Neurophysiologists conducted the first large-scale test of the difference between the way of thinking of the stronger and weaker sex, and proved that men are prone to systematization, and women - to empathy. Their findings are presented in the journal PNAS.
“We have shown that both theories about the nature of autism and ideas about differences between the sexes correctly describe reality. In addition, we can now talk about the positive aspects of autism. Their tendency to systematize allows them to recognize various patterns well, see even the most subtle details and understand how the most complex things work. It can and should be used for the good of society,”said Simon Baron-Cohen of the University of Cambridge, UK.
Autism is considered one of the most common disorders in the nervous system. Social research shows that women are less likely to suffer from autism. There are currently three to four men for every autistic woman. Scientists suggest that the reason for this is the differences in the work of genes in the weaker and stronger sexes, but these theories have not yet been confirmed in practice.
For several years now, Baron-Cohen and his colleagues have been studying what distinguishes men from women, and how the differences might relate to the nature of autism. Three years ago, they found the first evidence that autism and "masculine" thinking can be inextricably linked by following four hundred men and women with autism taking a mind reading test.
This technique, as scientists explain, psychologists use to assess a person's ability to empathy, the ability to empathize and guess the emotions of other people. As part of the test, experimenters show participants a set of photographs of other people's eyes and ask them to name four emotions that their owner might have experienced.
On average, as decades of psychological experimentation have shown, women are better at this task than men, and are more likely to guess the right emotions. In contrast, people with autism perform much worse on this task than their “competitors” of the same sex and age. Baron-Cohen and his colleagues showed that this was equally true for women and men with autism.
Some scientists did not agree with such conclusions, which forced Baron-Cohen and his colleagues to conduct another experiment, this time involving almost 700 thousand people, including 37 thousand autists.
In this they were helped by Channel 4, which showed a multi-part documentary about autists. Watching his episodes, viewers could take the mind-reading test and several other simple tests for the level of “emotional intelligence”, and tell the scientists about the results.
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The test results confirmed the results of the first experiments by Baron-Cohen and his team. For example, men were ahead of women in the ability to organize information by about 1.5 points, but were two points behind them in emotional intelligence.
Similarly, the average level of autism among them was 0.5 points higher than among the fairer sex, and the differences between autists of both sexes were noticeably less pronounced.
Interestingly, both a propensity for autism and a more "masculine" nature of thinking were most pronounced among people engaged in natural sciences, IT, engineering and other specialties where the ability to systematize knowledge is required. Among the representatives of the humanities, regardless of their biological sex, dominated by "female" intelligence.
This, as scientists emphasize, may explain why women, on average, are less likely to choose such a career than men, but in no case can it be a pretext or reason for discrimination or refusal to hire.
