Sex Differences in the Verbal Ability of Socio-Economically Depressed Groups

Abstract

MANY INVESTIGATORS of the problem of differences in verbal ability between the sexes have reportedly found a small, but consistent statistically significant superiority of females in verbal ability. Such sex differences in this ability are assumed and described by nearly all writers in current educational psychology textbooks. Are such assumptions actually validated by current re search, or are they based essentially on earlier reports of research conducted twenty or more years ago which have remained in the literature? Hurlock (5) for example, writes, in what appears to the writer to be a very excellent developmental psychology text, Boys, at every age, are inferior to girls in size of the vocabulary, in correctness of sentences structure, and in ability to express their meanings adequately. McCarthy (7) in Carmichael (1) is cited as the reference for this assumption. Carmichael, McCarthy summar izes to the effect that . . whenever groups of boys and girls are well matched in intelligence and socio-economic background, and when the situation in which responses are recorded does not tend to favor the interests of one sex or the other, there appear slight differences in favor of girls. She adds that sex differences when the N is large . . seldom prove statistically signifi cant. A corroboration of the slight difference, if any at all, appears in an article written in 1953 by McCarthy (6) in which she states, differences are seldom statistically significant, but the careful observer cannot ignore the amaz ing consistency with which these small differ ences appear in one investigation after another. Much of the supportive data quoted by Mc Carthy and other investigators is based on the classic research of Davis (3), Fisher (4), and Young (8). Fisher, using a population of highly selected boys of superior economic background, found insignificantly small sex differences in verbal ability. The findings of Davis and Young were in agreement that sex differences in lan guage are more marked among children of the lower socio-economic levels than among those from superior homes. Young reported, In spite of the fact that Relief boys and girls differ mark edly,?Relief girls excel Relief boys and the com parisons?result in statistically significant differ ences in all instances.?the largest difference found among the various combinations was that existing between Regular girls and Relief boys. The Regular group surpassed the Relief group in all aspects of language that were analyzed. Some investigators have postulated differences in native endowment to account for the sex dif ferences involved; others have hypothesized the effect of child-rearing practices that tend to favor the verbal development of females. A third postulate is that no real sex difference in verbal ability exists now (perhaps because of changes in environmental factors such as radio and televi sion) if such differences did exist earlier, and that the factor really predictive of verbal ability is social status, as Davidson and Balducci (2), among others, suggest.