“Eagly & Wood (2013). The nature-nurture debates: 25 years of challenges in understanding the psychology of gender.” – Article summary

In the past, there was a strong focus on nurture when it comes to explaining gender differences. The rise of nature explanations can be explained by increasing possibilities to measure and understand the brain. This led to a focus on the brain and hormones. Explanations of gender differences often only consider nature or nurture rather than both.

Meta-analyses are a relatively new method to assess the gender differences in the population. It makes use of effect sizes, which can be used to assess stability versus variability in research. Most meta-analyses found small effect sizes for gender differences. However, there are some inconsistencies within the meta-analyses. Gender differences appear to be moderated by context (e.g. social context).

There appears to be a gender difference in temperament. Boys appear to have greater surgency (i.e. motor activity; impulsivity; experience of pleasure from high-intensity activities). Girls appear to have greater effortful control (i.e. self-regulatory skills). This may be due to genetic components or due to socialization (e.g. parents tend to encourage gender-typical behaviour and discourage gender-atypical behaviour).

Gender differences in mate preference may differ because of nature or nurture factors. Men value physical attractiveness more (i.e. young, attractive partner) while women value resource provision more (i.e. older, stable partner). However, these preferences may not be universal. Mate preferences may be a social construction, based on gender empowerment (i.e. females who are able to provide for themselves are less attracted to resource provision). Evidence from this comes from the fact that women are more likely to seek an older mate with resources in less gender-equal societies, demonstrating that societal power plays an important role. Nonetheless, this preference also occurred in societies with a higher parasite prevalence, indicating biological preferences. The majority of the evidence appears to indicate that people construct mate preferences within a particular division of labour and value partners with attributes that are useful for the gender roles in society.

However, both nature and nurture theories tend to fail in providing direct evidence for the causal factors underlying sex-typed behaviour. Gender differences likely are influenced by both nature and nurture factors. In interactive theories, it is important to take into account that gene influences often depend on the social environment.

The evoked culture model states that natural selection endowed humans with many cognitive modules that address specific adaptive problems that occurred frequently in the ancestral past. This implies that current environmental cues can evoke one or a set of these domain-specific, inherited behavioural strategies, producing variability in behaviour. This means that different behaviours are genetically coded and the current social and cultural context triggers this.

The biosocial constructionist model states that sociocultural factors shape the meanings that societies ascribe to men and women. These meanings rest on biological difference (e.g. different physique). The specific cognitive capacities of humans are a product of humans’ adaptation to variation itself rather than to environmental features. The sexes organize behaviour into patterns that are tailored to their contemporary conditions.