Men and women really are *much* more alike psychologically than different but we notice subtle differences more than we notice similarities which we just take for granted.
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The same seems to be true of psychological differences tho obviously they vary in degree but we (nearly) all speak both empathetically AND factually, we (nearly) all like things AND people, we nearly exercise both cautious & risk-taking behaviour.
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But those differences are significant and do affect our lives, our job choices and our relationships. If we don't acknowledge them, we'll be forever looking for the wrong solutions to problems and looking for solutions to problems that aren't problems.
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But to go too far the other way and insist that men and women are fundamentally different psychologically neglects the far greater degree to which we are the same and can result in a loss of shared humanity and individuality in our thinking.
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A problem with this analogy is that height is easy to measure and accurately observe for lay ppl. Differences in personality traits are a lot harder to measure accurately for random ppl and is thus subject to lots of confirmation bias and other effects.
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And of course people modify their behavior based on social expectations but not their height, so personality traits have a high degree on endogeneity.
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That's why height is easier to use to demonstrate the point, yes. No-one denies it or claims its subjective.
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It's an OK starting point, but it's really easy to jump from height to personality traits and get an overly strong sense of how much observed difference can be confidently attributed to nature. Humans aren't good at ambiguity and overweight known factors given the opportunity.
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I'm not suggesting jumping or assuming. You'd need to go with the evidence of psychological difference which is getting updated all the time.
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I'm suggesting more as a daily heuristic that it makes sense to consciously underrate (though not ignore, of course) the extent to which individual differences are gender based in order to try and minimize the overall error in our attribution.
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On a daily basis, go for individuality every time. On the level of understanding gender differences, go with the evidence on gender differences.
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I guess I'm less confident than you about how easy it is to disentangle the two.
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I'm almost 67" tall. Wait... you meant me, right? RIGHT? *runs to bedroom, slams door*
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I'm 74.5 inches. ^_^
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Doesn't measuring people in inches stop after the baby is weighed and measured?
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