more variable on a variety of traits, meaning that they are over-represented at both tails of the distribution (i.e., more men at the very bottom, and at the very top), even though there is no gender difference on average.  Thus, the pool of potentially qualified applicants for a company like Google is likely to contain more males than females.  To be clear, this does not mean that males are more “suited” for STEM jobs.  Anyone located in the upper tail of the distributions valued in the hiring process possesses the requisite skills. Although there may be fewer women in that upper tail, the ones who are found there are likely to have several advantages over the men, particularly because they likely have better verbal skills.

2. Gender differences in interest and enjoyment of math, coding, and highly “systemizing” activities are large. The difference on traits related to preferences for “people vs. things” is found consistently and is very large, with some effect sizes exceeding 1.0. (See especially the meta-analyses by Su and her colleagues, and also see this review paper by Ceci & Williams, 2015).

3. Culture and context matter, in complicated ways. Some gender differences have decreased over time as women have achieved greater equality, showing that these differences are responsive to changes in culture and environment. But the cross-national findings sometimes show “paradoxical” effects: progress toward gender equality in rights and opportunities sometimes leads to larger gender differences in some traits and career choices. Nonetheless, it seems that actions taken today by parents, teachers, politicians, and designers of tech products may increase the likelihood that girls will grow up to pursue careers in tech, and this is true whether or not biology plays a role in producing any particular population difference. (See this review paper by Eagly and Wood, 2013).

In conclusion, based on the meta-analyses we reviewed and the research on the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis, Damore is correct that there are “population level differences in distributions” of traits that are likely to be relevant for understanding gender gaps at Google and other tech firms. The differences are much larger and more consistent for traits related to interest and enjoyment, rather than ability. This distinction between interest and ability is important because it may address  one of the main fears raised by Damore’s critics: that the memo itself will cause Google employees to assume that women are less qualified, or less “suited” for tech jobs, and will therefore lead to more bias against women in tech jobs. But the empirical evidence we have reviewed should have the opposite effect. Population differences in interest and population differences in variability of abilities may help explain why there are fewer women in the applicant pool, but the women who choose to enter the pool are just as capable as the larger number of men in the pool. This conclusion does not deny that various forms of bias, harassment, and discouragement exist and may contribute to outcome disparities, nor does it imply that the differences in interest are biologically fixed and cannot be changed in future generations.

If our three conclusions are correct then Damore was drawing attention to empirical findings that seem to have been previously unknown or ignored at Google, and which might be helpful to the company as it tries to improve its diversity policies and outcomes.  What should Google’s response to the memo have been? We’ll address that in a followup post soon.

NOTE: This is a living blog post. We are updating it every few days in August, as commenters and colleagues guide us to new studies and offer us thoughtful criticisms. Our conclusions have changed slightly since our initial post. To reduce confusion, we have created a Google Doc that gives the original version of the post and then shows the major substantive changes we have made, particularly to the conclusions. [link to come]

=======================

For further reading:

=======================

Notes and Responses to Reader Comments:

1. The authors thank Alice Eagly for helpful comments and criticisms on our first draft.

2. *We will soon address the issue of different variances in test scores between men and women, which was the key point of controversy in Larry Summers’ remarks in 2005. See the Pinker/Spelke debate for clear and conflicting presentations on that question.  For a more recent analysis see Machin & Pekkarinen, 2008 and, especially, the supplementary materials (for an ungated summary click here).

3. The Morris (2016) study was added after a suggestion by Marco Del Giudice.

4.The most critical reactions to Damore often focus on his invocations of biology, particularly this line: ”I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.” We cannot review the enormous literature on biology, culture, and gender in this post; we will link to appraisals by biologists when we find them. But we do think it important to make one comment: Nearly all academic psychologists who study personality, cognitive abilities, and interests, including gender differences, say that nature (biology) and nurture (childhood socialization, social norms, social roles) are both essential for explaining development, even if most researchers tend to focus their own work on one or the other (see Halpern, 1997; Halpern & LaMay, 2000; Neisser et al., 1996; Nisbett et al., 2012). Here, for example, is Eagly and Wood (2013):

“Is nature or nurture the stronger influence on sex differences and similarities? If asked, most psychologists would probably reply that the question is misguided. Obviously, both are influential. (p. 1)…” “We believe that the future of science pertaining to gender and sex differences lies in overcoming ideological and identity biases and formulating theories that effectively integrate principles of nature and nurture into interactionist approaches.” (p. 12)

5. Zell, Krizan, & Teeter (2015) metasynthesis was added after a suggestion by Elena Zinova.

6. Del Giudice, Booth, & Irwing (2012) was added after reviewing literature on multivariate effect sizes.

7. Hyde et al (2008) was added to the research table after a suggestion by Alice Eagly.

8. Stoet & Geary (2013) was added to the research table after suggestions by Alice Eagly and David Geary.

9. Miller, D.I. & Halpern, D.F. (2014). The new science of cognitive sex differences. Trends in Cognitive Science, 18(1), 37-45, was added to the further reading section after a suggestion by Alice Eagly.

10. Hall, J.A. (1978). Gender effects in the decoding of verbal cues. Psychological Bulletin, 85(4), 845-857, was added to the further reading section after a suggestion by Alice Eagly.

11. Stefanie Johnson: What the Science Actually Says About Gender Gaps in the Workplace was added to the Generally Critical section after a suggestion by Adam Grant.

12. Links (highlighted) added to this sentence: Furthermore, because women get better grades at all levels of schooling and score higher on a few abilities that are relevant to success in any job (e.g., reading comprehension, writing, social skills)… .

13. Both Diekman et al. (2011; 2016) papers added to the further reading section.

14. Uttal et al. (2013) added to the research table after a suggestion by Alice Eagly.

15. Conclusions revised September 3, 2017.

Opinions expressed are those of the author(s). Publication does not imply endorsement by Heterodox Academy or any of its members. We welcome your comments below. Feel free to challenge and disagree, but please try to model the sort of respectful and constructive criticism that makes viewpoint diversity most valuable. Comments that include obscenity or aggression are likely to be deleted.

310 Comments

  1. YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 30, 2017 at 10:10 pm

    Scientific American September issue has a few relevant articles. https://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/2017/09-01/

    I’ve just scratched the surface, but the article on https://girlswhocode.com mentioned two reasons to work to increase the number of women going into tech: 1) it increases the talent pool. As a former hiring manager, I can attest that we need more software engineers. 2) it provides a higher income for the individuals who get jobs in tech.

  2. Sabuj Chattopadhyay on August 30, 2017 at 1:46 am

    A comprehensive study on the differences in vocational interests by sex, age, year and ethnicity. (Generally supportive of Damore’s claims)

    http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-36831-001

  5. Practicing Software Engineer, Manager on August 28, 2017 at 12:00 am

    Continuing my comment on why the Damore paper’s citation/data doesn’t rise to overturn current practice in increasing gender diversity –
    Neuroticism – citation says 66% of women self-identify as “worrying/gets nervous easily/…” as opposed to 50% of men. This difference if apparent in a candidate can be managed by teaching coping strategies. This doesn’t rise to a disqualifying attribute. The author of the paper D.P. Schmitt in his comments (cited above) likens applying this small to moderate difference in a workplace to “surgically operating with an axe”.
    I would also note that work related stress in a Software company is not likely to be any worse than in other work places such as a medical practice. Medical residents in US are at near gender parity. Medical residents and practitioners are more likely to be making life and death decisions as compared to typical software engineers.
    Neuroticism – is assigned based on answers to Big Five Inventory (BFI) survey. Read the questions and judge for yourself the weight and relevance of this measure –
    Definition of Neuroticism in BFI: taken from http://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/Personality-BigFiveInventory.pdf
    Assign 1-5 based on
    1 Disagree strongly, 2 Disagree a little, 3 Neither agree nor disagree,
    4 Agree a little, 5 Agree Strongly

    ____4. Is depressed, blue
    ____9. Is relaxed, handles stress well [Reverse the score]
    ____14. Can be tense
    ____19. Worries a lot
    ____24. Is emotionally stable, not easily upset [Reverse the score]
    ____29. Can be moody
    ____34. Remains calm in tense situations [Reverse the score]
    ____39. Gets nervous easily

  6. Practicing Software Engineer, Manager on August 27, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    Let us start with Warren Buffett’s case for gender diversity in the workforce – “it is stupid to ignore/discount 50% of your potential workforce”.

    We should examine whether the data from Damore’s citations rise to overturn current practice on increasing gender diversity in the software engineering work force. After looking at two areas, Things vs People on interest, and Neuroticism on aptitude/interest in his paper I came away unconvinced.

    I will list my observations of Things vs People here and post Neuroticism in a follow on.

    Things vs People – citation says between 20-40% percent of a sample of Women in vocational interest surveys may be interested in Software career. As one of the most desirable software engineering workplaces Google can aspire to find / hire / promote significantly more than it is current ratio of 20% Women Engineers.

    The details:

    Things vs People – The vocational interest categories cited for STEM interest suggest that some where between 20-40% of a sample of women might find Software Engineering an interesting field. The reference point for interest is the mean interest value of men in the sample. (The data is listed as 80-60% are not interested but the reverse is easier for discussion).

    Vocational interest surveys group people into Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, etc. See
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Codes
    and R. Su 2015 cited above. The Realistic category with d=0.8 i.e., ~80% of women are not interested vs 50% of men, maps to jobs ranging from Firefighter to Computer Engineer. The Investigative category with d=0.2 i.e., 60% of the women are not interested vs 50% of the men to jobs ranging from Carpenter to Mathematician to Programmer to Computer Engineer. I mapped effect size – d to the percentages using Coe’s paper here –
    http://www.cem.org/attachments/ebe/ESguide.pdf

  7. The Independent Whig on August 25, 2017 at 1:35 pm

    William Saleton chimes in with The Conversation Google Killed

    It is an elegant, eloquent, highly educated, highly sophisticated defense of The Coddling of the American Mind; of triggers, and of feelings over facts.

    And it is an obtuse, elitist, instance of killing the messenger.

    He’s not saying Google was right. Note the title of the essay. He’s saying Google was wrong to fire Damore.

    But he also says Damore wrong in at least two ways.

    First, he says Damore’s writing and speaking style is unsophisticated, “ham handed.” Essentially, he says Damore should be more like Saleton; more like an erudite professor of literature.

    Second, he says Damore should have been more circumspect; more aware of and sensitive to how people might react. Saleton doesn’t use the phrase “sacred values” but in essence he says Damore should have known that his memo violates some sacred values, and therefore he should have been more sensitive and nice. Damore should have known that people don’t do active listening; they don’t try to hear what one actually says and means. Rather, they listen for “stereotypes” they dislike, e.g. women aren’t as smart as men, and pounce on those rather than on the actual content of the memo.

    In essence, Saleton is doing two things.

    First, he’s validating the concept of “triggers.” He calls them “sterotypes,” but his meaning is clear. Don’t trigger people.

    Second, he’s validating infantile emotional reasoning of the type described in Coddling. He’s saying feelings trump facts. He’s saying “don’t speak in terms of facts and logic because people might be upset.”

    The whole thing is specious. Thinking like Saleton’s IS THE PROBLEM!

  8. Johannes Kornhuber on August 24, 2017 at 3:08 pm

    Women are not disadvantaged in STEM: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27471301 (Breda T, Hillion M (2016) Teaching accreditation exams reveal grading biases favor women in male-dominated disciplines in France. Science 353: 474-478)

    • Sean Stevens on August 24, 2017 at 3:11 pm

      I would be wary generalizing the results of one study from one country, although these results are consistent with the findings of Ceci and his colleagues.

  10. Michael Samuel on August 22, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    Here’s one more article (generally critical) I came across, written by a PhD student:
    https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boots-on-what-the-evidence-says-about-mr-damores-google-memo-bc93c8b2fdb9

    The writer is studying Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior; and holds BSc degrees in Psychology and Genetics.

    I have read too many articles on this topic now, so I’m just skimming at this point, but I do notice she particularly seems to challenge your conclusion point number 2 via taking a critical stance towards relevant study designs and methods.

  11. Steven E Rhoads on August 22, 2017 at 5:48 pm

    Thanks for this very thoughtful overview. There is one large gap, however, in the presentation of the people/things discussion of interests and preferences. These sex differences are not just relevant to an understanding of which occupations men and women are attracted to; they are relevant also to interest in full-time work in any occupation.

    The people mothers are most interested in are their children. In the linked articles below I present evidence showing that mothers, on average, are much less interested in full-time work than fathers. These differences are largest among the best educated men and women. For example, David Lubinski, Camilla Benbow and colleagues find the women with high STEM aptitude, are significantly less likely to want full-time work even in their ideal job. This seems to be because they have a greater interest than high aptitude STEM men in part-time work “as well as community and family involvement and time for close relationships.”

    ifstudies.org/blog/lean-ins-biggest-hurdle-what-most-moms-want

    ifstudies.org/blog/you-cant-imagine-facts-away-a-response-to-brigid-schulte-and-gary-barker

  12. Ed Haywood on August 22, 2017 at 10:14 am

    Super enlightening article, thank you for posting this!

    Conclusions 1 and 2 cannot be considered in isolation. Performance and interest are inherently linked. In real life, achievement is a product of focused effort. That must be intrinsically enjoyable to sustain for a career. The giants of any profession are those with a deep passion for what they do.

    Consequently, the goal of corporate and academic policy should be removing obstacles to the discovery and pursuit of individual vocational interests. Where hidden roadblocks exist to deter women from STEM careers, they should be torn down. It may be that affirmative action-type approaches may be necessary to overcome stubborn biases in some fields.

    However, caution should always be exercised when engineering individual actions for social goals. Steering people into fields they are not otherwise inclined to pursue does them a disservice in the long run.

    As an old wise uncle once told me, do what you love and the rest will follow.

  14. Théophile Gaudin on August 22, 2017 at 6:24 am

    Hello,

    This is a very honest and instructive summary of meta analyses.

    I think, however, that references specifically critic about the gender similarity analysis are lacking, because this study is often cited by pure social constructionnists as the gold standard of gender differences.

    First, it should be noticed that “The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality” is also thought as a critic of this specific hypothesis.

    Second, I feel the specific comment about such approach here should be cited:
    Judgments of Similarity Are Psychological: The Importance of Importance.
    Zuriff, G E. 1,2 [Editorial] American Psychologist. 61(6):641, September 2006.
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6835930_Judgments_of_similarity_are_psychological_The_importance_of_importance
    It emphasized that the conclusion about the data of the Gender Similarity Hypothesis can differ with different methodological tools and is therefore highly circumstancial.

  15. Lorne Carmichael on August 19, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    I’m late to the party here, but I want to add something to this debate that i believe has not been properly emphasized.

    You can’t have a productive debate about occupational choice without an understanding of the factors that determine occupational choice. I wrote about this here:

    http://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/male-female-imbalance-in-stem-comes-down-to-economics/

    Occupational choice depends on what economists call “comparative advantage”. In other words, it’s not simply how good you are at math relative to how good other people are at math that determines whether you will enter a math dominated field. It’s also how good you are at math relative to how good you are at other things. (The same goes for interests – how much you like math relative to how much you like other things.)

    Girls do as well as boys in high school math, on average. Girls do much better than boys in every other subject, except Phys Ed.

    So perhaps the real question is not “Why are there so few women in STEM fields?” The real question might be rhetorical: “What else are boys going to do?”

    • oudeicrat on August 23, 2017 at 9:24 am

      Excellent point! Also, people on the spectrum should be considered too. What else are people on the spectrum going to do? And what does that say about gender differences in interests if more males are neurodivergent?

  16. Mark on August 18, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    The degree of women’s underrepresentation varies by STEM fields. Women are now overrepresented in social sciences, yet only constitute a fraction of the engineering workforce. In the current study, we investigated the gender differences in interests as an explanation for the differential distribution of women across sub-disciplines of STEM as well as the overall underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. Specifically, we meta-analytically reviewed norm data on basic interests from 52 samples in 33 interest inventories published between 1964 and 2007, with a total of 209,810 male and 223,268 female respondents. We found gender differences in interests to vary largely by STEM field, with the largest gender differences in interests favoring men observed in engineering disciplines (d = 0.83–1.21), and in contrast, gender differences in interests favoring women in social sciences and medical services (d = −0.33 and −0.40, respectively). Importantly, the gender composition (percentages of women) in STEM fields reflects these gender differences in interests. The patterns of gender differences in interests and the actual gender composition in STEM fields were explained by the people-orientation and things-orientation of work environments, and were not associated with the level of quantitative ability required. These findings suggest potential interventions targeting interests in STEM education to facilitate individuals’ ability and career development and strategies to reform work environments to better attract and retain women in STEM occupations.

    http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00189/full

    • JP on August 20, 2017 at 11:52 am

      Should we have “interventions” to increase the amount of men in social sciences?

      Should we worry about anti-male bias in social sciences?

      Why or why not?

  17. Michael Samuel on August 18, 2017 at 10:37 am

    The added Alice Eagly article seems like a good summary of both the nature and nurture aspects.

    “It makes more sense to treat individuals of both sexes as located somewhere on a continuum of masculine and feminine interests and abilities.”

    Given this, I take it that diversity policies should default to trying to accommodate both people and things interests at workplace, because, regardless of gender distributions, both definitely exist and individuals can end up finding themselves in various career paths.

    “..ideological wars distracts from figuring out what changes in organizational practices and cultures would foster the inclusion of women in tech..”

    One thing, however, that I notice from Eagly’s article – and I could be mistaken – is that she does hold a view that increasing equality in tech jobs is something valuable in itself, and the debate would merely affect on what the best means of doing so would be (e.g. accounting for nature: organizing workplaces to accommodate both people and things where possible; and accounting for nurture: organizing the recruitment processes and socialization to be less skewed).

    But besides corporate related reasons, I don’t recall encountering any arguments that would justify the seeming presupposition that a more equal distribution of sex/gender would be something that ought to be pushed in tech (especially when the pool of educated employees is currently not equally distributed).

    What would be the moral argument that would justify the social engineering part in the first place, given that people’s interests are currently distributed how they are (and, presumably, they are happy to be interested in whatever it is they’re interested in)? Yes, people vs. things should be noted at an occupation, where possible, but would deliberate push for gender equality rest only on ideology? Would there be possible (social/psychological) downsides? Or maybe upsides? And to what degree can people vs. things be noted in tech jobs in the first place?

  18. Covertfun on August 18, 2017 at 1:47 am

    Whig: I like your style; I agree the issue sprawls beyond the science. But we have to start somewhere and the science seems like a firm footing.
    Heterodoxacademy: thanks so much for posting this. I’m so pleased that your site showed up, I’m a new convert.

    Last of all I have a non-scientific thought to contribute, it’s a guess at a corporate strategy we might be glimpsing…

    OK, so I’m Sundar Pichai. I know a few things:
    1. The pool of talented engineers skews male
    2. The political and cultural environment doesn’t like #1
    3. Governments and regulatory bodies can be lobbied on this issue in favour of regulating quotas.

    So I think: “What would it cost us to employ every female engineer in Silicon Valley? If we develop a reputation as a great place for women to work, we get a discount. Can we make that money back with boosted sales from our goodwill and PR? If not, can we lobby to have fines levied on organisations that don’t meet gender-equity quotas?”

    I (me again, back to normal) don’t know where to look for evidence of this, but when you’re talking about a finite pool of exceptionally talented individuals these strategies are available. Top English Premier League football teams hire in depth, putting international-standard stars on the bench. If you’ve got the money, you can keep these guys out of reach of your competitors.

    If Google were pursuing this strategy (hire all the best women, hire all the medium-skill women, then lobby for regulation to punish the other companies late to the game) it might look like what we’re seeing. If their school outreach and education schemes aren’t worth as much as their lobbying efforts that would be a clue that it’s not entirely in good faith for equity but part of a bureaucratising power play.

  19. Mary on August 17, 2017 at 5:54 pm

    I think this summary is really impressive. I have two comments though, and I’m sorry if I misunderstood the article.

    1. Regarding the conclusion, I don’t think it necessarily follows from Damore’s use of evolutionary data in his memo that Google was not aware of it. But even if they weren’t, I think Damore mentions that Google have been adopting suitable measures to address women’s “natural” preferences and personality traits. He, nevertheless, argues against those “non-discriminatory” measures (although he claims before that that he supports them) because, in his opinion, Google have to focus on measures for the company’s own good, and not only to promote “equality”.

    2. He’s really up against what he calls the “discriminatory practices” of Google. This part is what I find the most interesting. However, because of the whole gender differences discussion, it’s barely discussed. I also think it’s barely discussed because it mentions specific information of Google, such as the Googlegeists scores and other stuff I have no idea about. I think Sadedin’s response in Quora is one of the few that address this part. And I’m really curious to hear from the HxA what they think of it, since this part’s core arguments (that Google is blinded by its moral biases, and more political diversity is necessary) are based on Jonathan Haidt’s theory of moral foundations.

  20. The Independent Whig on August 17, 2017 at 12:33 pm

    Analysis of the memo strikes me as the intellectual equivalent of analysis of the iceberg the Titanic hit.

    The problem is not the iceberg, or the memo.

    The problem is the unhinged reaction to it, in which the Telos of Social Justice overrides the Telos of Truth. As Haidt pointed out in his lecture Two Incompatible Sacred Values in American Universities, the two are mutually exclusive.

    Instead of examining the iceberg, how about we examine the captain of the ship; the psychology of the leftist righteous mind?

    If establishing the veracity of the memo is the first step in this process then fine.

    But if the process stops here then we’ve COMPLETELY overlooked the ACTUAL problem.

    • JP on August 17, 2017 at 8:07 pm

      Whig:

      You are missing the point. You have made multiple posts basically stating “the narrative is wrong” Guess what!! We agree!! I have agreed with you on this for a long time. But that fact that we agree does not change the narrative. So how do we change it?

