IQ and SAT Scores
Many studies consistently show that the average IQ scores of men and women are equivalent. Although most of the common tests, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), are intentionally designed to weed out a sex bias, some gender-specific findings persist.
Men tend to perform better on spatial questions.
Women outpace men on reading and other verbal skills.
Men score more at the extremes of IQ scoring—both high and low. More men than women test at the lower end of the IQ scale, and also at the very top. This is consistent with the membership of American Mensa, a society whose members test in the top 2% of the population on a standard IQ test. The group reports that 65% of its general membership is male, and 35% female. Yet the Association for Women in Mathematics claims that women earn half of all undergraduate mathematics degrees and one-third of PhD degrees in math.
On the college SAT test, men consistently outscore women by an average of 35 points on the math portion. Interestingly, some studies show that boys and girls test about the same in math in elementary school. The girls fall behind only later in life, so that by the time senior year in high school arrives, the boys test higher on the SAT. Researchers continue to study whether these findings—and those like it—are the result of gender differences, environmental influences, social pressures, personal beliefs and values, or a combination.
In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion regarding emotional intelligence. This is a different type of intelligence that does not deal with cognitive abilities, but rather with emotional states. The term has been popularized by Daniel Golemanʼs book, Emotional Intelligence–Why It Can Matter More Than IQ?. The author states that personal skills, like self-awareness and empathy, influence your degree of success in life. Further, he argues that emotional intelligence can be taught. Moreover, it seems that gender affects emotional intelligence as well. Women tend to be more empathetic, while men seem to manage their moods better.
