The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Sex-Related Comparisons: Observations 131

simultaneously. That is, part of women’s iden-

tity is their relationship with others.

Early research on adolescents sup-

ported this theory (Douvan & Adelson,

1966). Boys formed their identities by mak-

ing concrete occupational plans, whereas

girls’ future plans were unclear—their iden-

tity would be shaped by whom they married.

Thus girls’ identities were a consequence

rather than an antecedent of intimacy. Did

this mean boys had reached a higher level

of social development than girls? No. At

that time, boys and girls were socialized in

ways that made for very different identity

formations.

Even today, women’s and men’s social

development may follow different courses.

Studies have shown a stronger relation be-

tween identity and intimacy development in

men than in women because intimacy is as

likely to precede as to follow identity devel-

opment in women (Orlofsky, 1993). A study

of high school students showed that identity

issues were more salient than intimacy issues

in both male and female decision making

(Lacombe & Gay, 1998). However, female

students were more likely than male students

to merge the two concerns. A study of early

adolescents showed that males had a stron-

ger identity development than females, but

that identity development increased more

with age among females (Montgomery,

2005). Thus we may socialize males to focus

on identity development earlier than females,

and it may take females longer than males to

fully develop their identity.

TAKE HOME POINTS

■ According to Erikson’s theory of social develop-

ment, identity achievement precedes intimacy

achievement.

0% 10% 20% 30%40% 50%60%

0–0.10

0.11–0.35

0.36–0.65

0.66–1.00

1.00

Effect Sizes (d’s)

FIGURE 4.14 Effect sizes for sex differences

in cognition, communication, social and person-

ality variables, self-esteem, motor skills, activity,

and moral reasoning.

Source: Adapted from Hyde (2005a).

■ Some research suggests that this theory may apply

more to men than to women, as women are more

likely to work on the two tasks simultaneously. That is,

women are more likely than men to define themselves

in part through intimate relationships.

Sex Similarities Hypothesis Revisited

Having reviewed all the sex differences in this

chapter, you may feel a bit overwhelmed. Are

there sex differences in cognitive and social

abilities or not? Hopefully, you have reached

two conclusions: (1) there are few sizable sex

differences, and (2) among the ones that do

exist, there is a host of moderator variables.

These points have been driven home by a re-

view article of 46 meta-analyses on sex dif-

ferences, many of which were discussed in

this chapter. From this review, Hyde (2005a)

concludes that it is not the case that “men are

from Mars and women are from Venus.” As

shown in Figure 4.14, the vast majority of

effect sizes are quite small.

M04_HELG0185_04_SE_C04.indd 131 6/21/11 8:02 AM