Going by this, it's when individuals map somewhere on the autistic spectrum that the sexes are prone to becoming psychologically less different. Of course, in the human sciences, just wait and a _blank_ conclusion will often change somewhere down the line on that mutable, volatile turf...
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-l...istic.html
EXCERPT: Scientists at the University of Cambridge have completed the world's largest ever study of typical sex differences and autistic traits. They tested and confirmed two long-standing psychological theories: the Empathizing-Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism.
Working with the television production company Channel 4, they tested over half a million people, including over 36,000 autistic people. The results are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Empathizing-Systemizing theory predicts that women, on average, will score higher than men on tests of empathy, the ability to recognize what another person is thinking or feeling, and to respond to their state of mind with an appropriate emotion. Similarly, it predicts that men, on average, will score higher on tests of systemizing, the drive to analyse or build rule-based systems.
The Extreme Male Brain theory predicts that autistic people, on average, will show a masculinised shift on these two dimensions: namely, that they will score lower than the typical population on tests of empathy and will score the same as if not higher than the typical population on tests of systemizing.
Whereas both theories have been confirmed in previous studies of relatively modest samples, the new findings come from a massive sample of 671,606 people, which included 36,648 autistic people. They were replicated in a second sample of 14,354 people. In this new study, the scientists used very brief 10-item measures of empathy, systemizing, and autistic traits.
Using these short measures, the team identified that in the typical population, women, on average, scored higher than men on empathy, and men, on average, scored higher than women on systemizing and autistic traits. These sex differences were reduced in autistic people. On all these measures, autistic people's scores, on average, were 'masculinized': that is, they had higher scores on systemizing and autistic traits and lower scores on empathy, compared to the typical population.
The team also calculated the difference (or 'd-score') between each individual's score on the systemizing and empathy tests. A high d-score means a person's systemizing is higher than their empathy, and a low d-score means their empathy is higher than their systemizing.
MORE: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-l...istic.html
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-l...istic.html
EXCERPT: Scientists at the University of Cambridge have completed the world's largest ever study of typical sex differences and autistic traits. They tested and confirmed two long-standing psychological theories: the Empathizing-Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism.
Working with the television production company Channel 4, they tested over half a million people, including over 36,000 autistic people. The results are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Empathizing-Systemizing theory predicts that women, on average, will score higher than men on tests of empathy, the ability to recognize what another person is thinking or feeling, and to respond to their state of mind with an appropriate emotion. Similarly, it predicts that men, on average, will score higher on tests of systemizing, the drive to analyse or build rule-based systems.
The Extreme Male Brain theory predicts that autistic people, on average, will show a masculinised shift on these two dimensions: namely, that they will score lower than the typical population on tests of empathy and will score the same as if not higher than the typical population on tests of systemizing.
Whereas both theories have been confirmed in previous studies of relatively modest samples, the new findings come from a massive sample of 671,606 people, which included 36,648 autistic people. They were replicated in a second sample of 14,354 people. In this new study, the scientists used very brief 10-item measures of empathy, systemizing, and autistic traits.
Using these short measures, the team identified that in the typical population, women, on average, scored higher than men on empathy, and men, on average, scored higher than women on systemizing and autistic traits. These sex differences were reduced in autistic people. On all these measures, autistic people's scores, on average, were 'masculinized': that is, they had higher scores on systemizing and autistic traits and lower scores on empathy, compared to the typical population.
The team also calculated the difference (or 'd-score') between each individual's score on the systemizing and empathy tests. A high d-score means a person's systemizing is higher than their empathy, and a low d-score means their empathy is higher than their systemizing.
MORE: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-l...istic.html