Personality profiles appear to reveal consistent differences between men and women,
but are they meaningful? Christian Jarrett untangles a controversial question.
It's been said that men and women are so unlike each other, it's as if they're from
different planets - a claim that continues to amuse and irritate. John Gray's original
mega-selling book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, first published in the early
1990s, has sold millions, spawning numberous parodies (such as Katherine Black and Finn
Contini's Women May Be from Venus, But Men are Really from Uranus) and even comedy stage
shows, such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Live! currently playing off Broadway.)
While our physical differences in size and anatomy are obvious, the question of psychological
differences between the genders is a lot more complicated and controversial. There are issues
around how to reliably measure the differences. And when psychologists find them, there are
usually arguments over whether the causes are innate and biological, or social and cultural.
Are men and women born different or does society shape them that way? These questions are
particularly thorny when you consider our differences in personality. Most research suggests
that men and women really do differ on some important traits. But are these differences the result
of biology or cultural pressures? And just how meaningful are they in the real world? One
possibility is that most differences are tiny in size but that combined they can have important
consequences.