      For many the narrative will not change. It is a religion. But it can be changed. It gets changed when issues, like the Google Memo are objectively and soberly discussed. Look at how many new participants have joined in this discussion. Most are not members of the very small group of conservative intellectuals that dominate other discussions on this forum. And with few exceptions, there is wide agreement that preferences, very likely biologically based, are the reason that women choose not to go into engineering. This is big. It is in direct contradiction to the narrative of rampant sexism that permeates the media discussion of this topic.

      Narratives do not get changed by a small group of like-minded people giving each other atta-boys on a forum. They get changed when people who are on the fence are presented with objective data and analysis. This post and accompanying discussion does that. I believe for that reason it is the most important discussion that I have seen on this forum. Narratives also do not get changed overnight. But we have taken a step forward.

      • Will on August 21, 2017 at 8:54 am

        I agree, and thank you for writing this. I was raised on the right (pretty extreme Christian conservative) but have converted to an independent centrist because of reason, philosophy, and science. Hysterical people on the right need to realize they make the situation worse with their own dogma and direct antagonism of the left. Getting everyone’s emotions riled up makes it extremely difficult for people to come to the center, and increases polarization. If only the whole world would start practicing mindfulness meditation daily…

      • The Independent Whig on August 21, 2017 at 3:25 pm

        I explained my suggestion for how we change it in the comments to the Berlinerblau post.

        Look for my comment that starts like this:

        JP on August 20, 2017 at 11:09 pm
        I understand what you are getting at. But you are describing a mental state, not a problem or solution. … We need to focus on the solution to the problem.

        I’m so glad you brought up solutions. Thanks for the segue.

  21. oudeicrat on August 17, 2017 at 12:11 pm

    The regressive left is scrambling hysterically to find faults with the scientific data Damore refers to, but so far I haven’t seen a single attempt on their part at scientifically proving (or at least hinting) the practices Google uses to battle perceived non-diversity (some of them illegal) have any desired effects.

  22. Michael Samuel on August 17, 2017 at 9:19 am

    Please delete, if not considered relevant here, but I just noticed this tweet by Julian Assange, and think it sums up some of the political confusions relevant to current times:

    “US neo-(iberal/cons) and their MSM press pets are in overdrive conflating the massive anti-DC left+right with the tiny alt-Reich+Antifa.”

    Link to the tweet: https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/897808386758250496

    I think a lot of what we’ve seen with the news about the memo and it’s analysis is explained by the same confusion, causing the proverbial elephants to run wild.

  23. Vega on August 17, 2017 at 5:25 am

    Another negative take from Wired:
    https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-damores-google-memo/

    Many of the critical articles reference the psychologist David Schmitt and make it seem like Schmitt thinks Damore got the science all wrong (another article from Wired reads “Even the guy behind the research thinks that Googler is wrong”). But other publications have Schmitt down as being generally supportive. You see what you wanna see.

  24. Vega on August 17, 2017 at 1:13 am

    http://nautil.us/blog/outraged-by-the-google-diversity-memo-i-want-you-to-think-about-it

    http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/08/outraged-about-google-diversity-memo-i.html?m=1

    Thoughts from Sabine Hossenfelder, a theoretical physicist at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. It’s a searching, reflective piece. She provides a narrative different than the one given by the Damore-critical piece in Vox written by Cynthia Lee, a computer scientist at Stanford. Both links above have the same piece, but the second link has a lively discussion in the comments section.

    This isn’t “Sabine Hossenfelder vs. Cynthia Lee.” Just two different takes.

  26. Mark Nelson on August 16, 2017 at 9:38 am

    More interesting recent (not yet peer-reviewed?) research on differences in brain structures between men and women. Let me include the standard disclaimer that correlation does not equal causation, this doesn’t answer anything, etc.

    “…A subset of those enrolled in the study underwent brain scans using MRI. In 2750 women and 2466 men aged 44–77, Ritchie and his colleagues examined the volumes of 68 regions within the brain, as well as the thickness of the cerebral cortex…”

    “Adjusting for age, on average, they found that women tended to have significantly thicker cortices than men. Thicker cortices have been associated with higher scores on a variety of cognitive and general intelligence tests. Meanwhile, men had higher brain volumes than women in every subcortical region they looked at, including the hippocampus (which plays broad roles in memory and spatial awareness), the amygdala (emotions, memory, and decision-making), striatum (learning, inhibition, and reward-processing), and thalamus (processing and relaying sensory information to other parts of the brain).”

    “Volumes and cortical thickness between men also tended to vary much more than they did between women, the researchers report this month in a paper posted to the bioRxiv server, which makes articles available before they have been peer reviewed. That’s intriguing because it lines up with previous work looking at sex and IQ tests. “[That previous study] finds no average difference in intelligence, but males were more variable than females,” Ritchie says.

    “The controversial—and still unsettled—question is whether these patterns mean anything to intelligence or behavior. Though popular culture is replete with supposed examples of intellectual and behavioral differences between the sexes, only a few, like higher physical aggression in men, have been borne out by scientific research.”

    http://www.sciencemag…

    • doug deeper on August 16, 2017 at 2:37 am

      The Economist suggests that Google co-founder Larry Page, one of the most powerful persons on earth with considerable influence over one of the most powerful institutions on earth, should have written their response.

      I had read that James Damore’s memo was a response to a request for feedback after a Google diversity meeting, and they’re suggesting he should have received a screed from this multi-billionaire along with his pink slip?

      The fact that so many are debating (257 comments just at HXA) the merits of Damore’s memo certainly shows we are not talking about settled science. I strongly believe that every individual should be treated as an individual and should never be discriminated against because of some group they can be considered a part of. But the gender biological differences and interest differences ARE controversial and the debate will be robust. Heck, the bio and interest differences can easily be argued to favor women, should we not be able to talk about those.

      The Economist is suggesting an attack on Damore as if he is a menacing misogynist who dares to utilize “motivated reasoning,” and thus needs to have his career and personal life destroyed.

      I find that just a little bit over the top. Does the Google VP of Diversity, or Mr Pichai himself for that matter, never dabble in “motivated reasoning.” Heavens!

      Damore is a very bright, very unaggressive sounding 30? year old engineer. His firing may be perfectly legal, but the outrage from such a powerful corporation is scary as hell, and the Economist wishes Google would have responded with more “fire and fury.”

      • Will on August 21, 2017 at 9:32 am

        Don’t you think the economist article would have been better served by moral elevation as opposed to moral disgust? Even though the current political climate is sadly loaded with moral disgust, I must admit I’ve been disgusted by all the moral disgust at Damore’s memo. Sure it was amateurish for a variety of reasons, but I just don’t get why it was so disgusting, even though the media told me that was what I was supposed to think. It does seem to be an example of groupthink, in my opinion. Group think is hard to avoid, of course, even among scientists and critical thinkers. Recognizing the difficult is part of critical thinking.

    • JP on August 16, 2017 at 10:42 am

      The best commentary on the Damore memo by far is right here. That includes both Sean’s post and the erudite comments. The Economist article is a rant, like many other rants that have appeared recently in the press. It references other rants, including one pseudo-science discussion which called Damore a racist (Sadedin). Lake all rants on this subject it is filled with errors. It is likely that the author of the rant did not actually read Damore’s memo.

      Women have made great strides in multiple professions, including some STEM fields. They are now the majority of majors in biology and have pulled to close to even in geology. But relatively few decide to go into engineering and of those who do, 40% quit within ten years. The standard mantra is to blame sexism, after all to quote you, white males are “suspect” But what Sean’s excellent article demonstrates and what many of the commenters have confirmed, many bright women don’t go into engineering because they don’t want to. Therefore diversity programs which try to force a politically correct solution based on an assumption of sexism will only create discord.

      You have commented very eloquently on the negative effects of PC on campus. It is a shame you do not see the same effects when they occur in a corporation.

      Take some time and read Sean’s article. Then read the Atlantic article about the quality of reporting on this issue.

      https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/the-most-common-error-in-coverage-of-the-google-memo/536181/

      Psychology is 75% female. Does anti-male sexism exist in this profession. This is a serious question?

      • Sean Stevens on August 16, 2017 at 11:08 am

        JP,

        Thanks for the kind words. Two things… Jon is a co-author on the post we did the work together – so this post is reflective of his views on the matter. I can also say we both are experiencing constantly evolving views on this matter based on diving deeper into the research and the discussion here.

        The other is, you may find some of the results in this article interesting – mainly the ones where there are gender differences in the perceptions of other scientists and how they conduct their work. It may be gated, if so post a reply and I’ll convey what’s readily apparent in the graphs.

        • JP on August 16, 2017 at 6:26 pm

          Thank you for the clarification. My views have evolved on this issue as well, particularly when I read the actual memo, as opposed to the press accounts of it.

          Also, thank you for the link to the Story Book Scientist article. I found it to be highly entertaining. Yes, we DO believe our own press releases. I also think the media goes a long way to promulgate the idea that we are High Priests who convey the Absolute Truth from the summit of Mt. Olympus. Reality is a bit more down to earth.

          I am not sure what to make of the greater “in-group bias” shown by female scientists, except to say that it is a bit disturbing. I suspect that it is a larger issue than simply being in a minority. It probably has more to do with being in a progressive environment where specific groups are incentivized to see discrimination around every corner. I would not be surprised to see the same “in-group bias” in Psychology, where women are in the majority. Hence my question.

          Scientists have long been aware that we are NOT storybook figures but we have always felt that science was “self-correcting as a result of peer-review and discussion-reply commentary. I believe that is still true with non-political issues. For example, I have had many animated conversations with colleagues about the extent of Paleocene sea-level fluctuations in the Gulf of Mexico. The result is both sides re-reviewed data and fine-tuned their interpretations. But there are probably less than 100 people who actually care about this issue.

          When politics gets involved, however, the game changes. Articles that favor the popular narrative on climate, gender and race, seem to get published regardless of quality. However, those that disagree on even minor points have a much more difficult time.

  29. The Independent Whig on August 15, 2017 at 4:57 pm

    This blog post and discussion seems to me as not unlike a painstaking examination of the clothing of a woman who’s been sexually harassed.

    If any part of the memo/clothing were found to be “flawed” the conversation would have concluded with a big fat Q.E.D. “proof” that Damore/The Victim had it coming.

    And we’d all move on without the REAL problem ever being thought of, much less analyzed and discussed.

    In this regard this entire event strikes me as exhibit A in the pantheon of problems stemming from liberal hegemony in academia (and media and entertainment) like those described in HxA’s own paper Political diversity will improve social psychological science.

    To wit: Liberal values, presumptions, and cognitive style hiding in plain sight, embedded in the structure and framework of the thinking and analyses. Liberal fish swimming in the sea of liberalism and asking, “What’s water?”

    The REAL PROBLEM is NOT the MEMO!!

    The real problem is the moral myopia and the emotional fragility of the psychological profile behind the left wing freakout ABOUT the memo. The real problem is The Coddling of the American Mind.

    Would that the real problem got as much analysis and discussion as does the memo that triggered it.

  30. Mark Nelson on August 15, 2017 at 4:34 pm

    I thought it would be a nice change of pace to dig up some quotes from one of my favorite scientists, Marie Curie:

    “Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”

    “In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.”

    “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

    “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

    “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”

    “I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.”

    Two other quotes that are relevant to the topic at hand:

    “Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, “We’ve always done it this way.” I try to fight that. That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.” -Grace Hopper (US Navy admiral and inventor of the first compiler for computer languages)

    “My mother always taught us that if people don’t agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you’ve listened to them carefully and you still think that you’re right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.” -Jane Goodall (primatologist who has dedicated her life to conservation and animal rights)

  31. Michael Samuel on August 15, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    I doubt many will read this on Quora, as it was posted so late and is so long, but I wrote a reply to Sadedin’s post concerning her chapter “Advocating moral disengagement”. I think she clearly misses some crucial points, including Damora’s originally linked source to the case against empathy by Paul Bloom. I also try to touch on why I think Damora’s caution in social engineering, and encouraging discussion about it, is commendable in itself, and why I think divisive terminology or labeling or false accusations should be avoided in civil discussion.

    https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-document-about-diversity-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin/comment/41135218

    • Michael Samuel on August 15, 2017 at 3:57 pm

      I apologize for writing “Damora” instead of Damore, in my rushed brief.

    • Will on August 21, 2017 at 9:35 am

      “I also try to touch on why I think Damora’s caution in social engineering, and encouraging discussion about it, is commendable in itself, and why I think divisive terminology or labeling or false accusations should be avoided in civil discussion.”

      The problem is that it will be discussed, if not openly then in private among people who only agree with each other. This will lead to increased tribalism and resentment, in my view, and it’s part of the explanation for the rise in populism that we see in the west. There are psychological reasons as to why liberty and self-expression are so important.

    • janby on August 16, 2017 at 1:37 pm

      Fuentes extrapolated far more from Damore’s statement than Damore may have intended. I read a piece purporting to speak about the facts on the ground TODAY, not a treatise on where evolution, biology, or societal forces would/could go in the future OR even an in-depth WHY we are here today.

      I think he simply purported to address the unscientific notions that 1] all gender group disparities seen TODAY are the result of discrimination occurring TODAY OR that 2] all gender group disparities seen TODAY are the result of discrimination occurring in the past and must be remediated by affirmative discrimination TODAY.

      Damore did NOT say that group biological differences dictate the abilities/proclivities of an individual unlike heavy-handed disparity theory which revolves around a simplistic oppressor-oppressed paradigm that leaves little leeway for individuals and their choices/abilities, etc. Disparities, ideally, should simply be a jumping-off point for study, NOT immutable evidence of discrimination. Sometimes, discrimination is at play. Other times, economy of information is at play, AND, sometimes, ability and choices are at play. BUT, few forces have wreaked as much havoc on the body politic as the bludgeon of disparity-theory-means-discrimination and its remedies.

      • Matthew W Bennett on August 19, 2017 at 8:47 am

        I agree re: Fuentes’ extrapolation. Starting in the second paragraph, he made assumptions about the memo and Damore that weren’t justified (attributing arguments about “innate humanness” to Damore) and it went downhill from there. Seems like a classic case of motive attribution, and Fuentes seems to confirm that when he says the memo is really about “anger, ignorance, and resentment”.

        The really interesting part of the memo controversy is the psychology behind the various responses to the memo. I look forward to reading the upcoming article on viewpoint diversity at Google, and I hope it includes evaluations of some of the responses from a psychological level.

        • janby on August 24, 2017 at 11:24 pm

          I agree, Mathew. Motive attribution increasingly corrodes civil society.
          1] It seduces the arrogant with come-hither promises of sophistication.
          2] It presumes an ability to read minds by those who make virtually NO attempt to understand a different perspective and EVERY attempt to assume the worst.
          3]It sidesteps the necessity of crafting a counter-position.
          4] Its facile nature lends itself to facile opinions.
          5] It asks NOTHING of the targeter but EVERYTHING from the targeted.
          6] It bestows the cheap grace of sanctimony and crushes the affirming grace of generosity.
          7] It allows haters to rationalize their hatred and violence on the altar of rationalization and lies.
          8] It creates victims rather than resilient individuals who understand that people are flawed and sometimes struggling with problems unseen.
          9] It is highly susceptible to an us-or-them crowd lust.

          I’d go on but my listicle self wearies.

  33. Art Deco on August 15, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    Just to point out that degrees awarded in 2014 in computer science, information technology, and computer engineering were distributed to women in the following shares:

    Associate’s: 20%
    Bachelor’s: 16.5%
    Master’s: 28%
    Doctoral: 19.5%

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics has data on the occupants of 15 occupations in and around information technology (and, no, ‘data entry’ is not one). Of those working in this occupational set, 23% are female. The least female occupation is ‘computer control programmers and operators’ (5.2%) and the most is ‘database administrators’ (46%). It’s difficult to believe that unfair treatment of women in this industry is all that consequential.

  34. Mark Nelson on August 15, 2017 at 2:31 pm

    Hi Steven,

    I was wondering if it would be proper to include a note about this research from the University of Pittsburgh regarding math and verbal ability and career choice:

    Abstract
    The pattern of gender differences in math and verbal ability may result in females having a wider choice of careers, in both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM fields, compared with males. The current study tested whether individuals with high math and high verbal ability in 12th grade were more or less likely to choose STEM occupations than those with high math and moderate verbal ability. The 1,490 subjects participated in two waves of a national longitudinal study; one wave was when the subjects were in 12th grade, and the other was when they were 33 years old. Results revealed that mathematically capable individuals who also had high verbal skills were less likely to pursue STEM careers than were individuals who had high math skills but moderate verbal skills. One notable finding was that the group with high math and high verbal ability included more females than males.

    Wang, M. T., Eccles J. S., Kenny S. (2013). Not Lack of Ability but More Choice, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612458937

    • Sean Stevens on August 18, 2017 at 9:50 am

      Hey Mark,

      Thanks for the link. I’m working on a similar table for the research on the variability of male and female distributions as an addendum to this post, so this piece is relevant for that. Thanks!

  35. The Independent Whig on August 15, 2017 at 2:05 pm

    The memo is not the problem!!!

    The problem is the leftist freak out reaction to it and Damore’s unwarranted firing.

    It is leftist psychology that needs to be examined, not the memo.

    This entire inquisition into the merits of the memo amounts to blaming the victim.

    It’s the intellectual equivalent of blaming a woman for being harassed because of her clothing choices.

  36. Charles H Green on August 15, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    Fabulous contribution to the debate.

    In particular, you give lie to the frequently-proferred version of what Damore said, namely that he was denigrating the capabilities of his female colleagues. As you point out, he was doing no such thing, but rather commenting on the reasons why his equally-capable female colleagues amount to less than 50% of the relevant population.

    Additionally, it is valuable to move the discussion off the monochromatic diagnosis of statisticaly diverse populations as being de facto evidence of discrimination, but also as a function of interest. Tellingly, the more gender-‘advanced’ populations (i.e. presumably less sex discrimination) offer higher levels of differentiation based on interest.

    And as always relevant – and as Damore said, if only in passing – just because these things may be partly true DOESN’T MEAN there isn’t sex discrimination. In fact, given the social criticality of discrimination, it’s probably good practice to presume that disparate populations are prima facie evidence of discrimination, and to provoke further research in such cases.

  37. Bart on August 15, 2017 at 10:18 am

    It’s an absolutely stellar and fair piece. Thank you for compiling all the data and writing it.

    • YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 15, 2017 at 1:18 pm

      I agree that the piece and its conclusions move towards a good discussion of diversity.

      The vast majority of the comments here are about the validity of the first conclusion. I believe that debating that point is divisive and fruitless. The conclusion is either a good conclusion or a bad conclusion. Opinions won’t settle that. If we had a study that could correlate mental rotation with coding in the top 5% of Google’s candidate pool, we would have something to talk about. Let’s say someone could come back from the future with the results of a peer reviewed study. If they say biology plays a significant role in coding ability, then we will have a dramatically different conversation.

      If however, the time traveler comes back and says that Conclusion #1 is valid, then we move on along the path that Sean Stevens and Jonathan Haidt are leading us.

      • Bart on August 16, 2017 at 1:40 pm

        You’re correct, Jan. One ought to remember that the goal is to explain the difference in male/female workers in tech that occurs despite efforts to narrow the gap as far as possible.

        The second conclusion yields an ‘interest’ hypothesis, which may be used to account for the male/female disparity with the difference in preference: There are fewer women in tech because women are less likely on average to pursue interests in tech, a fact that leads to diminished expertise among women, relatively to men. If that is sufficient to account for the disparity remains to be established, but it is a viable candidate (notice how large the interest correlation is and how consistent it is among studies).

        The first conclusion does not need to be true in order for there to be a biological explanation for the gender disparity in tech. In fact, the second ‘interest’ hypothesis, if true, would yield just that. If, however, the spatial rotation would contribute to genuine, biologically-determined difference in skill capacity, then even a stronger case could be made: The gender disparity is due to both the difference in interest and the difference in skill. But to know that for sure we must wait for a time traveler, as you say! It is indeed pointless to argue whether or not conclusion #1 is correct without appropriate studies done.

        All in all, even if the difference is only due to interest, Damore is correct that it is to be explained biologically at least in part.

    • Will on August 21, 2017 at 9:41 am

      This reminds me of the rights attempts to smear anyone who donated to the Clinton foundation, or even worked for a group that donated to the Clinton foundation.
      Studies of religious conversion indicate that hose ostracized by a group tend to gravitate toward an opposing group. It’s not surprising the Damore would feel attacked and ostracized by the less, thus gravitating toward the right. What does it matter who Peter Duke has photographed? This is an obvious case of poisoning the well, in my opinion.

  39. Justin Mogilski on August 15, 2017 at 7:20 am

    Phrase needs reconsidering:

    “Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures.”

    Modern evo psych perspectives do not predict a uniform magnitude of gender differences across cultures. Rather, gender differences will exist to the extent that internal (i.e., biological) and external (e.g., social; physical) environments permit their expression.

    I understand the point is to call out Damore’s failure to express this, but the current language doesn’t clearly communicate what is precisely wrong about Damore’s statement.

    Fantastic job, otherwise! This is a great resource.

    Best,
    J

    • Sean Stevens on August 15, 2017 at 8:43 am

      Thats from the article’s abstract so its a direct quote and cannot be changed as it is part of that paper’s conclusions.

  40. doug deeper on August 15, 2017 at 3:53 am

    I, for one, am relieved that one of the most debated questions throughout human history, are men and women different? has been answered for us once and for all by our friends at Google. Google, whose power is scarily ubiquitous, has made it clear the issue is settled, there are no differences, and they will fire any employee who dares to question this.

    The firing per se is a legal issue I do not debate. The reason for the firing is what I find terrifying.

    Now Google does have all of our most secure information right there in their massive computer minds, as do FB, Amazon and Apple. All are run by similar thinking people, and I expect that all would likely fire an employee who dares to speak against the orthodoxy. Google’s own Youtube has already suspended many individual presenters because their views are “too extreme,” all happen to be classical liberals or on the right.

    So the universities have spawned the corporations who are continuing the enforcement of the orthodoxy.

    I would like for HXA to take a stronger stand. But I do not suggest they do so because, like Evergreen’s Bret Weinstein, they may have horrific difficulties on campus.

