Meta-Analysis and the Psychology of Gender Differences

Abstract

Psychological research on gender differences has had a long, and sometimes dishonorable, history spanning more than a century.' The research ranges from early efforts to measure the cranial capacities of males and females to the current sophisticated metaanalyses of psychological gender differences. Here I will briefly review the history of research on gender differences, focusing particularly on the issue of gender differences in cognitive abilities, and then move to a discussion of recent meta-analyses of psychological gender differences.