Sex and Gender Differences Revisited

Sex and gender are among the most heavily investigated interindividual factors in all areas of psychology. Although sex and gender have been studied for more than a hundred years, there has been an explosion of theories and research in this field in the past several years. Whether psychological differences between men and women truly exist, and where they originate, is still under debate. Although the majority of experts would agree that sex and gender differences in mind and behavior are neither purely biological nor purely social in origin, it seems that the proportions attributable to nature and nurture are still being negotiated. New research takes into account biological and social factors as well as the interaction between them and addresses "the small difference" within a psychobiosocial approach. This volume integrates research on sex and gender differences from various psychological disciplines and emphasizes a psychobiosocial approach as a promising new perspective in this field. Topics covered include conceptualizations of "sex" and "gender," the interrelation of gender stereotyping and performance in various cognitive tasks, such as multi-digit number processing, mental rotation, and verbal fluency, sex differences in competition-based attentional selection, sex and gender effects in school contexts, and gender-specific effects in leadership issues as well as academic evaluation.