Gender Cognitive Differences - Essay Example

Running Head: REFLECTIVE PAPER Reflective Paper Name Institution Date Introduction Gender differences that relate to the cognitive abilities have long been issues in the field of psychology and society as a whole. From the general supposition, it implies that both men and women normally aside from their emerged physiological differences and as result, their intellectual abilities greatly differ. From the daily interactions with both men and women, their practical skills also vary that attribute to their respective cognitive abilities. The disparities between females and males in their intellectual abilities are commonly reflected within the gender gap that results from the increasing need to favor females (Halpern, 2000). These gender-related issues have globally caused much alarm for societies and most of the academic organizations that refer to this case as the leading and distressing trouble within the education system. The study examines the relationship between gender-related differences as well as cognitive abilities in human being and how they become violent. Based on the research analysis to evaluate intellectual abilities, it implies that both males and females do not possess consistent as well as significant differences in their intellectual assessment, for instance, the IQ. However, the current Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT) implies that the stereotyping of only males as the underachievers in gender gaps can be associated with the inconsistencies of males in respective reasoning abilities. Therefore, men have the tendencies of being diverse within the education sector and the working environment that accounts for increased male unpredictability. Genetic and the environmental influences can be acknowledged for the variation of reasoning abilities among the males and females. It clearly indicates that males are more superior to females on the general information, spatial and arithmetic reasoning abilities. To further establish the true discrepancy between males and females in relation to matters of brains as well as its abilities, there is a belief that females are very much talented on matters of language skills compared to the male counterparts. Similarly, to some other people males possess the relevant visual-spatial skills. The establishment of a gender gap between the abilities of men and women suggests a more overlap. It is easy to gage the magnitude of gender differences in males and females in order to determine its significance in the practical way or what is collectively known as an effect size (Drubach, 2000). The application of gender-related variations to predict or determine the cognitive abilities among the five year-old children based on the distal and proximal environments, relates paternal education, the variables of proximal environment to the child’s IQ emerges to be stronger for the boys compared to girls. For the past several decades, the disparities among the males and females have largely been presented on the media; the basis has been “Men originate from Mars, while women are products of Venus, “as the popular literatures. The underscoring of human variances, instead of the similarities, seems to be a very delicate matter. Previously, several societies inclined to consider the disparities as deficits. Increased overlap is reflected within the cognitive abilities (Drubach, 2000). Today, intelligence measures like the Wechsler tests are in place to avoid the gender bias. There are more similarities compared to the differences between cognitive abilities in males as well as females, the effect sizes that reveal the differences and statistical significances seem to be small instead. The differences in the intellectual capacities of male and female sexes seem to be in the patterns of abilities, instead in the general intellectual functioning. Some sex-related perceptual disparities imply that various sensory systems exist. Males have a tendency of being adept at the dynamic illustration acuity that involves the detective abilities of slight movements within the sector of vision. In addition to the slight movements, males also adept more compared to females within the temporal recognition ability of time passage. Females appears to be very sensitive to taste, sound, touch, adors and much of these attributes are detectable immediately after birth (Alexander & Peterson, 2001). There has been a consistent progress or improvement in the visual-spatial abilities among the males, for instance, moving targets, throwing as well as intercepting projectiles. From the daily interactions with both sexes in various occasions, it shows that males perform better and very different than the females in navigation matters. While females normally incline to rely on landmarks as their guidelines, but males depend on the direction, geometric shapes and distance to navigate in a way through the intended route. A significant excel is reflected in the quantitative problem solving as well as mental rotation among the males or such tasks that involve the basic cognitive process of a sustained and manipulated visual image in memory performance. Historically, it can be theorized that the evolution of such abilities could be significant for the survival if human beings lived in the hunter-gather societies, characterized with unfamiliar terrain navigation by males while hunting, and a more foraged food gathering by females. Increased evidences account for the neuron-anatomic differences that contribute to cognitive functioning among the males as well as females, although the referred literature is not conclusive since numerous questions are yet to be asked and a vast amount of the information need to be established concerning human brains as well as sex- related abilities (Gray, 1992). From the biological understanding, it is very clear that genes play a significant role in sexual differentiation among human beings. The research analysis refers to critical periods as the condition in which the sex hormones release impacts the human brain. It is during the prenatal development and perinatal periods where the release of sex hormones contributes to sex as well as brain differentiation. Therefore, such increasing evidences in biological differences among the male and female sexes tend to raise a question of environmental influence on the gender development. The assumption that the human behaviors that results into gender differences in a certain population, can act as the masculinity and femininity measures in the sexes. Masculinity and femininity measures and the various criteria such as social behaviors, cognitive abilities, attitudes, sexual and personality traits are very significant. For instance, the relationship between masculinity as well as femininity and cognitive abilities provides the general intelligence, verbal fluency, visual-spatial abilities, and the interpersonal perspectives. Generally, the gender-related issues differentiate between the transsexual from the non-transsexual individuals very strongly compared to how instrumentality and the expressiveness operate (Gray, 1992). Most of the lay people when they rate how masculine and feminine are, their self-ratings seems to be more influenced by their respective gender-related interests than the possessed instrumental traits. The gender-related interests emerge to be highly salient when most of the lay people make judgments of their friends as either male or female. This implies that lay people judge their friends as females or males based on gender-related interests of such friends than on their levels of expressive traits. It is also commonly observed that lay people value instrumental traits very much if they make the men’s female or male judgment, while more on expressive traits if making the women’s