    And thus we are left to try and settle the very unsettled science of biological differences.

    Good Luck with that.

    • JP on August 15, 2017 at 10:46 am

      Google fired Damore because they are currently being sued by the U.S. Dept. of Labor for gender pay disparities. In addition a new class action lawsuit is currently being prepared. The Damore memo, had he not been fired, would have been prosecution Exhibit A. Now Google can portray themselves as heroes in court.

      It the mid-1990’s a Texaco exec made a racist joke. Word got out and Texaco, among other damages, had to pay every black employee $80,000. No other incident of racism was alleged or proven. The joke was clearly racist but the punishment was way more severe than the crime. Lawsuits, particularly those initiated by the government, who has unlimited resources and time, can negatively impact the bottom line of even the largest companies

      This is a very interesting discussion A PC culture probably does exist at Google. But Damore didn’t get fired because of it. He got fired because Google needed to play CYA.

  41. Christian Álvarez Rojas on August 14, 2017 at 3:51 pm

    Here is a recent paper confirming the Hyde JS’s review (2005):

    In the spatial condition, tasks were framed as measures of spatial ability on which males have an advantage. In the social condition, modified tasks contained human figures and were framed as measures of empathy on which females have an advantage. Results showed a sex difference in favor of males in the spatial condition but not the social condition

    Margaret R. Tarampi, Nahal Heydari, Mary Hegarty (2016) A Tale of Two Types of Perspective Taking, Sex Differences in Spatial Ability

    Thank you for this necessary article

    • Sean Stevens on August 14, 2017 at 4:03 pm

      Christian,

      Thanks for the paper, but we can not add it to the list as it does not meet our sample size requirements (Study 1 has an N < 200, Studies 2 and 3 have Ns < 100). Small sample studies are far more likely to be more variable (compared to investigations that come closer to approximating the population of interest) and possibly contain noise. They are therefore often not generalizable. This is why we have chosen to focus on meta-analyses and large-sample studies.

  42. BDavi52 on August 14, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    Very useful, no doubt.
    But equally very obvious.

    We discover that in-depth, scholarly analysis of 20 billion meta-studies confirm what ‘Ole Bob’, over there on the corner, told us to begin with: men & women are different.

    They are different genetically, biologically, chemically, neurologically, anatomically; and they serve as separate sexes, each a different evolutionary purpose. They really are different. And, as a result of these basic, ‘Ole Bob’ Differences, women behave differently, holding different life priorities, displaying different attitudes, likes & dislikes, preferences, etc, etc. (on average).

    This is extraordinarily obvious.

    And we see this obvious difference everywhere. We see it in girl/boy behavior at recess. We see it in major choices. We see it in career paths. We see it even in family behavior at Thanksgiving. We see it, as Dr. Seuss might note, here, there, everywhere.

    This is not to say that every woman or every man behaves per the population average. This is not to say that any given woman will not hold stereotypically male preferences….or that any given man will not behave in a stereotypically female manner. It simply says, that large populations being what they are we will see these differences reflected, on-average (as Ole Bob could tell us) quite consistently.

    AND — as a result, when we look at hiring patterns of HiTech companies we see a predictable preponderance of males at every level. When only 6% of all women major in STEM, how could it be otherwise?

    Sadly, though, when we continue to righteously insist, like sort of 21st century Miss Clavel, that “something is just not right”, we infantilize all those millions of women who made different choices. We tell them, “You must not know what’s in your own best interests….we tell them, “Poor dears, some man must have persuaded you!”. We tell them, patting them on the head, “We know what’s best for you!

    Can we say pathetically patronizing?

    • Me on August 14, 2017 at 4:12 pm

      Yes, that’s so true. And about the earth being flat! The same, it’s so obvious, right in front of our eyes, and still, most people will never admit it.

      • inquiett on August 14, 2017 at 6:01 pm

        It’s not obvious at all that the Earth is flat. And that’s why this has been known for at least 2000 years. Europeans in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was spherical and the best example of that is Dante’s Divine Comedy itself.

      • Bdavi52 on August 14, 2017 at 11:55 pm

        Interesting. You don’t think men & women are different?

        You don’t think they’re OBVIOUSLY different?

        You don’t think all these obvious, fundamental differences, countable & verifiable in so many different ways, would significantly impact human behavior, attitudes, preferences, desires (themselves expressed consistently, generation after generation, pretty much since forever)??

        What is truly remarkable is that anyone today, with even an ounce of common sense, would continue to insist — in the face of all evidence to the contrary — that the obvious, verifiable, demonstrated differences between men & women ARE NOT REAL.

        Politically very correct to insist on the impossible, of course, just rather irrational don’t you think?

        • Al on August 16, 2017 at 2:49 pm

          Do you read this article’s conclusions? Or did you only read the parts highlighted in green, confirming what you already believe in?

          The article states that in terms of math and scientific capability, men and women are pretty much equal. Their test scores differ by only a negligible amount. SCIENCE proves that gender does not play a role in intellectual capability.

          What the article did state was a difference in INTEREST. Now, I fully believe that interest has very little to do with biology and everything to do with culture and environment. Men and women are not born to like STEM. Why would liking math and science versus literary arts have anything to do with natural selection or evolution? It all has to do with what our culture perceives as feminine and masculine.

          Damore’s article was not based on science, but in the beliefs of our current culture. That is what ticked off many people. His article was confirmation bias to the masculine and feminine stereotypes that many people are trying so hard to knock down.

          So before you go off ranting about innate differences between men and women, why don’t you actually read the article’s conclusions first.

      • Fernando on August 15, 2017 at 2:54 am

        Some men like men, some like women, some like both

        Some women like men, some like women and some like both.

        Why, if we are not diferent, some men and women don’t like both sex?

        Cultural?

        Then, do u think the people who argue homosexuality is not natural, is cultural, are right?

        Then, do u think people who argue that all who feels diferent sex from their biological sex are insane?

        Excuse my English

    • JP on August 14, 2017 at 4:42 pm

      Best Post of the whole darn session (Grin)

  43. Aleph37 on August 14, 2017 at 5:24 am

    Thank you for this aticle. I’ve read dozens of articles about James Damore’s text, and while I appreciated some, including this one, the main impression I got from mainstream media was that they misrepresented his thesis.

    The most damaging, biased Gizmo did a terrible job at claiming it published the “full version” while it expurgated it from every reference.

    Youtube CEO too, did not justice to James Damore. She wrote (and it’s said to have convinced the other bosses to fire Damore) that had he written the same thing about coloured people, it would have been blatant that it was insufferable. That is completely stupid, Damore did not say that. It’s absurd as saying that if Copernic had claimed the Sun revolved around the Moon, everyone would have understood his claim that Earth revolves around the Sun was false.

  44. Ian Goddard on August 14, 2017 at 2:47 am

    You have Hyde et al (1990) as opposing Damore. However, I do not recall him saying women are less capable with math or any STEM skill. I read him to be explicitly and simply saying women are less interested in STEM careers. That’s an important difference!

    For example, I may not be interested in collecting stamps, but that does not mean I’m not capable of collecting stamps. Almost all the mass-media critique I’ve seen of Damore fails to make this significant distinction, framing him as claiming women are not as cognitively capable (a prima facie inflammatory claim), when he is instead saying women are on average less interested in some career paths than men are, and biology may promote that difference in interest.

  45. YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 13, 2017 at 9:45 pm

    While this should not lessen his questions, it is fair to question Damore’s sincerity. His first two interviews were with an explicit anti-feminist according to Wikipedia and someone who believes that “postmodernist feminism” is to blame for much of our ills.

    • JP on August 13, 2017 at 10:38 pm

      And who should he go to? The Washington Post which said he stated women are genetically unsuited for tech jobs (a blatant lie). How about Time Magazine, which called it a tirade? Or Slate, who called him a white supremacist There there are the numerous other mainstream news outlets, including Fox and Forbes, that said the memo was anti-diversity, which is also not true. According to Atlantic Magazine “The balance of his memo argues that he is not against pursuing greater gender diversity at Google; he says it is against the current means Google is using to pursue that end and the way the company conceives of tradeoffs between the good of diversity and other goods”.

      The liberal Atlantic Magazine decried the accuracy of the press coverage regarding the memo.
      https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/the-most-common-error-in-coverage-of-the-google-memo/536181/

      Regarding the press coverage of this incident the Atlantic states:

      Every prominent instance of journalism that proceeds with less than normal rigor when the subject touches on social justice feeds a growing national impulse to dismiss everything published about these subjects—even important, rigorous, accurate articles. Large swathes of the public now believe the mainstream media is more concerned with stigmatizing wrong-think and being politically correct than being accurate. The political fallout from this shift has been ruinous to lots of social-justice causes—causes that would thrive in an environment in which the public accepted the facts.

      Your ad hominem attacks are typical of this mindset and unworthy of this otherwise excellent discussion on all sides.

      • YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 13, 2017 at 10:52 pm

        Why not go to the Atlantic, then? Did he really choose his only options?

        If we are free to ask all questions, including what is the intent of diversity, then is it wrong to ask what Damore’s intent was?

        • JP on August 13, 2017 at 11:04 pm

          Why not go to the Atlantic?

          Probably because they did not ask. And before the more reflective article, they also went with the anti-diversity lead. Damore did write an OpEd for the WSJ.

          Then is it wrong to ask what Damore’s intent was?

          You didn’t ask. You insinuated that his intent was evil with no evidence to back up your assertion other than he did an interview with someone with whom you disagree. That is an ad hominem attack. You did not even bother to listen to the interview did you?

          And how come you are not troubled by the grossly inaccurate press coverage? Is it OK to lie about those with whom you disagree?

        • Stan Rothwell on August 14, 2017 at 2:49 am

          If we are free to ask all questions, including what is the intent of diversity, then is it wrong to ask what Damore’s intent was?

          While we’re at it, why don’t we just question the intent of people like you who feel they can’t merely discuss their differences with a given point of view, but need to insinuate ill intent on the part of others to avoid dealing with questions for which they have no real answer? Damore’s only real offense was the thought-crime of suggesting that males and females JUST might have some inherent differences in interests that may explain their different levels of representation in the tech sector, and the naivete of thinking he could have the type of discussion common among other engineers with people whose supposed support of free scientific inquiry loses enthusiasm when their own pet agenda is challenged in the process…

        • BDavi52 on August 14, 2017 at 3:32 pm

          Of course we can ask what Damore’s intent was.
          But equally we can read what he wrote and find his intent stated.

          Do you believe his intent to be other than what he wrote?

        • YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 16, 2017 at 9:28 am

          At the end of the Jordan Peterson interview he asks James Damore: “Why did you agree to talk to me?”. James says “I’m a huge fan”.

        • Will on August 21, 2017 at 10:02 am

          I actually think Jordan Peterson is correct on many things, including the important of debate and viewpoint diversity (this is related to the importance of intellectual liberty). The fact that you consider him some kind of “alt-right heretic” just proves him right.
          I didn’t know who he was until recently. I’ve watch some of his youtube videos and other things, and I find I like him too. This really does remind me of the Catholics hunt for heretics…it’s really disturbing to me. This article from Lee Jussism is good, it seems academia really is trying to set itself up as Big brother and the “thought police”, and I will do my part in trying to stop that tied. It’s very important for society as a whole.

          https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201708/the-psychology-the-new-mccarthyism

        • YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 23, 2017 at 8:56 pm

          Will,

          The only thing I said about Jordan Peterson is that Wikipedia says he is anti-feminist.

          Damore went straight to him because he is a huge fan, contrary to many opinions here, which claimed he went there because it was his only option.

    • Hanif Carroll on August 13, 2017 at 10:40 pm

      I presume you’re speaking of Jordan Peterson? A more accurate description would be that he is anti-extremist. He actually posted a video today where he discusses an exchange with the author of an article that labeled him as a far-right figure. You can check that out if you want more insight on his political leanings, the video is titled “What happened today…”

    • Michael Samuel on August 13, 2017 at 11:03 pm

      The interviewers you are referring to are:

      1) Jordan Peterson
      2) Stefan Molyneux

      While I do not know much about Molyneux, Peterson has been wrongly characterised as “far-right”, recently (see his channel on YouTube; the video “What happened today…”). It would require a careful definition of “feminism” and/or “anti-feminism” to conclude whether or not Peterson fits the “anti-feminist” category (and, if he does, what is meant by it). However, I do know he is not against women’s rights in general, even though he is for freedom to use whatever pronouns one chooses to use. He is critical of what he calls postmodern feminism, which is different than the umbrella feminism. Given how easily Peterson has been mischaracterized, I would not be surprised if the same applies to Molyneux as well, in one degree or another.

      Needless to say, perhaps, but we should refrain from any guilt by association fallacies.

      Also, we should be open to the possibility that there may be something in “postmodern feminism” that one ought to be critical of. That doesn’t mean one would have to express those possible criticisms in every writing one does.

      If Damore is in fact critical of some aspect of feminism, that explicit topic would’ve likely ended even worse for him. It’s one of the biggest taboos that exists today, in my experience. Either way, I wouldn’t call him insincere. Being explicitly critical of some aspects of feminism, for example the authoritarian branch, doesn’t seem very relevant when discussing workplace diversity and relevant research.

      In fact, I think we should actually refrain from using any divisive categorizations whenever we can, and focus on the arguments. Categorizations tend only to be distractions when people self-identify with them, use them carelessly, and/or take offence if they feel they’ve been wrongly categorized. Much easier and safer to just talk about specific ideas themselves.

      • Preston Stovall on August 14, 2017 at 12:06 am

        An all around great comment. We need more careful and precise characterizations of these issues.

      • Will on August 21, 2017 at 10:07 am

        Great comment. I first learned of Jordan Peterson from the media via the accusation of him being “alt-right”. This really is an underhanded smear-tactic called “poisoning the well”, as I find I agree with much of what he says (at least what I’ve seen so far). People really need to understand that this kind of behavior from academia and the media is what is fueling the populism that got Trump in office. I really do not like Trump or the alt-right, but here, the left is using the same unethical tactics to try to suppress disagreement. The credibility of the media and academia has been significantly damaged by the reaction and misinformation campaign that I’ve seen. I largely agree with this article by Lee Jussim in psychology today.
        https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201708/the-psychology-the-new-mccarthyism

    • Stan Rothwell on August 14, 2017 at 2:38 am

      it is fair to question Damore’s sincerity. His first two interviews were with an explicit anti-feminist according to Wikipedia and someone who believes that “postmodernist feminism” is to blame for much of our ills.

      So what would YOU expect from a guy who just got thrown under the bus by a howling feminist mob, love and roses?

      • janby on August 19, 2017 at 10:36 pm

        My thought, exactly….

    • Carol May on August 14, 2017 at 3:46 pm

      All in all, the abysmal reading comprehension and subsequent wailing and flailing exhibited by many in the media and at Google make a great illustration of Haidt’s point that “Morality binds and blinds.” He could make a lecture on this incident, illustrating how the sacred value of equality caused amazing numbers of people to melt down into irrational puddles of ideological possession when they suspected that their sacred value was being challenged. Nuanced reasoning was lost to the point that Damore’s critics could not even accurately restate what he had written, convinced that he had written the opposite. The entire event has been utterly amazing to behold — and more so because the folks with their hair in flames work in high-systemizing fields such as tech, profess in universities, and write the news we read. (Hmmmm….) They’re supposed to be smart. Gizmodo takes first prize in throwing truth under the bus, going out of its way to strip Damore’s memo of all his scientific references and footnotes.

      • Lj on August 14, 2017 at 4:19 pm

        I could not agree more…

    • Michael Samuel on August 14, 2017 at 11:08 am

      In the comments, the writer comments on this article, saying that Heterodox Academy fails to see the forest for the trees:

      http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2017/08/13/damores-pseudoscientific-google-manifesto-is-a-better-evidence-for-sexism-than-it-is-for-intellectual-sex-differences/#comment-43401

      “… So ultimately heterodox in sticking to claims out of the context of the argument is failing to see the forest for the trees. Yes the citations he uses are to a real field in psychology, no one is saying the science he cites is wrong. The question is whether the citations support the extremity of his conclusions or his oversimplification of complex issues. They do not.”

      It is quite interesting, though, that the writer initially called the memo “pseudoscience”, yet in the comments leads us to understand that the discussion is only about the effect size.

      • nouse123 on August 14, 2017 at 6:41 pm

        I actually thought the same thing. I don’t know much about scienceblogs.com (as the german version has slowly become dominated by social activists disguised as social scientists), so i can not tell if they tend to bait clicks by alerting headlines, but i cringed how the author backpedaled after being directed to the analysis here on heterodox.
        His only argument basically is that the available effect sizes can not fully explain a 80-20 disparity in a field.

        Which noone actually ever said. Not even Damore said that.

        It strikes me with awe that a science blog writer seemingly does not even consider the possibility that effects can be of multivariate origin and that interaction terms exist (for example: Stereotype * Biology; i.e. socially amplified biological causes(stereotypes exist for a reason, after all)).

        But he gunned down that strawman pretty well.

  47. Bob Gower on August 13, 2017 at 5:30 pm

    Interesting piece, thank you for the thoughtful writing. I’m left with a couple of questions.

    If the differences are in preference more than ability isn’t it likely that the way women view the world of coding a likely input. In other words the cause of lower preference is not in some inborn trait but due to the way the coding world is male dominated with events like “gamergate” exposing the hostility that world can show towards women.

    On top of that male dominated spaces whether welcoming or not to women are going to appear different to women than to men. The CDC reports that “homicide is one of the leading causes of death for women aged ≤44 years.* In 2015, homicide caused the death of 3,519 girls and women in the United States. Rates of female homicide vary by race/ethnicity (1), and nearly half of victims are killed by a current or former male intimate partner.”

    This means that men – even and especially men they know – are one of the leading causes of mortality for women. I can imagine that this would easily lead to a preference not to enter a traditionally male dominated space. In other words the preference can be influenced by the nature of the profession — who one spends time with and how they are treated in it more than being based on women’s “natural” preferences.

    If that’s true then would that change your conclusion that “Damore was drawing attention to empirical findings that seem to have been previously unknown or ignored at Google, and which might be helpful to the company as it tries to improve its diversity policies and outcomes.” since the memo itself appeared as a hostile act – albeit veiled in the clothing of reasonable discourse – to women. This would be the core assertion of this piece as I read it. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-big-idea/2017/8/11/16130452/google-memo-women-tech-biology-sexism

    I wonder if you have looked at studies that would show whether women as a pop ever show a preference for male…

    • JP on August 14, 2017 at 8:56 am

      Let me get this straight. Women do not enter tech because they are afraid that associating with males will get them shot???? You really believe that???

      You are aware that many women actually choose to marry a biological male, and spend their life with him. It is how the species has been propagated.

      • Bob Gower on August 14, 2017 at 9:59 pm

        I’m saying that non males experience male dominated spaces differently from males. And that this likely impacts preferences. And that it takes deliberate practice and curiosity to step into their shoes and understand how that space feels to someone who doesn’t look like you.

        This inquiry about preference only references things inside women that might make them choose another profession. This misses that their experience of the profession and it’s culture may also have an impact on their choice and that this experience will differ from a man’s experience.

        I find many men in this conversation seem to lack the ability to sit in a woman’s shoes and take her perspective. It takes time and imagination and empathy.

        Yes, I’m aware that women date and marry men, and it’s something of a miracle given the statistical threat we pose to their health and safety. Louis CK has a good bit on this btw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVvZDKEd3A)

        I work in tech and work on culture issues often. I spend a lot of time interviewing people at their jobs. Given many experiences I’ve been told about and witnessed (and events like gamergate) in the tech industry – I’m not surprised women display a preference for other professions. I know women who have left the profession due to feeling left out and yes acts of hostility.

        The google memo reads to me like classic “concern trolling”(https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll) – and to many women (and men) who I work with in tech.

        While I think it’s important to address the content of the memo rather than dismiss it outright as some have done. I also think it’s important to acknowledge that it did not appear in a vacuum and we also can’t dismiss this context.

        • Tim Toburen on August 15, 2017 at 10:02 am

          You are aware that males are murdered at a rate more than 3x that at which females are, the great majority of them by other males, I assume.

          This means that men have a more than 3x greater reason to be terrified of male-dominated spaces than women do.

          Men are far more dangerous to other men than they are to women. But of course nobody cares about that.

        • JP on August 15, 2017 at 2:48 pm

          Amazing that our species has survived this long (LOL) You are aware that Louis CK is a comedian, right????? You are aware that comedian sometimes say things that are not true, right??????

          I have been involved in Petroleum Geology for over 30 years. The women who entered the business at the same time I did were the first generation of female petroleum geoscientists. Many are close friends of mine. They are not fragile. They are tough. I don’t have to worry about what I say in front of them because if I say something they disagree with they will come right back at me….Hard!! Sometimes we joke around with each other. As one women told me, we don’t get offended at jokes about the sexes, we score them!!! Because of this male and female boomer geoscientists have and continue to work very effectively with one another. We trust each other as friends and as colleagues. I actually see the same thing in many younger petroleum geoscientists (new hires are about 50-50 male-female) and I am very encouraged by this.

          However, once a group is sensitized to “microaggressions” the immediate reaction is to start walking on eggshells around them. If you are afraid of saying something offensive, the best thing is to say nothing at all and to avoid those who may be offended whenever possible. Conversations are held only when necessary and kept strictly to business. Friendships and trust cannot develop where there is fear anything you say can and will be held against you or where you will be stigmatized because of your political views. Work effectiveness greatly suffers and quite frankly it is just not as much fun when you are not working with friends. What is worse, if you have an environment where men feel that have to watch everything they say in front of women co-workers or face discipline, it is likely that the women would feel isolated and not part of the group.

          Sadly, you will never understand this. You want a PC utopia. But people don’t function that way.

