Empirical test of the inglis and Lawson-hypothesis about sex differences in WAIS and WAIS-R brain-damage studies

Abstract

This study investigated Inglis and Lawson's (1982) hypothesis that sex differences in research on unilateral brain damage is a function of the way females solve nonverbal problems. They argued that females, to a greater extent than males, use verbal strategies when solving Wechsler's Performance subtests. From this hypothesis, it follows that Verbal and Performance IQs should correlate significantly higher for females than for males. This possibility was explored using standardization data from the WAIS-R for ages 16-74. No sex differences in the correlations were noted, arguing against the Inglis-Lawson hypothesis.