Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

350 Chapter 
11 
Sexuality and Gender
examined the mathematical performance of 7 million United States students in grades 
2 through 11—a huge sample of students. Contrary to traditional wisdom, the average 
mathematical performance of males and females did not differ. Even when they looked 
at only the most gifted students, they found no gender difference (Hyde et al., 2008). 
Similarly, cross-cultural data also fi nd no difference between genders in math per-
formance. For example, Japanese boys and girls perform quite similarly on math tests 
except for the single math area of probability; Japanese girls routinely outperform both 
boys and girls in the United States on comparable tests of mathematical ability. In short, 
there appear to be no meaningful differences between males and females in math 
performance (Angier & Chang, 2005; Lubinski & Benbow, 2006; Hyde & Mertz, 2009). 
Psychologists have drawn a similar conclusion about the extent of gender differ-
ences in verbal skills. Despite the earlier view that women show greater verbal abil-
ities than men, a more careful analysis of 165 studies of gender differences in verbal 
ability, which represents the testing of close to 1.5 million subjects, has led to the 
conclusion that verbal gender differences are insignifi cant. Furthermore, verbal SAT 
scores are quite similar for boys and girls (Angier & Chang, 2005; Hyde, 2005). 
Current evidence suggests, then, that gender differences in cognitive skills are 
minimal. On the other hand, particular tests of mathematical and verbal skills do elicit 
differences in performance, as in the example of the mathematics part of the SAT in 
which most of the very high scorers are male (Hyde, 2005; Lippa, 2005; Ripley, 2005). 
Furthermore, even when no differences are found in men’s and women’s per-
formance on specifi c tasks, there may be underlying differences in how the brain 
processes information. For example, one study found that when men and women 
named particular objects, such as tools and plants, their brains were activated in 
different ways depending on their experience with the objects (see Figure 6). In short,