  48. Jay H Edwards on August 13, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    Is this serious ? The conclusions are simply intellectual malpractice—.no honest, rational person familiar with this field could ethically produce such “conclusions”.. alas ,psychology is still a totally politicized field, where liberal political ideology effectively trumps science,…this is a political document, to be explained sociologically, because from a scientific viewpoint, its indefensible….perhaps the politicians who concocted this document might revisit Stanley and Benbow, Science, 1980, 1983 who found HUGE SEX DIFFERENCES among mathematically precocious youth in the order of 13-1 at the highest level of achievement, etc, ad nauseam….The goal here should be to explain the observations everyone makes about sex differences in STEM fields not to publish a political manifesto that claims that those observed differences do not , in fact exist ,or are due to,oh, God,” sexism” , the omnipresent empirical Bleach-Bit of the Left.

    • Sean Stevens on August 14, 2017 at 6:41 am

      If you read the article above you should be aware that we restricted publication to 1990 to present. So the publications you’re claiming we missed are outside of that range and thus not eligible for inclusion. We are well aware of that research, as well as more recent research that says that ratio has been reduced to somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1.

  49. aaron jensen on August 13, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    I will grant that there are biological differences between the sexes regarding certain abilities and characteristics in the general population, but Google is hiring a particular subset of that population (e.g., those with high level math, coding skills); is it reasonable to assume that this subset is representative of the whole population?
    It is possible that biological differences present in the general population are less pronounced or cease to exist altogether in a non-random grouping. Perhaps there is a stronger correlation between having tech skills and falling toward the “masculine” end of the spectrum for the characteristics mentioned in the memo* than there is for being a man and those particular characteristics.

    *( empathizing vs. systemizing, extraversion/agreeableness, neuroticism and drive for status)

    • Bryn on August 15, 2017 at 2:25 pm

      You are quite right that Google’s candidate-pool is not representative of the general population. That’s actually a point in favor of Damore’s conclusions, because in many relevant traits such as mathematical reasoning and even raw IQ scores, the male sub-population exhibits a higher variance than the female.

      Since Google is presumably hiring from the extreme high end of these distributions (without regard to race, sex or any other arbitrary characteristic), we should expect to find that the women they hire are just as competent as the men they hire, but fewer in number. This is, again, consistent with what Damore said in his memo.

      If Google was instead known to be hiring “average” people, then we would see something much closer to a 50/50 split, because the average woman does not appear to be significantly better (or worse) at programming than the average man.

  50. The Independent Whig on August 13, 2017 at 11:23 am

    Everyone here realizes, I hope, that this conversation would not even be happening were it not for the moral myopia of the three-foundation moral matrix and the Platonic idealism of the Lennon-esque cognitive style that goes with it.

    It may be true that each of us lives in a reality created for us by our righteous minds.

    But it is NOT true that every moral matrix is equally connected to actual reality, and therin lies the crux of our current problems.

    Moral foundations are social senses. The more of them one employs the better connected to actual reality one tends to be.

    Cognitive style is ALSO a tether to actual reality. The unquestioned faith in inward-looking abstract Platonic reason as the path to moral truth (aka “The Rationalist Delusion,” aka the WEIRD cognitive style), as opposed to experience-based Aristotelian empiricism is, likewise, less connected to actual reality.

    Further, the Platonic-thinking, partial moral foundation, leftist righteous mind is more susceptible to the cognitive distortions and vindictive protectiveness described by Haidt and Lukianoff in their Atlantic Magazine cover story “The Coddling of the American Mind,” which they argue is disastrous for education—and mental health.”

    The leftist righteous mind, by denying, defying, and actively working AGAINST the “evolved psychological mechanisms” of human thought and behavior at both individual and group levels is the ultimate root cause of the partisan rancor we see today.

    This is NOT a free speech crisis nor is it a viewpoint diversity crisis.

    It is a culture-wide mental health crisis, brought on by the institutionalization and normalization of the kind of thinking Haidt and Lukianoff decry by the campaign tactics of the Democratic Party, its leaders (remember “cling to their guns and their religion” and “deplorables”?) and the left-dominated industries of education, media, and education.

  52. Jimmy Marvin on August 13, 2017 at 9:01 am

    I performed a study. I noticed 100% of females in my office wear makeup. Everyday. None of the males do. Why is that? Social construct or something else?

  53. nouse on August 13, 2017 at 7:34 am

    Thank you for your review.

    Is it fair concluding that the sexes do not differ in potential but in interest?

    If so,
    a) what could be underlying biological mechanisms leading to these preference differentials?
    b) and if preference differentials are (to some extent) biologically induced, do diversity programs force individuals into fields against their nature, i.e. leading to later drop outs?

    • Michael Samuel on August 13, 2017 at 10:03 am

      The question b is precicely why I think it’d be important to be able to discuss these matters. That is a real concern some people have. On the public arena, I see essentially three assumed models of explanation for the lack of gender diversity in tech, causing people to react in different ways:

      1) The lack of diversity is explained by social institutions and/or other social constructs. Thus, we can also substantially influence them by reconstructing these institutions in a way that would eventually achieve proper ratio of diversity (e.g. 50/50). This includes getting rid of and paying particular attention to sexism, which is a large – if not the main – contributor in the equation.

      2) The lack of diversity is explained by biologically rooted (average) preferences, and they cannot be substantially influenced. However, people may be socially engineered via diversity programs to end up in positions that would not let their innate dispositions to be properly expressed, causing psychological harm in the long run. Therefore we should re-evaluate diversity programs altogether, and start organizing workplaces in a way to answer everyone’s dispositions better, if possible at a given occupation.

      3) The lack of diversity is explained by a combination of biologically rooted average preferences and social factors.

      All of these models lead to different possible moral concerns depending on one’s ideological or political stance. They also rely on different premises. 1) seems to rely on some kind of deterministic social constructivism, and assume that either diversity at a workplace X is intrinsically good, or that equal wage or general equality is something that should be pursued by means of increasing workplace diversity. 2) seems to rely on some kind of biological determinism, within limits, with moral concerns about psychological effects of social engineering. 3) is somewhere in the middle, leaning one way or the other.

      If the science remains unsettled, people remain unsettled.

    • JP on August 13, 2017 at 9:05 pm

      That is the elephant in the room that no one is talking about. 40% of women in engineering fields drop out within ten years.

      The explanations I have seen for this are at best unsatisfying:
      1) Sexism: The left’s catch-all for any result they do not like. But why is sexism confined only to engineering and not to Finance, marketing accounting or any other business field. And why do the dropouts not occur in some STEM fields, like geology and biology. As a geoscientist involved in the energy industry I am in a pretty conservative group. But the number of women employed as geoscientists at major oil companies has steadily increased and new hires are around 50-50, men and women. The women that entered the workforce as geoscientists when I did are still working. The dropouts are concentrated in in engineering. Why should engineering be any more sexist than any other discipline. Yes, women sometimes get belittled by some supervisors. So do men. Everyone has a boss from hell story. Some women engineers complained that they were asked to work long hours. http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2014/08/nearly-40-percent-women-leave-engineering. Men are asked to do the same. Many engineers work long hours whether they are asked to or not. They do so because they love their work

      2) U.S. News and World Report suggested that women drop out because while both men and women dislike corporate culture, men are more willing to put up with it.
      https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-08/study-women-leave-stem-jobs-for-the-reasons-men-only-want-to. But again, why is this only confined to engineering ? Why doesn’t this occur in HR or finance?

      The biggest reason may be the one no one wants to talk about. That some women who get into engineering simply don’t like it. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-09/as-a-woman-in-tech-i-realized-these-are-not-my-people

    • Aurelie on August 14, 2017 at 4:29 pm

      About that, it is worth knowing that software engineering used to be dominated by women (in the 50′ – 60′). (Very) ironically, at these times, it was even said (by Docteur Grace Hopper) that coding was clearly a woman thing(while hardware was more a hard thing, therefore, a man thing, isn’t it): “It is just like preparing dinner. You have to anticipate and plan everything for it to be ready when you need it”.
      The field became dominated by men when familial computers arrived on the market, as men where more likely to own (and use) the devices and therefore where arriving with an advantage compared to their females counterparts once at university.

  54. Gyula on August 13, 2017 at 6:01 am

    What is not clear for me is, how the authors see the relevance of “spacial abilities” in “some areas of engineering, but it’s not clear why it would matter for coding”. If software engineering is the most abstract type of engineering, dealing exclusively with abstract (digital) objects – data – within N-dimensional space why would one think that spacial skills are one of the most important characteristics of a software engineer. Have I missed something?

  55. Peter Kriens on August 13, 2017 at 4:44 am

    In Costa 2001 states in red: “Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures.”. This seems to be a very strong argument that differences are caused by preferences?

  56. Serge Guimond on August 13, 2017 at 4:34 am

    Your review is OK but misses a major point documented in empirical research (including experimental studies and cross-cultural work) showing that gender differences are VARIABLE AND CONTEXT-DEPENDENT. On the basis of the role of self-categorization and social comparison processes, this work explains why some studies can find some gender differences whereas another study can find gender similarities. It also explains why gender differences in personality traits, emotions and values vary across cultures (for a summary, see Guimond, 2008). The bottom line : it is inaccurate to say that there are no gender differences (sometimes they are very large) but it is also inaccurate to say that there are fixed-gender related differences in psychological attributes because sometimes there are none. In some cultures, the gender differences observed in the USA do not exist ! And there is experimental data explaining why this can be the case. You need to take into account the (variable) role of gender stereotypes.

    GUIMOND, S., CHATARD, A., MARTINOT, D, CRISP, R., & REDERSDORFF, S. (2006). Social comparison, self-stereotyping and gender differences in self-construals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 221-242.
    GUIMOND, S. (2008). Psychological similarities and differences between women and men across cultures. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 494-510.

    CHATARD, A., GUIMOND, S., & SELIMBEGOVIC, L. (2007). « How good are you in math ? » The effect of gender stereotypes on students’recollection of their school marks. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 1017-1024.

    GUIMOND, S., Branscombe, N.,Brunot, S., Buunk, A. P., Chatard, A., Désert, M., Garcia, D., Hague, S., Martinot, D.& Yzerbyt, V. (2007). Culture, gender, and the self: variations

    • Sean Stevens on August 13, 2017 at 6:58 am

      Serge,

      Thanks for the references, they will be interesting reads. However, it doesn’t look like any of them would meet our criteria for inclusion in this review because they aren’t meta-analyses and the samples are too small (we only included studies with samples of N > 10,000).

  57. Erik Svensson on August 13, 2017 at 4:33 am

    Another take on the gender similarities hypothesis using multivariate analysis: here. Comes to a different conclusion.

  58. Godo Stoyke on August 13, 2017 at 2:13 am

    Also, this study http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/01/0212/7b.shtml showed that blind auditions greatly increased women’s chances of being admitted into the US’ top orchestras. Both of these studies seem to indicate that gender bias is alive and well, and that women are being discriminated against solely based on gender, not ability.

  59. Godo Stoyke on August 13, 2017 at 2:03 am

    An interesting double-blind study study http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract sent two sets of resumes to 127 science lab coordinators, and asked the coordinators (men and women) how much they would pay the applicant. The coordinators offered $26,507 to the female applicants on average, $30,238 to the males. The trick of this study: all resumes were exactly identical, the only difference being that one half of the resumes were headed by female names, the other half by male names.

    • Sean Stevens on August 13, 2017 at 6:54 am

      Godo,

      A few things. The Moss-Racsuin et al. study does meet our inclusion criteria, the sample size is too small (N=127). A similar study with a much larger sample size (N=900) done by Williams and Ceci and using real-world hiring data tells a different story. You may also want to read the blog posts by Lee Jussim on this matter:

      https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/why-brilliant-girls-tend-favor-non-stem-careers
      https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/whats-the-emerging-gender-gap-in-social-psychology
      https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/gender-bias-in-science
      https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/gender-bias-in-science-or-biased-claims-gender-bias

      • Mitsu Hadeishi on August 13, 2017 at 12:28 pm

        I believe there was another study (don’t have the reference handy) which looked at racial hiring bias and found the bias was present primarily at the resume evaluation stage, but once the candidate got in for a job interview, the bias disappeared. Therefore it is quite possible that the effect Moss-Racusin observed does indicate a real world effect (that at the resume evaluation stage, there is unconscious bias), but once you get past that initial stage, the effect may be diminished. If this turns out to be a reproducible result, it would imply that some degree of affirmative action at the early stages of the hiring process remain relevant, but it may argue that once you get past the initial screening stage, it is less necessary.

        • Sean Stevens on August 14, 2017 at 6:37 am

          I do not agree with that assessment, and found that article quite humorous as it is also written by someone who isn’t in the relevant field.

          My reason for disagreeing is, they point to Moss-Racusin as “more methodologically rigorous” yet the sample size is extremely small. Larger sample sizes are considered more rigorous, not smaller ones.

        • Sean Stevens on August 14, 2017 at 2:14 pm

          Alex,

          I will add that Ceci and Williams have published multiple studies on this topic (women and STEM) over the past decade. The first author of the article you linked to (which I had previously read) is a professor of law, not psychology (or more narrowly social psychology), thus I found the main criticism – that Ceci is not researching in his field of expertise – a red herring, as a professor of law is even more out of their element on this matter.

          Additionally, I think its important that our experimental data from tightly controlled laboratory experiments are able to predict what occurs outside the lab and thus predict real-world data. Thus, while I find the Moss-Racusin et al. study to be well-run, it can be criticized because of a small sample size and because the prediction does not seam to be borne out in real-world data. Finally, there are some studies in that table (see mainly the ones by Su) that report similar findings to those of Ceci and Williams. Those studies were included because of their sample sizes (N > 10,000) and I consider those larger sample sizes to be more rigorous.

        • Alex on August 14, 2017 at 2:29 pm

          Sean,

          Okay. But what about the “superstar problem”? Red herring aside, it seems well documented that certain extraordinarily exceptional women will make it to the top, even in the most sexist environments.

  60. Andy on August 12, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    Question: If gender differences are entirely socially constructed, do we really want to destroy them?

    Couldn’t that potentially be disturbing to many people or create unexpected consequences? Perhaps: men and women becoming less complimentary or attractive to each other, men and women whose gender identities can’t accommodate these changes, etc. Couldn’t these changes potentially have important social and psychological consequences (isolation, mental illness, etc.)?

  62. MK on August 12, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    Thank you for that review!

    Your current introduction states:
    “Most researchers studying these questions assume that biology, childhood socialization, and current context interact in complex ways, but most psychologists know that pointing to a biological contribution (such as a genetic or hormonal influence) does not mean that an effect is “hard wired,” unmalleable, or immune to contextual variables (see Eagly & Wood, 2012).”

    In order to make that introduction even more accurate, I would suggest adding this sentence into it:
    “In many cases, hormones change as a result of sexual behaviors, rather than sexual behaviors being the consequence of hormone variations.”

    That can be interesting to many people, since we are used to think that it is biology which is influencing behavior but it is (also/sometimes/mostly?) the other way round, behavior is influencing hormones.

    Original quotation is by David P. Schmitt, Psychology Today, 5.2.2016
    “Hormones can matter a lot when explaining sexual diversity in humans. However, just because hormones might be linked to some feature of sexuality doesn’t mean the hormones caused it. In many cases, hormones change as a result of sexual behaviors, rather than sexual behaviors being the consequence of hormone variations.”

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201602/sex-gender-and-testosterone

  63. Lise Eliot on August 12, 2017 at 11:49 am

    Just teach every kid to code beginning in kindergarten. It’s easy, fun and will cultivate the “interest” that seems to be lacking once girls hit the extreme segregation and gender intensification of later childhood. Every career has an implicit gender label, which varies somewhat by culture (e.g., Iran) and impacts young adults’ choices at precisely the age when they are trying to attract a romantic partner.

    p.s. There is no such thing as a “male brain” and “female brain,” as the very disparate MRI findings on transgender people is showing. (More on this in a paper I’ll publish later this year.)

  64. The Independent Whig on August 12, 2017 at 11:10 am

    Lost among the trees of the many studies of the meta analysis and the even greater number of interpretations of them is the fact that this entire conversation is about the forest of the leftist righteous mind.

    There would be other problems. Most of the flaws of human reason are common to everyone regardless of cognitive style or moral matrix. But this particular problem would not be one of them.

    The cognitive styles of left (Plato) and right(Aristotle) are captured in these two quotes from The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization by Arthur Herman:

    Despite their differences, Plato and Aristotle agreed on many things. They both stressed the importance of reason as our guide for understanding and shaping the world. Both believed that our physical world is shaped by certain eternal forms that are more real than matter. The difference was that Plato’s forms existed outside matter, whereas Aristotle’s forms were unrealiziable without out it. (p. 61)

    The twentieth century’s greatest ideological conflicts do mark the violent unfolding of a Platonist versus Aristotelian view of what it means to be free and how reason and knowledge ultimately fit into our lives (p.539-540)

    Moral foundations are tools of social imagination and empathy. The more of them one employs the easier it is to imagine how and why other people think and act as they do; to empathize.

    The real subject of this conversation was summed up by R. R. Reno in his review of The Righteous Mind:

    Thus the profound problem we face. Liberalism is blind in one eye, yet it insists on the superiority of its vision and its supreme right to rule. It cannot see half the things a governing philosophy must see, and claims that those who see both halves are thereby unqualified to govern.

    • janby on August 12, 2017 at 1:54 pm

      On the Google Code Jam:

      Ironically in light of the Damore fiasco, 14 out of 14 winners have been males. All finalists have been male. This mirrors the World Chess Championships. Since the jam consists of a set of algorithmic problems which must be solved in a set amount of time, evaluation bias does not play a role. Jussim’s proposition that brilliant girls more often exhibit brilliance in math AND verbals spheres and opt for the latter as a career choice [as opposed to brilliant boys who more often exhibit brilliance in the sphere of math only] makes sense.

      • JP on August 13, 2017 at 1:10 pm

        Janby:

        There is no evidence that somehow “brilliant boy’s” skill-set is restricted to math-only skills. It may be true that brilliant boys, having both verbal and math skills, choose math more often. There are more girls in the top 1% on the SAT verbal test than boys, but I have not seen any evidence that that they have better math skills than the top 1% of boys have verbal skills.

        No one has yet satisfactorily explained to me, that if there are no gender differences, why boys have outscored girls over the past 50 years on the Math SAT test by an average of 30 points, despite the fact that more girls are enrolled in math honors courses, more girls have four full years of high school math and girls get better high school grades in math than boys.

        http://www.aei.org/publication/2016-sat-test-results-confirm-pattern-thats-persisted-for-45-years-high-school-boys-are-better-at-math-than-girls/

        The idea that somehow girls freeze up on this ONE test is ludicrous

        • janby on August 13, 2017 at 3:20 pm

          JP,

          I may have worded Jussim’s proposition poorly. He stated the following [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201707/why-brilliant-girls-tend-favor-non-stem-careers]:

          “In a national study of over 1,000 high school students, they found that:

          1. 70 percent more girls than boys had strong math and verbal skills;

          2. Boys were more than twice as likely as girls to have strong math skills but not strong verbal skills;

          3. People (regardless of whether they were male or female) who had only strong math skills as students were more likely to be working in STEM fields at age 33 than were other students;

          4. People (regardless of whether they were male or female) with strong math and verbal skills as students were less likely to be working in STEM fields at age 33 than were those with only strong math skills.”

          And YES, the idea that girls freeze up on one test strikes ME as ludicrous, too.

        • JP on August 13, 2017 at 8:24 pm

          Janby:

          You were not wrong – I was. That is indeed what the paper states. However, it raise an interesting question. There are numerous studies that suggest that the standard deviation of intelligence is wider for men than for women. Intelligence includes verbal as well as math skills. So one would expect men on the right tail to have superior verbal skills as well, since we know on average there is little difference between men and women on the SAT verbal scores overall. However, Wang et al., sees the opposite. And at scores of 720 (math) and 696 (verbal) they are looking pretty far out on the right-tail.

          I do not have a satisfactory answer regarding this. This could a reflection of girl’s greater maturity and superior work ethic at a high school level. Math is more intuitive than verbal skills. For example, you have actually have to read and study to learn vocabulary. It is an interesting conundrum.

        • janby on August 14, 2017 at 2:09 pm

          JP,

          One reason I truly value your HX input — aside from its substantive nature and your challenges to the status quo — is your willingness to incorporate new info.

          Yesterday, a neurologist posited the following [to me]: “If we have been told forever that men are better than women at math and logic, then I might have a tendency to see the world in that light.”

          My responses to this: In MY world, 1] girls have been told for decades that the ONLY reason they falter in these fields is due to bigotry/bias, 2] males are often painted in shades of Neanderthal & bumbler, 3] education may/does have an overt feminine bias, and 4] the Damore/Summers/Hunt/et al reactions show the extraordinary costs of even questioning whether girls’ aptitudes [as a group] in math fall short of males’. Meanwhile, it’s perfectly ok to talk about males being over-represented on the left tail [as it should be since it’s a matter of science].

          Ironically, disparate impact theory and corresponding discrimination lawsuits has actually led to push back and far more scrutiny of girls’ aptitudes than before by the wider public. I’ve long thought that any heavy-handed disparity-means-discrimination message could/would CAUSE that which it seeks to remediate. You simply cannot blame others for failings without expecting them to carefully/resentfully scrutinize the group claiming discrimination.

  66. William Grassie on August 12, 2017 at 9:29 am

    See also Melvin Konner’s new book Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy. Innate sex-gender differences probably favor women (in general) in the current cultural context.

  67. rationalhippie on August 12, 2017 at 7:34 am

    Here’s a suggestion: Instead of comparing any industry gender composition to the total population breakdown (around 50/50), they should compared the workforce against job submissions.
    If they really want to enforce a quota at least that it be the correct value, which is proportion of males/females that apply for a certain generalized positions. If you get 5 males for every female, then that should reflect the final composition of the team.

    Seems to me extremely wasteful to enforce practices that could never work out simple because the pool of applicants is unequal to begin with.

    • statisticallyhippier on August 13, 2017 at 12:13 am

      This isn’t quite the right solution either since there may be differences between genders in their willingness to apply for jobs — e.g. including ones that they are unqualified for based on (over)confidence.

