Sex-Related Comparisons: Observations 103If there are more similarities than
differences between women and men,
why does it seem that women and men
are so different? Why do books like John
Gray’s (1992)Men Are from Mars, Women
ArefromVenusbecome best sellers if men
and women are not opposites? Why did
my father respond to the publication of
this textbook by saying, “If you can figure
out why men and women are so differ-
ent, that would become a best seller!” One
reason is that differences are more salient
and more provocative than similarities. I
mentioned in Chapter 1 that sex is a very
salient attribute of a person. Thus when
two people perform differently on a task
and we look for an explanation, we can
easily draw the inference that sex must be
the distinguishing factor. Second, we have
stereotypes about men’s and women’s
behavior that are quite strong and quite
distinct. We often recall information that
confirms our stereotypes and disregard
information that disconfirms our stereo-
types. This is calledconfirmatory hypoth-
esis testing. We are most likely to do this
when we have strong expectations, when
the stereotype is about a group, and when
the stereotype is about a trait (Stangor &
McMillan, 1992). For example, one ste-
reotype about babies is that males are
more active than females. Several years
ago, my husband and I were visiting some
neighbors. There was a male infant and a
female infant, both of whom seemed in-
tent on tearing up the house! The mother
of the male infant remarked, “Isn’t it true
about how much more active boys are
than girls? Look at Justin compared to
of body fat than men. These are bio-
logical facts. However, even within the
realm of biology, a great number of sim-
ilarities exist between women and men.
Most women and men have two eyes,
two arms, and two legs; most women
and men have a heart, lungs, and vocal
cords with which they can speak. The
same logic applies to the cognitive and
social domains. Although there may be
some differences, by far, women and
men have more in common in the way
they think and in the way they behave.
If there are so many similarities be-
tween women and men, why do we focus
on differences? Belle (1985) suggests that
we tend to focus on differences when we
are confronted with two of anything. For
example, parents with two children are
more likely than parents of three or more
children to emphasize the differences
between the children: “Jennifer is better
in math than Matthew; Matthew is bet-
ter in geography than Jennifer.” Parents
with three children, however, are more
likely to describe each child individu-
ally without making a comparison to the
other children: “Mary is good in math,
Johnny is good in geography, Paul is
good in English.” Belle also reported that
the same phenomenon occurs among
anthropologists studying two kinds
of cultures. Whereas two cultures are
often described in comparison to one
another, anthropologists who study more
than two cultures emphasize the diver-
sity of human nature. Thus we would be
less likely to emphasize sex differences if
there were at least three sexes!
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