the Western adults and high IQ children—that is, on the basis of taxonomy. At
least with respect to those objects, the typical Kpelle adult regarded the func-
tional grouping as more useful than the taxonomic grouping.
Sex Differences in Intellectual Competencies
Perhaps because people are fascinated by male–female differences, there have
been many studies of sex differences in cognition. Many of these studies report
that males tend to do better in tests of mathematical and spatial ability, and
females tend to do better in tests of verbal ability (reviewed in Maccoby and
Jacklin, 1974; Bjorklund, 1995; Kimura, 1992; Halpern, 1992). Examples of tasks
that favor males and tasks that favor females are provided in figure 36.3. Men
and women do not differ in IQ scores, vocabulary tests, or reasoning tasks.
The nature of the sex differences depends on how cognitive skills are mea-
sured. To illustrate, males do slightly better than females on spatial tests that
measure the ability to orient oneself in relationship to objects or to mentally
transform spatial information. But females do slightly better than males on
spatial tests measuring ability to learn and remember spatial relationships
(Silverman & Eals, 1992). Although males do better on most objective tests of
mathematical ability, females get better grades in math courses than do males
(Kimball, 1989).
Figure 36.3
Problem-solving tasks favoring women and problem-solving tasks favoring men. FromPsychology
by Fernald, Dodge,(1994. Reprinted with permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River,
NJ.
Individual Differences in Cognition 803