  68. rationalhippie on August 12, 2017 at 6:26 am

    Speaking as a coder with good spatial skills, 3-dimensional mental rotation test may not seem related to coding, but being able to hold in your mind’s eye complex modular abstract patterns is a huge performance boost for analyzing programs. It does not mean those skills are necessary at all, you can be a professional level coder without those skills, but if you developed them, either by genetic inheritance, hormonal priming or childhood practice, coding some kinds of systems (like the applications google is famous for) becomes tremendously easier. Interestingly that’s far from stereotype of the engineer (one with good spatial skills), but I can definitely see how this might be an advantage when creating new ideas related to coding, like visualizing new concepts before committing a single line.

    • codingtoro on August 12, 2017 at 8:24 pm

      Interestingly that statement also struck me as relevant. I’ve been coding since I was in middle school and only recently noticed that when I need to fix problem in a software system, I visualize each part as a 3D network in my head to see how each part interacts and where there could be problems. This process was invaluable for me and probably affected my career more than anything else (I became go-to person for fixing critical issues in software systems at every company I worked at). This is absolutely not necessary for being software engineer but it helps.

      • Stan Rothwell on August 14, 2017 at 2:55 am

        I’ve been coding since I was in middle school and only recently noticed that when I need to fix problem in a software system, I visualize each part as a 3D network in my head to see how each part interacts and where there could be problems.

        It’s more than that. I visualize databases as individual 2-dimensional planes with functions “plugging” into them like patch cables, sort of a 3-d wiring setup in my own mind…

  69. Rust on August 12, 2017 at 4:11 am

    Two questions:

    1. If the ratio of women in engineering is biological in origin and has to do with women’s innate interests, why are 70% of engineering students in Iran female? Are Iranian women biologically distinct from American women?

    2. Why aren’t women similarly underrepresented in other fields requiring mathematical ability, systemizing skills and stress tolerance?

    • Steve on August 12, 2017 at 3:40 pm

      1. Of course not, the ratio of women in engineering is not of biological origin. There merely appears to be a biological component contributing to peoples interests that are also heavily influenced by culture. The authors mention a number of papers discussing the paradox whereby the differences between genders with regard to both interests and personality traits tend to be smaller in less gender egalitarian societies and are largest in the scandinavian countries that rank highest in gender equality. Its not clear why this is, some believe that as cultures become less restrictive and open options for all people the biological component in preferences starts to shine through more, but there are many papers on this page discussing other possibilities.

      2. Because its not about ability, there is next to no difference in ability. Its about interests, which are influenced by both nature and nurture. Being good at maths doesn’t mean you will be interested in every profession that involves maths. The post by Scott Alexander linked above goes into this, also in his response to Grant’s response at the end. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/

      • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 5:12 pm

        >The authors mention a number of papers discussing the paradox whereby the differences between genders with regard to both interests and personality traits tend to be smaller in less gender egalitarian societies and are largest in the scandinavian countries that rank highest in gender equality.

        Dishonest/omissive phrasing. Quoting Suzanne Sadedin, Ph.D:

        >Table 2 shows that, after controlling for human development index, the only gender equality-related factor that predicted gender differences was the ratio of female smokers. In other words, gender equality in general doesn’t change women’s personalities, or the difference between men and women. Rather, human development index changes men’s personalities much more than women’s.

        That doesn’t support the claim that gender-liberal societies allow men and women to express innate differences more freely. If that interpretation were correct, women and men should diverge in gender-liberal societies independent of egalitarianism. Instead, men change personality in more egalitarian societies regardless of gender issues; women don’t.

      • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 5:34 pm

        >When Vanderbilt University psychologist David Lubinski, PhD, and his colleagues interviewed a group of more than 5,000 intellectually precocious girls and boys they’d followed from childhood into their mid-30s, they noticed that while men and women earned equal proportions of advanced degrees, there were gender differences in the areas people decided to study.

        He found that just as many women as men started college planning to go into physical sciences and math. However, women more than men later switched to humanities and social science majors. Every one of these study participants had the ability to succeed in math-related careers, but many of them were more likely to choose law school or medicine, Lubinski says.

        You can’t reasonably attribute loss of interest at various stages solely to biology, and you also can’t attribute women’s decisions to switch out of STEM halfway to “prenatal hormones” as said “lack of interest” would have to be constant since birth. It’s an absurd reach that brushes over countless other factors at play.

        Boys and men have been found to rate their math skills as better when they are not – is that biology also? If yes, shouldn’t we be looking at men’s innate tendency to overestimate themselves? I think it would be a curious topic to look at.

        You also haven’t answered my question about “stress tolerance” and why it would have a crippling effect in engineering but not any other stressful field.

        • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:56 pm

          Of course you can attribute shift in interests to biology. When you’re child, your skills are not measured (or tested) against others, which allows you to have any interest and dreams you choose. As you grow up, say in high school, you begin to see your abilities measured against your now-more-competitive surroundings. Many of those who considered themselves good in elementary school see their grades drop in high school (this is even more pronounced later on, in college). Your strengths and weaknesses become obvious to you and you begin to focus on those abilities and traits which you expect to give you an economic advantage in the future. E.g. those who see they have more musical or artistic or sports talent than their peers begin to steer in such career directions, even though, in the non-competitive childhood, any kid could have dreamed of being a famous singer or painter and not have such dreams checked against objective reality. In the case of girls, the shift happens when they notice that their differences in visuo-spatial, cognitive and mechanical abilities begin to fare worse than boys. Even adults change careers when they notice that the skills they deemed to be career-defining are not good enough for the environment they find themselves in. You’ve never heard of failed musicians, artists, sportsmen etc? Their failure is reality confronting them with more skilled competition.

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:46 pm

        Yes, there are differences in the DISTRIBUTION (not averages) of cognitive abilities. The means of male/female IQ bell curves are roughly the same (100), but the stdev is bigger for men (15 vs 14). This has big implications at the far ends (both low and high) of the bell curve (say, IQs>130) from which STEM students (and, presumably, Google employees) are recruited. At those IQ levels and above, men outnumber women at progressively higher ratios (2:1, 3:1, 5:1 etc). As a consequence, in such high IQ settings you can’t expect representation proportional to general population, only representation proportional to sex ratios at such IQ levels (which is the case at Google and most high-tech firms).
        Bing the relevant papers:
        “A longitudinal study of sex differences in intelligence at ages 7, 11 and 16 years”
        “Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals”

    • Blub on August 14, 2017 at 5:22 am

      In Iran this has to do with computer science being among the subjects that are not blocked for women in Iran for religious reasons.

      And comparing numbers in low quality institutions with those of high quality and demand is absolutely questionable.

    • William Davis on August 21, 2017 at 10:53 am

      Iran is a very repressive regime toward women. They don’t allow women in leadership positions and many other fields, so it isn’t surprising that women would fill the ranks where they are allowed, at least in my opinion.

  70. Mitsu Hadeishi on August 12, 2017 at 3:18 am

    I think there’s some confusion over what is actually problematic about Damore’s manifesto — it certainly isn’t his claim that there are population-level differences between the genders. I think that’s well-established and not in much dispute. The problems are in other areas.

    For instance, Damore refers to both interest and ability in his manifesto as reasons why women are not as prevalent as men in software engineering. Yet your analysis above concludes differences in ability are close to nil. As for interest: it varies considerably by country, and within our own country, it has varied quite a bit over time — in 1987, 37 percent of CS majors were female, and today it is below 20 percent. This suggests interest level can vary quite a bit due to cultural and environmental factors. Other STEM fields, also, are now approaching parity — CS remains an outlier.

    More importantly, however, he begins by saying he believes that sexism is part of the reason for different outcomes — yet argues that any policy which attempts to directly address sexism as a potential cause is “discriminatory”, can cause “irreparable harm”, and believes that only interventions are valid which are based on the assumption differing innate traits are responsible for different outcomes. This establishes a rather strong tendency towards motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, despite his criticism of the same. (He also criticizes racial diversity programs – does he believe that different outcomes for, say, African-American engineers are also due to biological differences?)

    Most critically, however, Damore posted this rather one-sided essay in a work context, in a way that would critically affect female employees who are already subjected to pressure by being in a profession against stereotype, and due to this rather one-sided presentation (including reference to biological “ability” as well as preference), creating further psychological pressure. That is the central problem.

    • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 5:41 pm

      It was written specifically to enable its defenders to perpetually shift goalposts between “biological inability to do math” and “biological lack of interest in doing math despite equal ability”. That’s if we generously assume that Damore’s extremely wishful interpretation of cited data is valid in the first place.

      You’ll see a lot of this exact tactic here.

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:42 pm

        No one claims that women in GENERAL “can’t do math” i.e no one says that such statement applies to every individual woman. Even if you consider each gender by itself (men or women), people within each gender differ in cognitive abilities so you can’t make such generalizations. The claim is that distribution of high cognitive abilities differs, so that there are FEWER women than men able to do math at a certain level of complexity. Men and women of equal IQ (say 130) are just as good, but the higher up the IQ ladder you go, you encounter higher and higher men-to-women ratios. The means of male/female IQ bell curves are roughly the same (100), but the stdev is bigger for men (15 vs 14). This has big implications at the far ends (both low and high) of the bell curve (say, IQs>130) from which STEM students (and, presumably, Google employees) are recruited. At those IQ levels and above, men outnumber women at progressively higher ratios (2:1, 3:1, 5:1 etc). As a consequence, in such high IQ settings you can’t expect representation proportional to general population, only representation proportional to sex ratios at such IQ levels (which is the case at Google and most high-tech firms).
        Bing the relevant papers:
        “A longitudinal study of sex differences in intelligence at ages 7, 11 and 16 years”
        “Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals”

      • Chuck on August 13, 2017 at 3:35 am

        “Other STEM fields, also, are now approaching parity — CS remains an outlier.”

        One sees similar splits within STEM fields. See, for example: “All STEM fields are not created equal: People and things interests explain gender disparities across STEM fields”. The authors also provide estimates of how large the differences *should be* given the preference differences — Figure 1. The things/realistic/agenic versus people/social/communal preference differences go a long way in explaining the occupational ones.

    • jpm on August 13, 2017 at 10:04 am

      How does one define “interest”? For example, I have seen cases where individuals have have experienced very strong parental pressure to pursue a particular high-paying or prestigious career (especially doctor-or-lawyer). Goaded through law school only to realize a hatred for law? Doomed to feeling perpetual parental disapproval not having chosen the “right” career? At what point does healthy parental encouragement become unhealthy parental pressure? How does one define such a line? If we can define it, how does that line vary across cultures?

  71. Joe on August 11, 2017 at 8:15 pm

    This also strongly suggest that women are not driven out of male dominated fields:

    Men who enter a female-dominated major are significantly more likely to switch majors than their male peers in other majors. By contrast, women in male-dominated fields are not more likely to switch fields compared to their female peers in other fields. The results are robust to supplementary analyses that include alternative specifications of the independent and dependent variables. The implications of our findings for the maintenance of gendered occupational segregation are discussed.

    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-016-0583-4?wt_mc=alerts.TOCjournals

  72. Roger Bass on August 11, 2017 at 5:27 pm

    Well done, great piece. Your conclusions seem mostly well-stated. However, as a matter of logic, I do have a quibble with conclusion #1. You say “it’s not clear why [visuospatial ability] would matter for coding”. And continue “Thus, the large gender gap in coding (and in tech in general) cannot be explained as resulting… from differences in ability between men and women.” But B does not follow from A. It may in fact be the case that there is a connection between visuospatial and coding abilities. You just aren’t aware of it. And if there is (I don’t know), that probably would explain some of the difference. Measuring how much, and disentangling this from the preference effects would, of course, require careful study and analysis. That said, as a trained mathematician and some time coder, I can absolutely hypothesize a possible connection (though, to be clear, I have no data). I personally have found that a geometrical visualization can often help in thinking about possible solutions to a complex problem. If that is, in fact, a common or useful mental tool for successful coders, it would explain why visuospatial skills do (or might) matter in that field.

  73. NHThinker on August 11, 2017 at 5:25 pm

    I read the article and prepared to comment and then decided to read the comments first. I’m glad I did because Not The Bellend on August 11, 2017 at 6:48 am made the points more eloquently then I could.

    I would very much like to see actual gender and race distributions for the top 5% of SAT math scores rather than just the charts comparing averages. Generally top end universities and companies are only looking at that top end as expected fast movers in their company.

    Behaviorists that are including the non-top 5% of intelligence really are stretching to make claims about the Google engineering population.

    • Peter Schaeffer on August 12, 2017 at 2:13 pm

      Males dominate top-end Math SAT scores and have for decades. Nothing new about it. Check the data online.

      • NHThinker on August 13, 2017 at 8:37 am

        Peter Schaeffer,
        I would appreciate if you would please point me to a URL or Google search string that will show gender and race information for only the top 5 to 10 percent of SAT Math scorers. My searches overwhelming turn up articles that discuss comparisons based on whole ranges of scores, not just the top.

        If this “top-end” data were available in public domain, then it could be used as a much stronger argument for Damore’s assertions on Google hiring and grooming practices related to population rather than his weaker (and more easily positioned as misogyny by his enemies) extrapolating from studies based on all intelligence populations or all math SAT takers.

        • Sean Stevens on August 13, 2017 at 8:51 am

          NH,

          See the work by Machin & Pekkarinen, 2008 that we mention in note 2 near the bottom of the piece. The paper and supplementary materials are gated but we also provide a link to an ungated summary. We are working on a similar table to the one in this piece that attempts to collect the relevant publications on the gender differences in variability on the various ways of testing these cognitive abilities.

          For now you could also check out this more recent report by Mark Perry (note that Perry starts with the overall averages, but within the report discusses the gender ratio of the upper portion of the tail).

        • NHThinker on August 13, 2017 at 9:19 am

          I was able to find https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6dUC-HV6fmsJ:https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-gender-ethnicity-2014.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us But no places of repute in which the information is public domain and not restricted. It shows that for all males and females taking the math SAT only 1% of both males and females got perfect scores and a higher number of males got close to perfect scores. So if Google is looking for the perfect and near perfect in math for software engineering positions, then the math SAT scores would predict there would be more males to choose from- this is unless it is assumed that females improve more between the time they take the HS SAT and the job offer to Google.

        • NHThinker on August 13, 2017 at 10:27 am

          Sean Stevens
          Thanks for consideration of my questions- I am quite impressed with your willingness and patience to answer questions from lay persons here.
          My frustation/curiosity is too many studies and conversations regarding Damore (including Damore’s own) are pointing to studies on general populations and make seemingly weaker, more disputible and more characterizible (fairly or unfairly) as misogny and racism.
          I was able to also find http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/25/average-iq-of-students-by-college-major-and-gender-ratio/ that may have relation to the discussion of positions at Google that require very high reasoning intelligence.
          My sincere apologies for being a poor student and not reading through all the references you provided before asking questions.
          I choose to post under a moniker because I believe my employer may view my questions and curiosity negatively.

  74. Niko Sillanpaa on August 11, 2017 at 5:19 pm

    Dear Dr Stevens,

    I would like to point out that the research populations of most of the studies included in the meta-analyses do not reflect the population of potential software engineers but the general population. A fair assessment would be that those with IQ below the average are very unlikely to end up having a coding career in Silicon Valley. It is conceivable or even probable that statistically significant differences in mathematical (or related) ability will not manifest among those with little such ability unless the tests have been specifically designed to that setting. If these subjects are included in the research population, they will have a diluting effect on the detection of differences. So, an analysis of the relevant subpopulation(s) would probably be more informative.

    Best regards,

    Niko Sillanpää
    MD (radiology), PhD (neuroradiology), MSc (software engineering)

    • Sean Stevens on August 11, 2017 at 5:26 pm

      Niko,

      Please see note 2 below the piece. We are working on a supplement addressing this.

  75. Royce Zobell,MD,MPP,MJ on August 11, 2017 at 5:12 pm

    I have issued critical comments via twitter on the topic above. Briefly, my point is this. Based on the Google Memo experts have issued comment respecting a central claim of gender difference. The essay above seeks to “scientifically” conclude “despite cultural/ social conditions and personalty differences”, males and females are inherently different entities. My immediate response to this claim is “BIG WHUP”. The reason for this indifference is the conclusion is not important. The above essay is equivalent to a party of investigators studying world forests. After much analysis, these observers conclude “there are inherent differences between trees. Indeed despite variable appearances and evaluation metrics, we know there are BIG TREES and there are LITTLE TREES.These 2 classes of trees emerge no matter where or when forests are studied.

    Of course this assertion begs the BIG question. Given we have 2 sorts of “things of interest” what is the implication?, what is the meaning? of this “shared belief”? If we should be so lucky as to gain consensus in answering such questions, we might then tackle this one. Given, there are innate “significant” differences in “psychological traits” observed across human populations analyzed by gender types: male vs female, what, IF ANYTHING other than marveling at this difference, do we OR indeed should we do about it? This question is the gravaman.
    Certainly numerous opinions, teachings, rituals, doctrines, policies, interpretations have emerged that touch in some way on this question. And, to answer this question as posed, we have no dearth of experts waiting to opine. For example, we could chose from the assorted literatures such as sociology, anthropology, paleoanthropology, cultural/evolutionary socio- psychology, philosophy, linguistics, political science, organization theory, or history. So, what’s the answer?

    • Elizabeth Wilhelm on August 12, 2017 at 5:06 pm

      Perhaps Agenda. Social engineering for example. Debating is not the issue, changing belief systems by the overwhelming research, smoke screen, reaching a consensus on gender; widely opens the door to AI vs human rights. Meanwhile science marches along. We are educating ourselves at the University of the Sawmill expelling, cutting out, our own history, and therefore our standards and morality,for the unknown “excitement” of redefining humanity. Perhaps.

  76. Mark Blumler on August 11, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    I came across a meta-analysis in Science about 20 years ago that I read carefully because I was considering using it in a graduate course. It was a meta-analysis of studies of national aptitude exams given to teenagers (8th grade or thereabouts). The mean differences between boys and girls corresponded to “expectation”- boys better at math and science, girls at verbal and location recall (as in the card game Concentration). But, as the authors emphasized, the differences were small. What they did not emphasize is that in every case the male variance was far greater than the female variance. This means that even in areas where girls showed a higher mean, such as writing, the top 5% might include more boys than girls. If this is true in other meta-analyses also, then Mr. Damore’s graph, which you reproduce, is in error in that it assumes that the genders have equal variance. I will search to see if I can find that reference, but as I haven’t taught the course in 19 years I may not have it any more. Thanks for providing such an important service to academe and society.

  77. Judy Parrish on August 11, 2017 at 1:42 pm

    Very interesting review. I am a successful (some would say very successful) female scientist in a physical science that requires a lot of 3D visualization (geology). Based on my experience and the experiences of other women I have known well, I have felt for a long time that the primary cause of the gender differences is actually choice, i.e., women have more choice in the US about what they do (perhaps even more than men, who still face the expectation of being the primary breadwinners in their families). This research would seem to bear out my conclusion (the first one, not the latter!). I’ve never seen any research on why women do choose engineering or the physical sciences; all the research I’ve seen focuses on why they do not. I have often wondered what effect personality type has on these choices as well.

    • JP on August 11, 2017 at 10:12 pm

      I assume that you are the Past-President of GSA Judy Parrish. I have read many of your papers over the years

  79. The Independent Whig on August 11, 2017 at 12:40 pm

    This is pertinent. It’s only one person’s story, but it goes to many of the topics in discussion here.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/view/articles/2017-08-09/as-a-woman-in-tech-i-realized-these-are-not-my-people

    Separately, but following from the linked article, it seems to me that many of the studies mentioned here are detailed examinations of the trees that overlook the existence and nature of the forest.

    We get so caught up in the finer points of this study or that, that the discussion amounts to equivocation and dissembly.

    Whereas if we step back and look at the bigger picture it’s plain as day that men and women are different, and it’s simply ideology-based denial of self-evident reality to insist they’re not, or that differences are solely due to social constructs and/or prejudice.

    • Elizabeth Wilhelm on August 11, 2017 at 2:01 pm

      Denying biology is just the root of this issue. Denial for the impossible,unachievable Diversity in Equality IS the time wasting, soul killing, humility ignoring pastime of a civilization being torn apart by forgetting (and no longer educating) that It’s strength is achieved by each fiber, when-united against slavery of the intellect.

      • Royce Zobell MD, MPP on August 11, 2017 at 5:25 pm

        The characterization of diversity depends on “consensus” within a community of observers. What counts as diversity may be contested. Generally, this topic is without controversy. “Equality” though is a whale of a different fish. Books treatises and dissertations on “equality” ie “theory of equality” is a current cottage industry. One can find philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, ethnologists/anthropologists, moral theorists, theologians, Prophets, StrongMen, Marxists, Libertarians, scholars of classical literature (Greco-Roman) and/or Ancient Civilization line-up to weigh in on this subject. To get oriented inside the subject, would take one about 6-10 months of assiduous study and that effort is just to gain admission into the discussion. The Google Memo is simply grist for this mill, and is one datapoint/case among “millions” under study. Good Luck.

        • The Independent Whig on August 11, 2017 at 10:05 pm

          Equality means one set of rules that applies, and is applied, the same to everyone.

          Not that hard.

  80. MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 10:07 am

    On the much broader significance of spatial reasoning and mental visualization / rotation, Pinker provided an excellent summary in the Harvard debate:

    “””

    Now, does this have any relevance to scientific achievement? We don’t know for sure, but there’s some reason to think that it does. In psychometric studies, three-dimensional spatial visualization is correlated with mathematical problem-solving. And mental manipulation of objects in three dimensions figures prominently in the memoirs and introspections of most creative physicists and chemists, including Faraday, Maxwell, Tesla, Kéekulé, and Lawrence, all of whom claim to have hit upon their discoveries by dynamic visual imagery and only later set them down in equations. A typical introspection is the following: “The cyclical entities which seem to serve as elements in my thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be voluntarily reproduced and combined. This combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought before there is any connection with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs.” The quote comes from this fairly well-known physicist.

