The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Sex-Related Comparisons: Observations 127

than “traits.” That is, in traditional cultures,

men and women are viewed as behaving dif-

ferently due to their distinct social roles; no

personality traits are inferred from behav-

ior. Indeed, other research has shown that

Western cultures are more likely than other

cultures to link behavior to traits (Church,

2000), a bias referred to as thefundamental

attribution error.

Sex differences in personality also may

be more strongly linked to gender roles

rather than sex. For example, empathy is

associated with being female and with psy-

chological femininity, or communion. The

sex difference in empathy is completely ac-

counted for by empathy’s association with

communion (Karniol et al., 1998).

TAKE HOME POINTS

■ There is a sex difference in empathy, favoring females.

The size of the effect depends on how empathy is mea-

sured, with larger differences appearing on self-report

measures and smaller differences appearing on obser-

vational and behavioral measures.

General Personality Attributes

A review of sex differences in personality traits

across 26 cultures showed that sex differences

in personality were small but consistent in the

direction of men being more assertive, women

being more submissive, women being more

nurturant, and women having more negative

affect (Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001).

In a study of 55 countries, sex differences in

the BIG 5 personality traits were examined

(Schmitt et al., 2008). Women scored higher

than men on neuroticism (d=+.40), extra-

version (d=+.10), agreeableness (d=+.15),

and conscientiousness (d=+.12), but there

was no sex difference in openness to experi-

ence (d=-.05).

Interestingly, in both studies, sex differ-

ences weresmalleramong more traditional

cultures. This is opposite to what we might

have predicted. We would expect women’s

and men’s behavior and thus their person-

ality traits to differ the most in traditional

cultures where female and male roles are

most distinct. Costa and colleagues (2001)

suggested that traditional cultures may link

sex differences in behavior to “roles” rather

FIGURE 4.13 Men’s reports of sexual behavior were

not affected by condition. However, women reported more

sexual behavior when responses were anonymous and

when led to believe that false answers could be detected by

a polygraph (i.e., bogus pipeline).

Source: Adapted from Alexander and Fisher (2003).

Sexual Behavior

2.5

2

1.5

1

0.5

0

Bogus Pipeline Anonymous Threat

3

Male Female Male Female Male Female

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