The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality

Marco Del Giudice, Tom Booth and Paul Irwing

PLOS ONE, 2012, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Background: Sex differences in personality are believed to be comparatively small. However, research in this area has suffered from significant methodological limitations. We advance a set of guidelines for overcoming those limitations: (a) measure personality with a higher resolution than that afforded by the Big Five; (b) estimate sex differences on latent factors; and (c) assess global sex differences with multivariate effect sizes. We then apply these guidelines to a large, representative adult sample, and obtain what is presently the best estimate of global sex differences in personality. Methodology/Principal Findings: Personality measures were obtained from a large US sample (N = 10,261) with the 16PF Questionnaire. Multigroup latent variable modeling was used to estimate sex differences on individual personality dimensions, which were then aggregated to yield a multivariate effect size (Mahalanobis D). We found a global effect size D = 2.71, corresponding to an overlap of only 10% between the male and female distributions. Even excluding the factor showing the largest univariate ES, the global effect size was D = 1.71 (24% overlap). These are extremely large differences by psychological standards. Significance: The idea that there are only minor differences between the personality profiles of males and females should be rejected as based on inadequate methodology.

Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0029265

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029265

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