    /”””

    • shim on August 11, 2017 at 11:40 am

      I’m a software developer. I don’t have an science to add to this but just a personal anecdote. When I’m working on a complex bit of code it FEELS exactly the same as when I close my eyes are rotate a complex 3d object in my head. Not sure it matters or is relevant to anything, but there it is.

  81. Patrick Vermeren on August 11, 2017 at 9:43 am

    In the Lytton and Romney meta-analysis, one of their conclusions is: “The finding of relative uniformity in the treatment of sons and daughters by parents does not by itself allow us to decide between various environmental and biological explanations of existing sex differences.” (p288) Therefore, this line should not be red: “Most effect sizes were found to be nonsignificant and small”. It would rather be green, as this undermines that socialization would lead to sex differences.

    The only practice out of 19, namely that parents encourage sex-typed activities, offers also no conclusive evidence that these encouragements have an effect because parents might encourage the behavior because of biological predispositions in themselves as well. They might only just confirm already existing preferences (or reinforce these preferences rather than create them as the authors write (p. 287)

  82. YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 11, 2017 at 9:33 am

    I don’t understand the fixation on the biological point. If you remove biology from Damore’s notion of “population level differences”, his critique is still nearly as powerful. And his question is still valid: “If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.”

    The overwhelming evidence does not support any biological differences in the abilities that allow one to code:

    https://www.recode.net/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-memo-research-science-women-biology-tech-james-damore

    If you want to contribute to a meaningful discussion about gender diversity in tech, drop the biology.

    • MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 9:52 am

      This is precisely the kind of intervention which kills debate; biological differences are very much in dispute here as they are in the present work of science.

      The Recode article adds up to little more than:

      – we are advocates in this space, so we know (itself highly suspect; orgs devoted to advocacy on these issues are deeply entrenched in amassing evidence only on one side of the problem; in fact the blurred research / advocacy line is ruining our universities, because many will openly suggest that the goal of research is to help the marginalized rather than to find the truth, and it shows in the questions asked).

      – some prominent people have disputed biological differences, so we can discard it (we know this, as we know that some very prominent researchers have said the opposite. The most damning issue with the Recode article is that it almost immediately demonstrates its inability to engage in scientific dispute by implying that there is scientific consensus on these issues, and even including social advocacy driven research alongside other kinds. There is nothing even remotely approaching consensus across the relevant fields.)

      – men and women perform the same in sciences (By looking at averages, which completely avoids the selectivity / right-tail discussion at the heart of the matter. No one is debating the difference between the average male and female here; we’re asking how many high performers are in each sex distribution on certain niche mental aptitudes.)

      – social pressures and barriers are real (Which tells us nothing on the substantive questions of biology. Many problems with social barriers are even causally intertwined with biological differences; if a certain type of mind is typically required for a task or profession, you will see a more closed and peculiar community tend to form within its ranks. The same happens with disciplines like philosophy.)

      • YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 11, 2017 at 1:31 pm

        You are right. I think the debate about whether sexism in tech can be justified based on biology is a swamp from which there is no good escape. I am not denying the mental rotation detail. I just do not think it figures into the big picture. If you want to spend your energy on the sexism is justified debate, go right ahead.

        I support all three of conclusions presented. Even if we ignore the first conclusion, there are still many valuable discussions and debates to pursue.

      • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 2:39 pm

        I’d like to hear which biological difference compels men to discriminate against female applicants, and why it should be indulged instead of corrected.

        • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:34 pm

          No one is “discriminating” against female applicants. Damore’s claim is that traits (both biological and personal preferences) are not equally distributed among sexes. His claim is NOT that those women who are interested and qualified to work at Google are in any way “worse” then similarly interested and qualified men. His claim is that there are FEWER such women, compared to men (as % of general population). IQ distributions differ for men and women. The means of male/female IQ bell curves are roughly the same (100), but the stdev is bigger for men (15 vs 14). This has big implications at the far ends (both low and high) of the bell curve (say, IQs>130) from which STEM students (and, presumably, Google employees) are recruited. At those IQ levels and above, men outnumber women at progressively higher ratios (2:1, 3:1, 5:1 etc). As a consequence, in such high IQ settings you can’t expect representation proportional to general population, only representation proportional to sex ratios at such IQ levels (which is the case at Google and most high-tech firms).
          Bing the relevant papers:
          “A longitudinal study of sex differences in intelligence at ages 7, 11 and 16 years” (pdf)
          “Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals” (pdf)

    • Barry on August 11, 2017 at 11:59 am

      The Biology is important as it allows us to know if society is discouraging women which is a problem vs if this is purely a natural outcome and to try and correct for it is not only unnecessary but debatably unethical (to for no other reason that stats try to manipulate intentionally a demographic into behaving in a desired “better” way).

      As the assumption at places like google is that the difference in application rates must be due to the field being unfairly discouraging to women (due to discrimination or “men culture”) it can lead to overcompensation when the real reason may be biological (at least in part).

      • Bernard on August 11, 2017 at 10:18 pm

        Normatively speaking and from the perspective of Google, isn’t it better to overcompensate than under compensate given the uncertainty in application rates? If there is no consensus as to what is innate and not, and to what degree, is it not more appealing to maintain course? The issue with the memo, at least to me, was that it staked out a position and offered prescriptions on issues that are very much unsettled.

        • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:27 pm

          “Overcompensate” for what exactly? False claims of leftist social engineers? Why don’t we “overcompensate” for gender disparities in jobs like sewer maintenance, electric linemen and bomb disposal? Why should we “overcompensate” only in cushy, prestigious jobs, not the dirty ones? In a free market economy, the null hypothesis is that there is no discrimination and that job preferences and hiring reflect actual interests and aptitudes of various group. If you claim otherwise, you need to prove it. No, we shouldn’t “maintain course”, if it means discriminating against white and Asian males with affirmative action and diversity hiring.

    • DE on August 11, 2017 at 4:27 pm

      As mentioned below “James Damore is burning at the stake after having been frame as writing that women would be biologically inferior wrt aptitudes.” I would re-phrase that as “wrt personality traits” rather than aptitudes. Had Damore not attributed the traits to biology, or had he used aptitudes rather than traits, I suspect this would not be such the topic of discussion it is.

      The distinction between aptitudes and interest is important to solving the problem but does not address the “traits” which may or may not be biologically sourced. How much do the “traits” matter? Unclear. From the conclusion, it would seem that women going into the field self-select yet are just as capable so should stay. Are diversity programs intended as “quota systems” or to remove “systemic bias” encountered during hiring and/or retention. If quota, it would seem that they are inherently flawed (I highly suspect any goal is not 50/50).

      WRT “spatial abilities” – lack of would not preclude ones interest or ability in coding, but could very well limit the ability to excel in the task (top 5%). However, not all positions require top 5% in coding ability. It appeared that as one moved upward in the career ladder, ability to code was of lesser importance and other skills became more important. Similar to the difference in career paths of specialist or management. The path may start at the same point but skill sets result in divergence.

      I suspect skill sets are from a combination of abilities, interests and traits.

      • Stan Rothwell on August 14, 2017 at 3:28 am

        Had Damore not attributed the traits to biology, or had he used aptitudes rather than traits, I suspect this would not be such the topic of discussion it is.

        I beg to differ. Even if his paper consisted of nothing but cites from peer-reviewed journals, with no additional elucidation or conclusion of his own, it wouldn’t stop the howling mob. So-called “Diversity” has become a belief system of its own, not to be analyzed, questioned or challenged by rank infidels…

  83. Matt Durrant on August 11, 2017 at 9:08 am

    “gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders” should not be red. This is exactly what he is demonstrating with the graph shown above.

    “Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures” should not be red. The very next sentence clarifies that these differences INCREASE in more developed countries, which he did mention.

    The word “Math” or “Mathematics” is never mentioned in the entire memo, including studies on math here creates a straw man.

    In fact, most of the red quotes do not directly contradict what he said, they merely contradict what you perceive his opinions to be based on the general content of the memo. The green quotes directly confirm his actual statements.

    • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 4:50 pm

      >The very next sentence clarifies that these differences INCREASE in more developed countries, which he did mention.

      Dishonest/omissive phrasing. Quoting Suzanne Sadedin, Ph.D:

      >Table 2 shows that, after controlling for human development index, the only gender equality-related factor that predicted gender differences was the ratio of female smokers. In other words, gender equality in general doesn’t change women’s personalities, or the difference between men and women. Rather, human development index changes men’s personalities much more than women’s.

      That doesn’t support the claim that gender-liberal societies allow men and women to express innate differences more freely. If that interpretation were correct, women and men should diverge in gender-liberal societies independent of egalitarianism. Instead, men change personality in more egalitarian societies regardless of gender issues; women don’t.

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:24 pm

        And, pray tell, why should male personalities be changed, but not female? Why not adopt social policies that change female personalities?

  84. Sandra on August 11, 2017 at 8:41 am

    Is there, in fact, a distinction between interest and ability?
    And what are the effects of Neuroticism on performance?

    • Paul on August 11, 2017 at 9:48 am

      > Is there, in fact, a distinction between interest and ability?

      Yes: interest – what people want to do; ability – what people are able to do. Modern society makes possible numerous positions for people with (for example) high cognitive capability. They choose positions based on their interests and also based on the combination of their various abilities.

      > And what are the effects of Neuroticism on performance?

      Higher neuroticism means lower stress tolerance as negative emotions are more easily triggered for them. So people with higher neuroticism would not perform well long term in high-stress positions.

      • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 3:23 pm

        Which paradoxically doesn’t affect women’s performance in healthcare fields.

        Unless you’re willing to insinuate that IT is somehow more stressful.

        • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:21 pm

          Women’s peformance in WHICH SPECIFIC in healthcare fields? Do not hide behind a generic “health care” label which covers different jobs. Nurses are not subject to the same amount of stress as surgeons. Last time I checked there are more male surgeons and more female nurses.

    • Sandra on August 11, 2017 at 12:01 pm

      It was a rhetorical question, Paul, the semantic difference notwithstanding.
      There likely is no distinction between interest and ability in the sense that the interest in pursuing a particular endeavor stems from the ability to perform in it (as opposed to being able to tackle a subject, say chess, but having a deeper interest in music; that’s just a preference).
      As for Neuroticism, it is patently obvious that the higher the position, the more the stress, and therefore the more need for equanimity to be able to function, perform, and be valuable to the company long-term.
      I formulated what I wanted to really say in the form of two questions.
      1. Women engineers are mathematically able. Out of a thousand men with an IQ of 123, zero would be “interested” in becoming engineers.
      2. Neuroticism is unfortunately a feature of female psychology and not a bug, and it is one of the major reasons why women make different choices in spite of being as technically capable as male engineers.
      As for bias, it surely exists. But in my view, it stems more from long-term thinking about the added value to the company than from a prejudice against actual ability: a woman must show that “she can handle it”, where “it” has nothing to do with her intelligence per se.
      Now I know I’ve touched the third rail, which, by definition, is a controversial subject not because it involves falsehoods, but because it addresses inconvenient truths.
      Diversity for its own sake does a disservice to women, the real service, to them and, by extension, to humanity, being honest acceptance of temperamental and, yes, intellectual features and a concerted effort to shape the workplace accordingly. Implicit bias seminars and re-education camps only serve a post-modern political agenda as they do little to solve the problem they pretend to cure, a pretense compounded by an imagined reality.
      To paraphrase Damore, honest discussion is long overdue.

      • The Independent Whig on August 11, 2017 at 6:18 pm

        interest in pursuing a particular endeavor stems from the ability to perform in it

        This seems backwards.

        It makes more sense that Ability to perform stems from interest.

        Ability to perform required practice, experience. Practice and experience require interest.

        Very few people who are uninterested are going to put in the time required to increase their ability.

        Case in point: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-09/as-a-woman-in-tech-i-realized-these-are-not-my-people

        • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 3:28 pm

          So the prenatal hormone exposure argument refers to interest AND subsequent aptitude then. You believe that prenatal hormones dramatically impact people’s interests even though girls show the same interest on STEM as boys up until a certain age.

          None of this is making any sense without spinning.

      • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 4:53 pm

        “Neuroticism” simply refers to a long term tendency to be in a negative emotional state. To assert that one’s emotional state is innate and independent of environment is entirely absurd.

  86. Mark on August 11, 2017 at 7:00 am

    These two articles are highly relevant. Take especially note of the difference between univariate analysis and multivariate analysis. Multivariate analysis leads to finding much, much bigger gender differences and are a more realistic way of measuring differences between actual people not just chopped of select abilities. And almost all studies use univariate analysis and so underreport gender differences quite strongly:

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/games-primates-play/201201/gender-differences-in-personality-are-larger-previously-thought

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201512/statistical-abracadabra-making-sex-differences-disappear

  87. Not The Bellend on August 11, 2017 at 6:48 am

    The MAJOR effect that this analysis seems to ignore is that we’re not talking about MEDIAN performances at Google or IBM or any of these tech companies. We’re talking about many many standard deviations above the mean in ability.

    Here, on the margins, any “small” difference between men and women at the median is greatly magnified at the tails of the bell curves. Look at the green and purple bell curves the Ex-Google kid posted. Lots of overlap, sure. But go out to the extremes. Draw a vertical line out there. And you’ll find 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 between the two genders.

    TO BE EXPECTED. This is normal.

    Men and women have LOTS of overlap in height. But men, on average, are taller. So if we go and look at ONLY the tallest people in the world, we will find MANY MANY times more men, than women. Even though when we look at the average height of men or women… we’ll find just tons of people of both genders who are at those heights.

    This meta analysis wants to discount the differences between men and women as small… and thus not significant. WRONG. Google doesn’t hire median level talent. They’re hiring the best. So even if men are only slightly more apt, or slightly more interested … on average …. we are looking at the extreme cases and those small differences are magnified.

    This doesn’t change the conclusion about any women being less apt or offering any fodder for questioning their qualifications. Only affirmative action in the form of hiring less qualified women simply because they were women, would do that.

    Rather, it speaks to the magnified effect of small differences over large populations. Men aren’t 5 times better at coding simply because there are 5x men to women at the top. Rather, even a very small median difference results in a greatly magnified difference at the extremes. And getting hired in tech in Silicon Valley is the extreme end.

    • The Independent Whig on August 11, 2017 at 10:01 am

      This is an excellent point that the meta analysis, and every one of the analyses it summarizes, seems to ignore.

      It’s the Larry Summers situation all over again.

      We need to be looking at the rightmost regions of the two bell curves (male and female), NOT the peaks.

      • Dimitry Papkov on August 11, 2017 at 11:17 am

        Most of the analysis also seems to focus in mean comparisons, ignoring possible differences in variance. Even if the means for certain traits are the same, but the standard deviations are different, you would see significant gender differences at the tails (both high and low). Granted, it is likely more difficult to examine such differences, but ignoring their possibility is wrongheaded, as well (I seem to remember Jordan Peterson saying in one of his lectures that evidence for such differences is currently inconclusive).

        One more point. I am not sure that discarding small effects (especially if they are found in children) is right. The issue is a self-reinforcing cycle. Same as sports. If you have a kid who is slightly better runner/hockey player/etc that the rest, he is likely to devote more time to the subject, and is likely to be encouraged by coaches, leading to a much larger difference in abilities down the road. Same thing with scientific/math interests.

    • BlipBlip on August 11, 2017 at 11:21 am

      Bingo. This should be blatantly obvious to anyone looking at overlapping distributions. This point wouldn’t have helped Damore in the slightest, though.

    • Blaisorblade on August 11, 2017 at 1:00 pm

      I know it looks obvious, but since it’s been challenged: what is the evidence that colleges or Silicon Valley companies are so selective on *raw cognitive attributes* rather than other factors? Nobody has quoted even SAT scores for CS graduates in general, if not in Silicon Valley—the first data might be available, while collecting the second might be trickier.

      As a software engineer, I’ll be easily sure there’s tons of tech jobs where higher IQs give diminishing returns compared to higher verbal skills, drive, emotional intelligence (in whatever technical sense) or simply competence/accumulated knowledge.

    • Sean Stevens on August 11, 2017 at 3:33 pm

      For now, please see note 2. We are working on assembling a similar table of studies that demonstrate males, on average, have a greater variability of scores on various cognitive ability tests AND that males are more numerous at both extremes of the curve.

      • Jon on August 12, 2017 at 8:37 am

        Sean, such data might simply reflect that society still allows males “greater variability” and “extremes” but constrains females.

        • Sean Stevens on August 13, 2017 at 7:21 am

          I don’t see how that point (which sounds unfalsifiable) has any relevance to what the distribution of the top 1%, 2%, or 5% of the curve may currently look like. As we say in the post:

          … we also do not address Damore’s claims that some gender differences are rooted in biological factors, such as the effect of prenatal hormones on brain development. Meta-analyses cannot tell us the origins of differences. Most researchers studying these questions assume that biology, childhood socialization, and current context interact in complex ways, and most psychologists know that pointing to a biological contribution (such as a genetic or hormonal influence) does not mean that an effect is “hard wired,” unmalleable, or immune to contextual variables (see Eagly & Wood, 2012; this is a point that Damore did not acknowledge).

          If there are currently more males by a ratio of 3:1 or more in the top end of the curve (which seems to be the case based on the research out there), and Google prefers to make hires almost exclusively from that area of the curve, then it is very likely they will be hiring more males. Why there may be more males in that portion of the curve is not the question we are addressing.

    • Zachary Reichert on August 11, 2017 at 2:34 pm

      To say nothing of the notion that if there WERE a large bias in hiring practices, lawsuits would smash them flat in no time.

    • DE on August 11, 2017 at 5:05 pm

      Unfortunate that the blind recruitment doesn’t disclose if there was any normalization of communication styles on the resumes or the makeup of the resume reader.

      @Zachary – the biases would have to be large indeed in order to be successful in a lawsuit

    • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 4:59 pm

      The very first article mentions that blind recruitment drastically increased the number of female bosses.

      The last study is a hiring experiment that does not emulate the actual real world process of recruitment and hiring. It’s meaningless in practice. Your conclusion is false.

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:16 pm

        So you’re not bothered by the fact that the last study shows that women are preferentially hired in academia at 2:1 rate (which would need to be addressed as gender discrimination)? You’re only comment is that an experiment in academic hiring doesn’t reflect hiring in the private sector? Wow, your concern with discrimination seems very selective. Another leftist hypocrite.

  89. doug deeper on August 11, 2017 at 5:20 am

    So what does this say about our current culture of intolerance of dissent? The huge tech companies that dominate the lives of anyone under 30, now are as orthodox as the campuses. The transition is seemless and complete, from cradle to grave you will be indoctrinated. The best and brightest will all be social justice warriors.

    Is this something we should be concerned about at HXA?

    • Sandra on August 11, 2017 at 7:43 am

      I think you will find this very helpful:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8
      It’s a lecture given by Prof. Haidt where he discusses the points you raise.
      Worth every minute of your time!

    • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 4:09 pm

      1. As a private for profit company, Google has every right to fire anyone who creates a hassle. Freedom of speech only applies to government, and doesn’t mean freedom of consequences.

      2. Nobody is obligated to tolerate factually incorrect opinions just because they happen to be yours. You’re not special.

      3. I love how conservatives suddenly love worker’s rights and limiting a corporation’s right to protect its profits and image when it helps advance their agenda.

      4. I love how the author of this memo calls for “de-empathizing the gender issue” and then appeals to empathy and affirmative action because of alleged “discrimination” against people who share his line of thought. Bonus for appealing to some vaguely positive trait found in conservative people (which is somehow supposed to help Google, no further details provided) and ignoring all the research that highlights the negative ones. Stellar logical and moral consistency.

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 9:10 pm

        1. There’s a difference between a private company with competitors and a company with a market monopoly. If you’re a private company with a monopoly (if you control a toll road, a railway or a public utility) you’re NOT allowed to discriminate, because customers don’t have the option of switching over to someone else. Google is in a gray area. There are competitors, but they’re very small.

        2. Damore’s claims are factually correct as documented by numerous scientist statements who confirm his claims. The fact that you disagree is irrelevant.

        4. a) Given that he was fired for his views, the discrimination is not “alleged” but pretty damn obvious.
        b) It’s Google (and the rest of modern left) who alleges that diversity is valuable. Damore simply points out that the left is only interested in the diversity of skin colors and sexual orientations but not diversity of ideas, which is vastly more important. Deamore doesn’t have to prove that any particular viewpoint is good in order to hold Google accountable for their own claim that diversity (of ideas in this case) is inherently good. If you claim that diversity (of ideas) is not good because some ideas are not good, than you’re automatically saying that differsity of genders and races may not be good, either, because, by the same logic, not all demographic may be “equally” good (on average). It’s a logical contradiction to value diversity of genders and races but not diversity of ideas.

      • Name *Duatha Underhill on August 13, 2017 at 12:05 pm

        1. Even though Freedom of Speech is eminently applicable beyond the rights coded constituitionally, this is a workers rights issue.

        2. That’s objectively true for the individual. For business professionals and academics ‘toleration’ implies a degree of choice that may not obtain where employers and academics have duties with respect to their employees or the public trust.

        3. I have to admit my liberal bias here, since the ‘progressive’ left has failed to engage with the precedent this will likely set:
        A worker communicated with fellow workers about working conditions and hiring practices.
        He was summarily fired, the substance of his communication the stated reason.

        Regardless of the partisan incidentals that surround this event those two essentials
        are objectivly true. As matters of fact, they form the basis for egregious conduct to become commonplace with respect to California, the NLRB, and one of the few provisions that limit the ‘at-will’ legislation.

        4. I love how wealthy academic ‘liberals’ have uniformly decided that gender, race and sexuality are the ‘intersections’ that require interminable dueling with ‘conservatives’, especially when the contested ground is the professional graduate career market. It’s almost as though a cohort whose objective is the maintenance of entrenched _material_ priviledge has co-opted the machinary of the labour movement and decided to gift wrap exemptions to labour protections for the corporations they deem ‘progressive’. Impeccable self-interest, if not moral consistency.