male or female judgment. A clear conclusion on the gender-related interests implies that masculinity as well as femininity is very much related to the socially considerable behaviors and the outcomes such as the cognitive abilities, sexual orientation, transsexual as well as non-transsexual status, psychological adjustments, mortality, prejudice, and health concerns. The individual difference measurements assessed as a result of the gender-related interests indicates that are very much independent of a big five categories of personality traits such as extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to individual experiences, neuroticism and agreeableness. Such attributes are considered by several psychologists to offer a complete taxonomy of the personality traits. Therefore, the gender-related interests as evaluated by the gender diagnosticity actions constitute a very important as well as resulting sixth factor of the human personality (APIMed International, 1999). Violent Behavior in Humans Violence is an expression of the physical or the verbal force exercised against other people, it is a compelling action exercised on other person’s will based on the pain of hurting. Globally, violence acts as a manipulation tool as well as an issue of concern in law and the various cultures that work to suppress and put it to a halt. Violence largely varies from the physical altercation among beings to genocide and wars dominated with millions of human death as a result of its negative impacts (Inglish, 2006). The research analysis on whether if human beings are naturally violent, confirms that all human beings possess are borne with the ability of being violent towards other people when the lives of such people whom they love are in danger state. This suggests that some instinctive balances exist within each human being for love as well as violence. Therefore, as a result of human beings striving to protect what belongs to them, violent actions occur when such people involve in the necessary activities that will make them survive. It is very common to observe that when an individual’s life directly exposed to danger, the reality is that such a person will naturally resort to forms of violence to protect him or herself. All human beings have certain survival instincts within them that appear to be out of their control, creating what is being considered as violence. This means that since violence has entirely existed in the history of human beings; it will not completely disappear because for several years, people have largely resorted to the violence in order to stay a live. Violence differs based on factors, such from which country, the type of violence referred to, existing ratio between the violence as well as the non-violence (Collaer & Hines, 1995). Since violence is an issue of perception and measurable phenomenon, most psychologists have established variability if people consider of the physical acts as violent. This implies that violence understandings are very associated with the perceived aggressor, which can be referred to as victim relationship. As a result, Psychologists need to understand that individuals may not be in a position to recognize that defensive application of force is violent, this may be even in such cases where the magnitude of the force applied appears to be significantly greater compared to an original aggression. This proves ideas that all human beings are resorted to only two choices any moment they are confronted with a threat of any type. Such options include either staying as well as fighting the threat out to win and reduce the resulting stress or to run away and avoid the task of reducing the associated stress (Drubach, 2000). However, another option of ignoring the threat exists, normally; such option is considered by children who are very ignorant of the dangers as well as the dangerous situations and individuals with some mental disorders which hinders them from comprehending the threat, for instance, in the Stockholm Syndrome and among individuals who are trained on how to ignore any threat through the rational and physical techniques. Several reasons exists as to why may be violent and abusive to the other, for instance, an individual who may have been raised up in a violent family, definitely he or she will learn that violent acts like hitting or the verbal control are the applicable ways of solving a problem. For the case of those who are in a relationship, such individuals may be violent in order to control their relationship, whereas, others may get pressure from their friends who in most cases may demand them to prove their strength (Collaer & Hines, 1995). From the daily interactions with various people, it shows that some other individuals are naturally born with the trouble of controlling their congenital anger. However, the increased drug as well as alcohol abuse in the world, provides a public understanding that such influential factors greatly facilitate the occurrence of abusive behaviours among people. Today, it is very common to observe that a number of people who lose their control as well as act abusively are as a result of alcohol drinking and drug taking. A consideration should be made no matter whether or not an individual is physically, emotionally, or sexually violent, the most important idea is that one has to understand that he or she is not the contributing factor to such a fault. To sum up on what makes an individual so mean as well as angered and hence committing some violent acts on to the other people, it is very significant to note that the pain within such a person who is angry may be violent, the decision an individual make to immediately act on and the kind of judgment such a person make in terms of whether it is right or bad which keeps the condition in place is the three major parts or determinants of making someone to be very angry and violent. Hereditary and the environmental influences can be acknowledged for the variation of reasoning abilities among the males and females Conclusion Gender-related issues have globally caused much alarm for societies. Both men and women normally aside from their emerged physiological differences and as result, their intellectual abilities greatly differ. The genetic as well as environmental influences are acknowledged for the variation of reasoning abilities among the males and females. Some of the instinctive balances exist in each human being for love as well as violence. A number of people who lose their control as well as act abusively are because of alcohol drinking and drug taking. Psychologists have to understand that individuals are will not be able to recognize that defensive application of force is violent. This is most likely to be even in such cases where the magnitude of the force applied appears to be significantly greater than to the original aggression from the physical altercation among the human beings to involve the genocide and wars. References Inglish, P., (2006). Emotions and Abuse: Are Humans Naturally Violent. New Jersey: McGraw Hill. Halpern, D.F. (2000). Sex differences and cognitive abilities. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Alexander, G.M. & Peterson B.S. (2001). Sex steroids and human behaviour: Implications for developmental psychopathology. CNS Spectrums 6(1), 75-88. APIMed International (1999). Women's brain more effective. APIMall: The Health Channel. Retrieved August 2, 2001, from, < http://www.apimall.com/apinet/wombrainmore.html> Collaer, M.L. & Hines, M. (1995). Human behavioural sex differences: a role for gonadal hormones during early development? Psychological Bulletin, 118(1), 55-77. Drubach, D. (2000). The brain explained. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Gray, J. (1992). Men are from mars, women are from Venus. NY: Harper Collins. Read More