  90. UnPassant on August 11, 2017 at 3:30 am

    Thank you for publishing that. I do wish that James Damore had not ventured into the Nature vs Nurture useless debate, and hope that he does clarify that this was not the main point at all (he did write «These differences aren’t just socially constructed because: » but most people missed the implications of the “just”).

    However, all this logos directed at the drivers is useless, because upon reading “women are, on average, less into XXX”, the elephants also read “women are less into XXX”. The elephants do not care about statistical distributions, and they probably project that other elephants who will read the same text won’t either, so they get upset and go into “trample mode”.

    The only way to correct things would be an appeal to ethos, and show that the goal, to end/avoid “diversity hiring” and to stop attributing differences in workforce composition to sexism would actually benefit women in tech. My theories are :

    – diversity hiring leads to Impostor Syndrom, which contributes to lower pays for women because they are not as aggressive about pay

    – repeating over and over how sexist tech is probably does not help in attracting women in tech ! Which will worsen to gender ratio, which will lead to stronger claims that tech is sexist, which will lead to …

    If one could document those and show that the dominant ideological status quo, while being nice to women is actually harming them (an instance of what is described in “Pathological Altruism” from B. Oakley), and how understanding James Damore would actually help them, that would be the only way forward in my humble opinion.

    • Judy Parrish on August 11, 2017 at 1:48 pm

      I am glad you raised the point about the downward spiral. A similar instance comes to mind regarding tactics used by activists to make sexual assault appear to be a huge problem on college campuses; we’ve all seen the “1 in 3 women” statistic. If this were true, what sane parents would want to send their daughters to college? Except that, so far anyway, it does not appear to have decreased matriculation numbers of women, but I suspect it may have substantially reduced the pool of possible female employees of tech firms.

      • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 4:15 pm

        “Pointing out the problem only perpetuates the problem”

        “Muh self fulfilling prophecy”

        Cool narrative.

        I’m assuming you’re willing to extend this logic beyond what’s personally convenient. Does talking about male suicide rates lead men to kill themselves more? Does raising awareness about HIV/AIDS in men who sleep with men increase transmission? They have higher infection and transmission rates anyway, so why mitigate? That’s your logic, extrapolated.

        • Sam on August 12, 2017 at 6:35 pm

          1. Arguably, Suicide is a deeply personal choice instigated at one’s own discretion. Sexual Assault is affected by the discretion of others, and if a trend appears of a great number occurring in a single area than common sense dictates that avoiding the area would lessen the risk.

          Side note – of interest, there was recently a story about a Netflix show regarding teenage suicide and an apparently concurrent rise in searches for suicide methods. This was later broadcast in multiple outlets, with an unknown subsequent effect on further searches. Make of it what you will.

          2. Raising awareness about HIV / AIDS transmission has led to a noted decrease in infections – which again may well be attributable to people avoiding and / or mitigating the risk with prophylactics. It is also worth pointing out that, unlike the nature of sexual assault, sex acts between men can and do involve affirmative consent and ideally some form of communicative relationship.

          The conversation between UnPassant and Judy revolved around herd mentality and how those who sound alarm in an especially fearful manner may overplay risk or ignore certain factors when making judgement. Much like ‘satanic rock music’, such loud proclamations can be overblown and cause an unwarranted social effect.

          To be honest now that I think about it – I’m not even sure anyone in this thread explicitly argued that merely pointing out the problem contributes to the problem. Hmm.

        • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 8:58 pm

          Whom are you quoting? Your post contains quotes but I don’t see them in the posts above. Do you have a habit of arguing with strawmen?

  91. Asher Reich on August 11, 2017 at 2:29 am

    This is an excellent article and a heartening project, so very rare in our painfully bifurcated intellectual climate!

    Just thought I’d share a link to an essay on this topic by an evolutionary biologist. Perhaps you’ll find something of interest/benefit in this: https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-anti-diversity-document-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin?share=13d40fd1&srid=uvmTM

    • Michael Samuel on August 11, 2017 at 3:01 pm

      I would be especially interested in HxA addressing claims made in that Quora post, like the one stating that the memo “distorts and misuses moral foundations theory for rhetorical purposes”. Haidt’s take on this would be highly valuable.

  92. Josh on August 11, 2017 at 1:23 am

    Effect size^3. The simple explanation is that if any given area of research is highly controversial based on statistical significance, the effect size is so small as to be meaningless.

  93. Charles McCarthy on August 11, 2017 at 12:49 am

    Unrelated to the argument but the “spatial ability” difference may explain the overwhelming dominance in Chess at every level of play.

  94. David Terrace on August 11, 2017 at 12:28 am

    I understand your choice to favor meta-analysis. However, it is and has historically proven extremely flawed. Creating disastrous and corrupt analysis outcomes for personal gain. Example; this government in the US. One highlight of its disastrous effects down the road is the “man” in that old white house reserved for an elected leader is on his second human purchase. Purchasing a human along with a prenuptial contract (or plainly; ownership document without liability [of which was at the heart of the Russian inquiry as a contract like that is illegal on US soil]) is known to Me and those that fought and won in 1866 to abolish slavery as slavery. It is a honest and self critical individuals input (each one accounted for. Even if that means 7 billion)
    Socrates believed that this translated into politics with the best form of government being neither a tyranny nor a democracy. Instead, government worked best when ruled by individuals who had the greatest ability, knowledge, and virtue and possessed a complete understanding of themselves.

    • SGS on August 11, 2017 at 4:58 pm

      What?

  95. Justin on August 10, 2017 at 11:08 pm

    There are (among others) 2 important points noted in the conclusions:
    1- Biologically, men and women have roughly equal skills in math at a young age.
    2- Women are less interested in math.
    Presumably, there are also various social pushes against women performing well in math.

    This culminates in the current average SAT Math score for men being 527 vs. 496 for women. I would bet that the gap among the top 10% is larger (my hypothesis being that there are so many men who bring the average down, vs. tighter distribution and more consistency with women).

    Anyway, my point here: Although Damore doesn’t focus much on this, social+biological mix seem to contribute to poorer math results. And it contributes to the far smaller number of women who pursue computer science and STEM. And so, regardless of the biology, if Google were to select out of the applicant pool, it would inherently be skewed.

    A fair conclusion would be that unconscious bias at lower levels is very likely hurting Google’s diversity, even if Google had absolutely no unconscious bias (which I am not taking a stance on either way).

    • SGS on August 11, 2017 at 5:01 pm

      Re: //Presumably, there are also various social pushes against women performing well in math.// Please check out what Christina Hoff Sommers has to say about schooling for boys vs girls, and whether admissions in undergrad as well as grad programs let men and women enter, ceteris paribus, at different SAT/GRE scores or not. There is a problem if, ceteris paribus, they do admit women at lower scores, and there is another problem if those women do not finish their degree or do not immediately start using it in their professions, and continue to use it through their professional lives.

  96. MyOtherAcct on August 10, 2017 at 10:56 pm

    “…it’s not clear why [mental rotation of 3-dimensional objects] would matter for coding”

    This essay is sorely lacking the perspective of professionals who understand the current field of coding. I can tell you that mental rotation ranges from critical to being perhaps the very focal point of proficiency for many of the driving styles of application development favored by startups and leading Silicon Valley devs today.

    Why? In short (in terms that I hope a non-coder can grasp), the paradigm of development has shifted dramatically away from linear code (imperative – “do x”, “do y”) to structurally articulated (or declarative) architectures according to which you write to express the shapes of functional elements and how they relate and interconnect systematically. This is a consequence of many different trends, but is particularly driven by the web and the highly distributed, asynchronous manner in which web infrastructure increasingly operates, as well as the complexity of front-ends. Both of these have met in the middle to some extent, with elements from the front end (javascript) taking over the server by way of small micro-services, and elements from the modeling and data complexity of the backend now all over the client.

    There is a dramatic generational divide here. In the much-discussed earlier days in which the balance of genders in some coding areas was also much closer, the bar for everyone was lower. Coding in many areas meant largely linear and merely diligent work of methodically moving from point A to point B. It looks nothing like that now, and I’ve seen older men from the days of working with a more linear context (vendor certified, maybe 2 languages at most) now completely lost in the highly agile, constantly changing architectures of today.

    Mental rotation is enormous. Coding is now high level abstraction and architectural work, particularly in Silicon Valley / startup culture. This requires very specific minds.

    • Nathan on August 11, 2017 at 12:04 am

      This is literally not how distributed systems work and is a vast oversimplification of programming activity. Lisp and Smalltalk were both reasonably complete programming systems by 1980 and are no less robust and capable of high levels of abstraction than popular programming languages of today. The ability to form mental models is the key to programming, not spatial object rotation.

      • MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 9:19 am

        Mental models *are* spatial rotation; the two mental aptitudes are part of one whole. Spatial reasoning does not simply refer to polygons. And high aptitude for “mental rotation” is linked to many other high level academic skills in the literature, far beyond geometry.

    • YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh on August 11, 2017 at 12:48 am

      This is crazy. Mental rotation has nothing do with stateless microservices or any other new fangled coding paradigms. 3D game programming is obvious, but not current coding tech.

      • Jack Bauer on August 11, 2017 at 2:43 am

        Of course “mental rotation” read literally has nothing to do with modern programming. But it probably is a proxy for the kind of mental flexibility in the visuospatial dimension that men generally are more suited towards. The parent’s point about abstract and distributed architectures implies the need to visualize and mentally manipulate highly graph-like structures. Those who can do this sort of manipulation more easily will find they have an aptitude for the kinds of development you see in modern dev shops.

      • Tobus on August 11, 2017 at 7:27 am

        Disagree. As a OO coder of over 20 years I have always visualised my class structures and hierarchies as almost physical objects. Back before the iPhone, when coding was a social sin, I used to tell people (ok, girls) I was a conceptual artist – creating elaborate sculptures out of pure logic – because internally, that’s what I do. I think this kind of artistic abstraction is what separates genuinely good hackers from, well, code monkeys.

        • MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 8:52 am

          Precisely — I didn’t mean to overstate the paradigm shift since many prior architectures and patterns were also highly “geometric” in the way that OOP design could be, as you noted. But the shift seems to be in other layers where linear imperative code reigned for so long and is now being pushed out by more sophisticated structures.

        • Stan Rothwell on August 14, 2017 at 3:04 am

          Back before the iPhone, when coding was a social sin

          LOL – I remember more than one first date when some woman I met would tell me my work sounded “boring”. Too bad these militant social revisionists weren’t around to correct these young ladies for the Politically Incorrect suggestion that males and females as groups show different levels of interest in different kind of work…

      • MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 8:32 am

        I don’t think you grasp the concept at stake here. This is a critical point for me because I consult with startups from time to time and it gets very frustrating trying to whiteboard how the systems / layers / components are all wired together, when you begin to notice that someone isn’t capable of seeing it geometrically. It’s gotten to the point where I can tell a developer who gets it from one who never will based simply on their ability to hold the entire “shape” of the app in their head. This becomes painfully apparent when a bug is being tracked down and you realize they are looking in entirely the wrong system of layer because they cannot visualize the entire app and have to resort to a highly linear way of thinking.

        We’re not talking only about code that actually features polygonal objects, as you seem to imply with evident confusion. Rotation as a mental skill is what differentiates a person who can only see one element or facet at a time from someone who can easily hold the entire three-dimensional diagram of the architecture in their head and can quickly grasp where a optimization problem is lodged.

        And the increasingly higher bar of aptitude needed to compete at higher levels is a very real phenomenon. Even the older MVC-driven era of application design was dramatically easier for most to grasp than the apps we build today where complex graph-shaped data and streams of events are updating asynchronously across the UI in response to processes firing off at many different levels.

        • MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 8:47 am

          I should note that a key question at the heart of this Google Memo debate is whether coding at high levels requires a very specific and uncommon kind of mind (and dispositions, motivations) or whether it can be taught to anyone who shows sufficient dedication and hard work.

          I am fully convinced that it is the former; and this is why so many campaigns to “teach everyone to code” are doing us more harm than good, by dramatically distorting the perception of what application development and software engineering looks like.

          A relevant side topic here is the high incidence of autism spectrum in tech niches, and personalities that are on the border of that definition. Tech does not resemble the broader population in personality types and mental attributes. We need to start from there to take this conversation seriously, instead of the entirely fanciful notion that any mind can attain to high levels of competence with enough training. It simply isn’t true.

        • Luisman on August 11, 2017 at 9:40 pm

          I think you’re on to sth here. I started coding in the 80’s on mainframes /w terminals and shortly thereafter on industrial computers and PC’s with single processors. The spaghetti code (even if later on structured in modules) represents the linear thinking involved to do the coding. As soon as you move to multi-processor systems (for me it was a 80186 plus a DSP) you have to deal with timing issues. Then you get to hierarchical distributed automation systems, which also require 3-dimensional thinking, because processes run on systems that are in different locations and have to be sychronized somehow, usually based on a master/slave principle. Nowadays you have truly distributed systems that run unsynchronized, where the responder to a request may be a ping of 2ms away or maybe 270ms, and hang in a prioritized queue etc. I’d say this is already 4-dimensional thinking. You may compare it to Newtonian physics vs. Einsteinian physics. Your average to good coder can make an app for a cellphone or a user interface, but to understand the systems perspective you need 3- to 4-dimensional thinking (objects moving in space AND time).

          The other issue you mentioned here may be of decisive importance when you look at the few (hundred) people who have to somehow cooperate in a specialized high tech area like at google. Let’s call it the autism-factor. If you look at the twitter/facebook profiles of the Googlers, they often self-describe as autists of some kind. The men AND women there are certainly not your average kind of person. They are very different and quite rare, not only in their intelligence but most likely also in their behavior towards other people. Like the woman in the Bloomberg article described, the “nerd group” may find it a highly entertaining social endeavour to discuss their (again) technical hobbies. But even nerdy women, who still have an innate preference towards real social interaction, may find this hard to stomach.

    • Tomasz Kaye on August 11, 2017 at 2:14 am

      I can tell you that mental rotation ranges from critical to being perhaps the very focal point of proficiency for many of the driving styles of application development favored by startups and leading Silicon Valley devs today.

      I’m not persuaded by this account. I don’t see a clear chain of reasoning connecting the ability to mentally rotate 3d objects with the ability to skilfully create or manipulate (non-spatial) structures in modern app development frameworks.

      (Relevant experience: I’ve coded in C#, ruby and javascript for 10+ years)

      • MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 9:12 am

        Spatial means: articulated with a complex shape which maps the interactions between all the elements, where no linear account of the processes can provide an accurate view.

        Spatial thinking is everywhere in code today. The old MVC structures have been displaced by almost entirely eliminating the controller, which leads to complex data models on one end (now expressed as a graph structure, usually with caching and optimistic elements throughout) and dynamic, componentized UIs on the other end, also driven by a stream of events, where no element is purely “dumb” and elements of data and reactivity are everywhere.

        I think if anything there is a tendency to not recognize how critical spatial reasoning is; also in domains like philosophy where debate takes on a systematic shape. Philosophy is another area with an extremely sharp gender divide, and tracks closely with gender differences on testing; more 1600 GREs in philosophy than any other discipline.

    • The Independent Whig on August 11, 2017 at 10:46 am

      I’ve written code but only incidentally to my main job. My degree is in mechanical engineering, not computer science, so I’m not qualified to chime in on whether or not mental rotation is pertinent to coding.

      But this entire discussion resonates with me because I think it exposes a larger point.

      The pertinent passage in the comments is this.

      I can tell a developer who gets it from one who never will based simply on their ability to hold the entire “shape” of the app in their head.

      The larger point is the difference between sagacity and pedantry, or more colloquially, the ability to see the forest vs being blinded to it by all the trees.

      I think it’s true that in any given field there are people who “get it” and people who never will. As for coding, I have no problem whatsoever admitting that I’m in the latter category, or that I’m what is referred to in these comments as a linear-thinking “code monkey.”

      But I DO “get it” in areas that are pertinent to MY job (which, thankfully for you and me both, is not coding).

      All of which makes me wonder:

      1) which, if any, of the analyses mentioned here, in any way, help to discern, for Google’s purposes, those who “get it” and those who don’t.

      2) If there are any such studies, do they indicate statistically significant differences between men and women?

      Keeping in mind that Google is hiring NOT from the middle of any bell curve, but rather only from the high-performing tail.

      • Stan Rothwell on August 14, 2017 at 3:15 am

        I’ve written code but only incidentally to my main job. My degree is in mechanical engineering, not computer science, so I’m not qualified to chime in on whether or not mental rotation is pertinent to coding.

        Well, you certainly have far more experience than 99% of the screaming mob out there. The presumption and insinuation of sexism in the world of coding comes from a certain group of virtue-signaling narcissists out there who assume that the world would be a better place if we all just kowtowed to their demands. Pardon me, but I have trouble believing that somebody who has never pounded out printf(“Hello World!\n”); in some HS or freshman CS class, much less coded/developed an application in use anywhere, can presume to tell ANY tech company who’s more qualified to work for them.

      • Kenneth Moyle on August 14, 2017 at 9:20 am

        More anecdata in support of coding-as-object-rotation …

        Note that like The Independent Whig, I am not a full-time coder but have written code as part of my full-time job and side work since the 90s.

        When I am designing large, interactive, web-fronted systems I tend to move from sketches on paper to long walks during which I think and think about what I am building and what its parts are and how they relate. And it *feels* like working with, like rotating if you will, objects: I am mentally juggling and assembling a collection of parts into a whole; peering into the structure and watching how the parts mesh; I’m looking for holes and blocks and black parts that I can’t see. It feels like a big, physical thing into which inputs move and from which results surface in the browser.

        It feels, in short, like a very visual process with almost tangible structure. And it can be straining, and exhausting, and sometimes exhilarating creating and manipulating it.

        Here endeth the anedcatum.

    • Blaisorblade on August 11, 2017 at 1:27 pm

      The correct perspective would be from some psychologist or cognitive scientist of some sort studying programming. Unfortunately, applying common sense reasoning to such questions can prove too much, and applying introspection doesn’t yield statistically valid results.

      Background: I’m doing a PhD in programming languages, I have above-average math skills but (I’d say) not so great geometric ones, yet I get by and handle high-level abstractions fine. And I’ve attended a few lectures by cognitive scientists studying programming, so I’m familiar with how little we know and how hard it is to learn about such conjectures.

      • Sam on August 12, 2017 at 6:53 pm

        So then a new question appears:

        Why do women *default* to an apparent state detrimental to spatial reasoning unless specifically primed? And why do men see such a minor difference in comparison when primed opposite?

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 8:55 pm

        MIT and Mudd College admit 2 (2.5) more women than men to compensate for lower aptitude among women. Get back to us when MIT treats all applicants equally, i.e. on the basis of their aptitute, not to meet giant women quotas.

  97. Thomas on August 10, 2017 at 10:43 pm

    Hi,

    Regarding your comment about gender differences in spatial abilities, there is at least one study that provides evidence for that gap being derived more from “nurture” than “nature.”

    Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities

    • Sean Stevens on August 11, 2017 at 9:03 am

      Thomas,

      Thanks for the suggestion but that study does meet our inclusion criteria. It is not a meta-analysis and the number of participants for single study is too low. From the abstract (emphasis added):

      In this study, we use a large-scale incentivized experiment with nearly 1,300 participants to show that the gender gap in spatial abilities, measured by time to solve a puzzle, disappears when we move from a patrilineal society to an adjoining matrilineal society.

      • Royce Zobell MD, MPP, MJ on August 11, 2017 at 7:14 pm

        Mr/Prof Stevens: Please see critical comments posted above regarding your analysis of the infamous Google Memo. This “Memo” has garnered no small measure of press attention. I assume this notoriety is in part due to media attention paid to several Wall Street, and Silicon Valley Billionaires, some of whom have been caught behaving badly. Reasons for and implications of this increased press scrutiny are laid out elsewhere. James Damore, the Google Memo author, has suggested women’s experiences in the workplace may be, in part, rooted in biology. Damore cites the academic literature in social psychology, which , its claimed, suggests innate differences in maleness and femaleness, causation of which lies beyond the effects of social roles and stereotypes. A number of “experts” in the field of social psychology have weighed in on this topic and generally affirmed this broad conclusion. However, I am of the conclusion that this line of thinking , however scientifically correct, is far too narrow and misses the larger issue. The bigger issue is amorphous and houses other issues such as inclusion, tolerance, origins of class and social hierarchy, thinking about and attribution of moral judgements of dominance, exploitation, oppression. Relationships between (the concepts of) power, equality, freedom, and justice with respect to the workplace need to be addressed. These other nagging issues cannot be fully understood if the ongoing discussion is confined to a question of innate male vs female traits.

      • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 5:09 pm

        I don’t see you making similar comments about studies that don’t fit your criteria but also vaguely agree with Damore. Like the ones posted by

        >Mark on August 11, 2017 at 6:43 am.

        Interesting.

      • Thomas on August 13, 2017 at 10:36 pm

        I understand. I’ve previously encountered the idea that the “spatial abilities” gap is one that seems to robustly stick around in meta-analyses and large studies. I just thought it was worth pointing out that the science on that particular gap is not quite settled.

        Here is another study that shows some evidence that “spatial ability” may be quite plastic.

        Gender Differences in Spatial Ability of Young Children: The Effects of Training and Processing Strategies

        Of course, this is an even smaller study on young children.

        However, I think these studies are at least worth adding to the conversation in the comments if not the main article.

        Thanks,
        Thomas

  98. John on August 10, 2017 at 10:37 pm

    Why is a female advantage in course work marked red? The thesis is that men and women are different not that men are better than women.

    • Nathan on August 11, 2017 at 12:07 am

      The thesis is that men have a higher probability of aptitude for programming than women. If one of the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions of aptitude is to women’s advantage, it undercuts the thesis.

    • Sean Stevens on August 11, 2017 at 9:16 am

      John,

      As Nathan said, Damore’s thesis (or his inferred thesis) is that men on average possess a higher aptitude for programming – thus something that suggests women may have an advantage runs counter to that.

      • Justin on August 11, 2017 at 12:04 pm

        Sorry to be dense here, but could you quote the most relevant line/paragraph for this?

        I think that was a point that he probably believed but intentionally did not make.

        The closest I see is:
        “Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.”
        Then, he expands what he means by traits traits to include Personality Differences and Men’s Higher Drive for Status.

        Quickly skimming through it, I can’t find any reference to him suggesting men have a higher aptitude for math or anything similar. It seems “interest in math” and “spatial skill abilities” were two well-researched supporting points that he didn’t include (probably because they were too controversial).

        • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 5:57 pm

          Because he cannot supplement the notion that men have a higher mathematical aptitude. His paper is severely cherrypicked and written to validate a preconceived notion, not to find the truth.

          As far as leadership goes:

          http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-15222-001

          >This meta-analysis addresses this debate by quantitatively summarizing gender differences in perceptions of leadership effectiveness across 99 independent samples from 95 studies. Results show that when all leadership contexts are considered, men and women do not differ in perceived leadership effectiveness. Yet, when other-ratings only are examined, women are rated as significantly more effective than men. In contrast, when self-ratings only are examined, men rate themselves as significantly more effective than women rate themselves.

          There is a pattern of male overconfidence and positively warped self perception across a variety of topics. It would be useful if Damore looked into that, but that would require too much self reflection on his part.

  99. John on August 10, 2017 at 10:33 pm

    I fail to see why evolutionary theory would not predict different gender differences across cultures, because different cultures have different gene pools with different evolutionary pressures. This is as rational as saying that skin colour must be cultural rather than genetic because it differs across cultures.

    • Tom on August 11, 2017 at 5:59 am

      I understand that our migration from Africa is relatively recent in evolutionary terms, so the evolutionary pressures were shared between all humans for a long, long time. This is where the commonality across cultures comes from. (I welcome more insight on this.)

      • Blaisorblade on August 11, 2017 at 1:47 pm

        > I fail to see why evolutionary theory would not predict different gender differences across cultures, because different cultures have different gene pools with different evolutionary pressures.

        The genome difference across the world is not nil but extremely small, as it was established long ago when World War II scientific racism was scientifically discredited. Genetic differences among Western population seem even smaller. And it’s long been claimed that evolution has stopped since a while.

        There is a scientific debate that these genome differences do have effects — genetic illnesses and responses to medicines are sometimes different among ethnicities. Cognitive effects are maybe even more hotly debated—some Googler asked James Damore about the issue to bait him into something more compromising, and he refused to answer.
        https://www.wired.com/story/internal-messages-james-damore-google-memo/

        I will only quote one point here: the debate on why Ashkenazi Jews are significantly smarter than the general population, with an article claiming it was selection driven by the cultural situation of Jews in Medieval Europe:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

        • Mortimer Spoon on August 11, 2017 at 4:03 pm

          >”extremely small” You’re confusing quantitative difference (number of differences) with qualitative difference (what those differences code for). If the “small” genetic difference determines whether you have 100K or 110K hairs on your head it doesn’t matter. If that “small” determines” that you’re group’s avg IQ is 85 (US blacks) or 70-75 (native Africans) that’s a qualitatively huge difference. We know only a dozen or so genes associated with intelligence and we know that 10 of them are not equally across populations.

          Davide Piffer: “A review of intelligence GWAS hits: Their relationship to country IQ and the issue of spatial autocorrelation”
          http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/PifferIntelligence2015.pdf

        • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 6:04 pm

          I love how he briefly mentions a “certain race” in his manifesto, but brushes over it entirely. So according to Damore, only female underrepresentation is biological. Racial isn’t.

          Or perhaps he knew he’d have trouble using the same logic because it would require him to admit his genetic inferiority to Asians.

          What an intellectually honest fella.

        • Jeremy Bonington-Jagworth on August 14, 2017 at 5:17 pm

          So Sherpas have a negligible difference in their genetics, but could you survive and thrive in the Himalayas like they do?!

          And, no, it’s not down to acclimatisation, but significantly different biology, eg blood vessels that no other human possesses and even, I think, the ability to breath through the mouth (ie absorb oxygen through the skin of the mouth and the tongue!)!

        • Jeremy Bonington-Jagworth on August 14, 2017 at 5:45 pm

          Shell, he mentions race about eight times, but I can’t recall any reference to “certain race”.

          Could you explain what you mean?!?

        • Jeremy Bonington-Jagworth on August 14, 2017 at 5:58 pm

          Shell, you seem to claim to a “genetic inferiority to Asians” when race is a social construct, but insist that genders are the same (and, presumably, that gender is a social construct).

          Could you give us your views on g a y s and t r a n s people claiming their differences are genetic?”

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 11, 2017 at 4:10 pm

        Except the “migration out of Africa” is itself now challenged as 7.2 million year old hominins have been discovered in Greece and Bulgaria, older than any hominin fossils in Africa. If non-Africans *partially* descend from million-years old separate evolutionary branch, then we’re in an entirely different ballpark as far as the scale of expected differences.

        “Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa, scientists find” (Telegraph UK)
        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/

        • Mortimer Spoon on August 12, 2017 at 10:19 pm

          He left out racial IQ differences because he picks his battles wisely. First let’s honestly tackle gender differences, and leave the more explosive subject of race for later.

  100. Luke Lea on August 10, 2017 at 10:27 pm

    If there are no differences in the average abilities of men and women in coding (about which I know nothing) what about in the extreme right hand tail of the distribution, which I am assuming is normal? Are the coders at Google many standard deviations above average? Would that make a difference? (Larry Summers got fired for suggesting the answer might be yes, so think twice before you answer.)

    • Mortimer Spoon on August 10, 2017 at 10:55 pm

      Google is extremely selective, they reject 98% of applicants, which shifts their demographics very far to the right end of the IQ bell curve. You can’t apply sex ratios for an average population (say, within 1 stdev) to population at 1-2 stdev to the right. It would be great to do IQ testing of male and female programmers at Google and compare their range and numbers to what would be expected from normal IQ distribution (given the different stdev for men and women), but good luck getting IQ testing approved at Google, considering that even *suggesting* any differences gets you fired.

      • MyOtherAcct on August 10, 2017 at 11:07 pm

        This is true; we’re dealing with an extreme right-tail slice of the distribution, so advantages or disadvantages in averages tell us very little.

        • Dr doomNgloom on August 11, 2017 at 8:45 am

          On the contrary, given similar pool sizes and stipulating a modest difference in the average results in large population differences at the extremes. To achieve parity at the 98th percentile will require catching a far higher portion of the available pool.

        • MyOtherAcct on August 11, 2017 at 12:00 pm

          @DrdoomNgloom

          Correct; my statement should have been “advantages or disadvantages in averages without the inclusion of variance tell us very little.” Averages and variance together can exponentially affect the numbers at the tail; a report of averages without any careful examination of differences in variance, however, is missing an absolutely critical element.

      • Joel on August 10, 2017 at 11:16 pm

        It’s not obvious to me that google is selecting from top 2% in IQ or math. I think people over-rate these traits in general. I agree that they are often very useful… but it’s possible to over state.

  101. JP on August 10, 2017 at 9:53 pm

    Mortimer brought up one of two points that I was planning to bring up. The second is SAT scores. Authors cited in the post suggest that math differences between males and females are small. However, the most common measure of math ability used in the U.S., the SAT test, shows the opposite conclusion. During the past 50 years, high school boys have outperformed high school girls on the Math SAT by approximately 30 points. This gap has not narrowed in during the 50 year time period. It is consistent across all ethnic groups.

    This is despite the fact that high school girls have superior academic records to high school boys and there are more high school girls in math honors classes than boys. More girls than boys take four full years of math in high school. Girls get better grades in math than boys.

    I wonder if the researchers cited had an agenda or if they were looking in the right places. If you look at high school grades, you see that female’s math ARE better. However, objective testing shows superior ability in males. I believe that what the researchers are really seeing is the fact that girls mature more quickly than boys and in general take school work more seriously. We have known this for many years

    http://www.aei.org/publication/2016-sat-test-results-confirm-pattern-thats-persisted-for-45-years-high-school-boys-are-better-at-math-than-girls/

    I also wonder why no one is upset that women dominate in fields such as psychology and sociology. Are men discriminated against in these fields? Should we do more to encourage men to pursue psychology? Should we have male quotas in these fields?

    • Joel on August 10, 2017 at 11:08 pm

      Spelke addresses this in the Spelke/Pinker debate linked above. Girls SAT scores under predict college math performance, and boys high school grades under predict college performance. Pinker agreed. The conjecture was that boys under perform on conscientiousness/organization/concentration (read: homework and class work) and girls underperform in high stakes tests.

      • Justin on August 10, 2017 at 11:14 pm

        Worth noting that women, on average, outperform men on SAT verbal.

        • JP on August 11, 2017 at 9:18 am

          Actually men outperfrom women on the verbal SAT as well. But the gap is much smaller.

          From: https://humanitiesindicators.org/content/indicatordoc.aspx?i=23

          Male students’ average verbal SAT score has been consistently higher than that of female students since the early 1970s. Initially the gap was small, but the disparity grew, and during the 1980s the gender gap in verbal scores ranged from 10 to 13 points. The gap has narrowed since then, with the average score of female examinees coming within four points of the male average in 2015.

        • Justin on August 11, 2017 at 12:10 pm

          Sorry, you are right. I skimmed too fast last night. At any rate, women are much closer to men in verbal than in math. Seems like a reasonable interpretation is that:
          a) women underperform in testing but overperform in the classroom; and
          b) women are relatively stronger, relative to men, at verbal vs. math; but
          c) the differences aren’t enormous, and they change with average vs. tail-end of distribution

          The study I reviewed basically said women do a bit better in verbal than men and a bit worse in math after adjusting for differences in background. But that also was from 1988.

          https://research.collegeboard.org/publications/content/2012/05/sex-differences-sat-scores

      • JP on August 10, 2017 at 11:45 pm

        Joel:

        That makes no sense. Girls outperform boys in tests that make up the basis for most high school grades. You do not see a large gap in the Verbal SAT scores. But in this ONE case, girls choke and perform poorly?????

        I will read the Spelke/Pinker papers this weekend. But I wonder if college performance can be explained by the fact that far fewer girls than boys continue through advanced college math courses. Those that do (both male and female) self-select based on greater ability and confidence in math-related fields. The girls that continue with math are not the ones with the lower SAT scores in that subject.

    • Sean Stevens on August 11, 2017 at 3:36 pm

      JP,

      I posted this as a reply to another comment above, but so its also down here:

      For now, please see note 2. We are working on assembling a similar table of studies that demonstrate males, on average, have a greater variability of scores on various cognitive ability tests AND that males are more numerous at both extremes of the curve.

      • JP on August 11, 2017 at 9:55 pm

        Sean: First off. Well done. Your post is excellent and you have generated the best discussion on HxA I have seen since I began posting here. This is why I enjoy this site so much!!!!

        We are still left, however, with the “inconvenient truth” that girls have scored 30 points lower on the math SAT for the past 50 years. The idea that somehow girls choke on SAT tests is ludicrous. High school girls outperform boys in math courses. These course actually have tests upon which much of the math grade is based. Why don’t they choke on these tests?

        To reach her conclusion that there is not gender cognitive difference in math scores, Spelke resorts to pretzel logic. In her 2005 American Psychologist article
        https://software.rc.fas.harvard.edu/lds/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/spelke2005.pdf, she refers to a SMPY program in which students were screened for talent in mathematics. She notes that the girls performance in the program matched the boys.

        Duh!!! This confirms my self-selection hypothesis. Spelke admits that there were more boys in the program than girls. The fact that many girls/women have mathematical talent is hardly earthshaking news. Her study does not prove that there are no gender differences across the entire population. It only proves that some women are good mathematicians. We already knew that!!

        As an aside, my daughter’s best friend got a 756 on her math SAT. She graduated with a degree in computer engineering and writes code for a Fortune 500 Company. Of course she is Asian. Think about how much fun we can have with THAT stereotype (LOL)

    • Shell on August 12, 2017 at 6:37 pm

      I love how your immediate coping strategy to explain why girls perform better in classroom but worse in SAT is some nebulous allegation of classroom bias against boys, as though classroom math grading is severely subjective as opposed to SAT scoring.

      Read this: http://www.apa.org/research/action/stereotype.aspx

      • Mortimer Spoon on August 13, 2017 at 12:06 am

        >”I love how your immediate coping strategy to explain why girls perform better […] is some nebulous allegation of classroom bias against boys”

        Now let me paraphrase your sentiment for you for the women in tech case:

        “I love how your immediate coping strategy to explain why men outperform women in tech fields […] is some nebulous allegation of workplace bias against women”

        See how it works? Two can play this game.

  102. Philippe Lemoine on August 10, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    Thanks for this review of the literature, it’s very interesting and will no doubt prove useful to a lot of people in the future. It’s important to note that, even if there are no differences in ability between men and women, differences in preferences can have a huge influence. I wrote a very detailed post a few weeks ago in which I argued that differences in women’s representation in different academic fields are the result of different occupational preferences between men and women. It focuses on philosophy, but also uses data from the Freshman Survey to show that % women among incoming freshmen who intend to major in a field predicts almost perfectly % women in that field 10 years later. The Freshman Survey is taken by hundreds of thousands of incoming freshmen in the US every year. This result undermines the hypothesis that women are underrepresented in male-dominated fields because these fields have more sexism. I also caution against the urge to engage in social engineering to change women’s preferences.

  103. Burl Horniachek on August 10, 2017 at 9:23 pm

    This article, by implication, attributes positions to James Damore, the author of the Google memo, which he never took.

    For example, Damore never mentions math ability at all. Yet, the following quote is said to oppose his claims:

    “Overall, d = .05, indicating no gender difference, and VR = 1.08, indicating nearly equal male and female variances”

    While Damore does briefly mention potential differences in ability, without specifying any of them, he quite rightly focuses on differences in personality and interests rather than ability, as those have the clearest support in the psychological literature. He certainly does not posit any differences in math ability.

    The article should be corrected.

    • Joel on August 10, 2017 at 9:51 pm

      Burl, it’s not so obvious that it should be corrected. I’ve read a good number of articles/posts from people who strongly disagree with Damore, and almost every single one of them seems to think Damore is saying women are inferior or less qualified for tech (or they go further and claim he is making these statements about women working at Google already). I think if these numbers are in the analysis, 1) HXA appears to be addressing the biggest concerns of those who oppose the memo; 2) the non-existent claim that there are differences in ability is defeated; and 3) the core claim that there are differences in interest will stand. I think if you want to convince people of your point, you have to meet them half way. This analysis does that.

      • Thaddeus on August 10, 2017 at 10:27 pm

        While it may be useful to address issues raised by Damore’s critics, it is also important to differentiate between arguments he advanced and those he did not. Much of the controversy arising from Damore’s memo seems to come from misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Damore’s arguments, so it seems valuable in an analysis of the memo to not conflate incorrect interpretations of the memo with the content of the memo itself.

        • Joel on August 10, 2017 at 10:59 pm

          Fair point. Maybe a different color? 🙂

        • Stan Rothwell on August 14, 2017 at 3:40 am

          Much of the controversy arising from Damore’s memo seems to come from misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Damore’s arguments

          I submit it’s a lot worse than that. Many of the detractors are arguing from a position of sheer ignorance, given that haven’t even read it, or at best, only glanced at Gizmodo’s heavily filtered version. There is more than one pundit out claiming that what Damore wrote is so terrible that they don’t even want to look at it. Sounds like a lot of these people would have been happier in an earlier time, conducting witch trials in Salem or the Spanish Inquisition…

      • DE on August 11, 2017 at 12:10 am

        Joel, Many may think he is saying women are inferior or less qualified for tech because of biological causes. The way the paper is written it infers personality differences (some listed are interests, some not) are biological. It is unfortunate the origins of these differences could not be addressed. The distinction between ability and interest is extremely important, however becomes less relevant when examining the retention of the applicant pool.

        • UnPassant on August 11, 2017 at 10:35 am

          While I understand the appeal of broadening the intellectual debate, there much more here at stake. This is not an abstract discussion, James Damore is burning at the stake after having been frame as writing that women would be biologically inferior wrt aptitudes. I urge everybody to refrain from giving any credibility to this dishonest interpretation, and to no venture into abilities instead of personality traits and interests for anything related to James Damore. Otherwise, you are not only debating, you are also harming him.

      • Jeremy Bonington-Jagworth on August 14, 2017 at 6:13 pm

        I’ve read a good number of articles/posts from people who strongly disagree with Damore, and almost every single one of them seems to think Damore didn’t include ANY references in his Memo.

        In fact I’ve read a good number of articles/posts from people who strongly disagree with Damore, and almost every single one of them seems to think Damore’s Memo was a hateful, sexist, misogynist “screed” (you know, as in rant!)!

        In fact, now I come to think of it, I’ve read a good number of articles/posts from people who strongly disagree with Damore, and almost every single one of them seems to think Damore’s hateful, sexist, misogynist “screed” was a “Manifesto” (you know, as in the Unabomber’s Manifesto, or Anders Breiviks Manifesto, and they think female Googlers are right to be terrified to go into work while he is still employed!)!

        I think if they want to convince people of their point, they have to meet him half way.

        These good number of articles/posts from people who strongly disagree with Damore you’ve read hardly do that, do they?!

        Why are you going out of your way to support ad hominem attacks, straw men arguments, and downright lies.

        His Memo clearly doesn’t even imply, never mind say, that women are inferior or less qualified for tech (never mind go further and say these statements about women working at Google already).

        So why pander to their agenda to destroy him rather than address his argument?!

  104. Michael Kimball on August 10, 2017 at 9:23 pm

    This is an excellent analysis. I’m sure it will garner kudos and condemnation, but, from my perspective, it is a dispassionate and careful analysis of current research. It makes me proud (here comes the disclosure) to be an HxA member.

  105. Thomas on August 10, 2017 at 9:12 pm

    Adding on to Joel and Jeff’s point: Google rejects (IIRC) 99.8% of applications. It might be more fruitful to review data on this segment of the population rather than consult means.

  106. Troy on August 10, 2017 at 8:38 pm

    This is a great resource, thank you for doing this work. I can see this being very balanced.

  107. J on August 10, 2017 at 7:16 pm

    I eagerly await the follow up. Because that question is directly in HA’s wheelhouse.

  108. Mortimer Spoon on August 10, 2017 at 7:01 pm

    Why doesn’t this response address the most obvious psychological trait, namely IQ? The fact that IQ distributions differ for men and women is well known. The means of male/female IQ bell curves are roughly the same (100), but the stdev is bigger for men (15 vs 14). This has big implications at the far ends (both low and high) of the bell curve (say, IQs>130) from which STEM students (and, presumably, Google employees) are recruited. At those IQ levels and above, men outnumber women at progressively higher ratios (2:1, 3:1, 5:1 etc). As a consequence, in such high IQ settings you can’t expect representation proportional to general population, only representation proportional to sex ratios at such IQ levels (which is the case at Google and most high-tech firms).
    Bing (NOT Google 🙂 the relevant papers:
    “A longitudinal study of sex differences in intelligence at ages 7, 11 and 16 years”
    “Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals”

  109. Jeff scott on August 10, 2017 at 6:57 pm

    Thanks for the review. I wonder though if you’ve dismissed too quickly the possible role of differences in ability in understanding gender representation here. CTC

    While average differences may be small (or nill) between genders, Google is not an average workplace and it is probably not an average selection process to get there. Small difference in average values of overlapping bell curves will show exaggerated differences at the tail ends. If we assume google selects the top few % of talented people (or only the top few percent apply) it would not be unusual for a small difference in the average to show up as a 3 or 4:1 imblanace at the tail end. Exactly why there are so many more 7 foot tall men men than women, despite the modest average difference.

    I’m open to data showing there are no differences in average abilities in coding, and aware that we can’t jusy infer one because there may average differences in mathematical abilities. (Although even identical averages could show an imblanace at the tail end depending on size of the distributions..you could have more idiots and more geniuses without purturbing the average).

    But the point is not to forget about how overlapping bell curves with different averages look at the tail end, and noting the likelihood that places like google may not don’t for average talents.

    Edit: just noticing that Joel and I are both making a similar point).

  110. Joel on August 10, 2017 at 5:34 pm

    Excellent summary. I have a couple of questions regarding the variance ratio for math ability. In the Lindberg et al. 2010 study, they found VR = 1.08. One thing I’ve wondered about is if that paper treats 8 year olds the same as 18 year olds, given that the paper “Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance” (Poster here: https://arc.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/NSF_Poster_Hyde.pdf) suggests a noticeably increasing trend for VR as children age. Or in other words, the VR = 1.08 may under-estimate the math VR as students are just entering university and choosing their majors.

    Much controversy has stemmed from the discussion of VR>1.0, and I think in the Pinker/Spelke debate Professor Spelke made it quite clear that we should expect zero difference in mean abilities. However, it seems to me that for careers selecting for math ability in the top 1%, a VR>1.10 would have a non-negligible impact on the gender ratio. Am I wrong?

    On a related note, I was pointed to the following study published in the January 2012 Notices of the American Mathematical Society (http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/201201-full-issue.pdf) which did a cross-country study of TIMSS and PISA data, and appears to show the odd finding that for math ability the VR increased as d decreased. I am not a specialist, but I haven’t seen this study cited or replicated elsewhere, so I was wondering if the methods are sound and if similar results had been found elsewhere.

    • LM on August 11, 2017 at 5:28 am

      See the follow-up in the May 2015 Notices http://www.ams.org/notices/201505/rnoti-p470.pdf:
      “On the other hand, using the 2011 TIMSS data set, we failed to confirm our previous finding of a correlation between gender gap and ratio of the variances in the mathematics scores for eighth-grade boys and girls within a country which was evident using the 2007 TIMSS data set.”

      • Joel on August 23, 2017 at 3:58 pm

        Awesome! Thank you very much for pointing this out.

  111. Thomas R Slowikowski on August 10, 2017 at 5:16 pm

    Well done, thank you!