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Competition who is smarter than a man or a woman. Who is smarter than a man or a woman, statistics. What are men smarter than women

Dialogue from childhood:

Why do male and female athletes compete separately?

- Because men are by nature stronger and faster, women in joint competitions simply would not have a chance ...

Why are chess and checkers competitions also held separately for men and women?

What qualities with the epithet "feminine" do you remember first of all? Surely this is " female cunning», « female deceit», « Woman's intuition”,“ female flair». What about the female mind? Except perhaps with irony, along with "female logic". Of course, now in a decent society it is not customary to raise the topic of intellectual differences between the sexes, but between us girls it is possible to be frank.

Why is the percentage of female scientists so small? Not scientists, but scientists, researchers, discoverers? Of course, everyone will easily remember Sklodovskaya-Curie or Sofya Kovalevskaya, but, you see, a few female scientists are remembered because they are a rare exception.

You can, of course, nod at the list of Nobel Prize winners, but if you take out the nominees " Nobel Peace Prize"And laureates passing in the nomination" Literature", then there will be, frankly, sparsely left.

Often this situation is explained by the lower social status of women who do not have the opportunity for education, development and self-realization. But after all, for almost a hundred years now there has been no smell of any oppression of the weaker sex in developed countries, all paths of development are open. Ladies-stars of the stage, screen, podium - as much as you like!

But with women stars of the microscope and test tubes, things are still there, women scientists are a minority. Why, even the ratio of the number of representatives of both sexes playing “What? Where? When? ' speaks for itself. It turns out that men are still smarter? Let's figure it out.

We measure intelligence

At one time, the question "who is smarter?" was akin to the question “who is more beautiful? or “Who is cuter? ". After all, in order to compare, you must first measure it, and there was simply no way to measure " smartness ".

But finally, at the beginning of the last century (more precisely, in 1916), scientists managed to measure the numerical expression of mental abilities for the first time. You probably already guessed that we are talking about all the now known intelligence quotient or IQ. After that, the question “who is smarter” has acquired quite measurable numerical specifics.

Of course, scientists did not miss the opportunity to answer the eternal question of who is smarter than a man or a woman. Fortunately, the times of aggressive political correctness had not yet come, and it was possible to compare the intellectual abilities of representatives of different sexes and races.

Large-scale testing of representative groups of both sexes was carried out, after which the average IQ values ​​​​of the general and group were compared with each other. The results obtained were quite expected (for men) - the average IQ of the stronger sex turned out to be 2-4 points higher than that of the weaker one.

It would seem that the issue is resolved, and the topic can be closed. However, constructive criticism of the research methodology soon appeared.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

You are probably familiar with the aphorism in the title. Indeed, sometimes the result of statistical studies very much depends on the chosen method of calculation. So in this case, to change the result, it turned out to be sufficient to change the methodology.

The scientists were asked the question: what will happen if we compare not the average male and female intellect, but the intellect of the average man with the intellect of the average lady. Same? And here it is not.

Everyone remembers the way to determine the arithmetic mean from school days: all values ​​are summed up, then the resulting number is divided by the number of values. Having performed similar actions on IQ, we will get the average value of the intelligence quotient. But in order to determine the intelligence of an average man or an average woman, this method is not suitable. Let's look at an example.

Imagine that we have two groups of subjects A and B:

  • Each person from group A has 100 rubles in his pocket;
  • And in group B, everyone has 100 rubles, except for one. We will give 300 rubles to one subject.

If we calculate the average in the usual way from school, we get that the average amount of money for each subject in group A is 100 rubles, and in group B 120. It turns out that, on average, the subjects of group B are richer than the subjects of group A by 20 rubles.

But we know from the condition that this is not so, that practically all subjects B have the same amount of money as subjects A, one single "oligarch" B introduces a significant perturbation into the picture of the distribution of banknotes.

To avoid the influence of small groups with unusually large values ​​of the studied indicator, the median method is used in statistics. Let's arrange all the values ​​\u200b\u200b" by height", Just as boys and girls are arranged in a physical education lesson. And then we'll see what value will turn out clearly in the middle. Obviously, in both groups, the median values ​​will be the same - 100 rubles.

Applying this method to the comparison of male and female intelligence, it was found that the intelligence of an average man and an average woman aged 20 years and older is almost the same, the difference does not exceed the value of the statistical error.

As for the age group under 20, the average girl turned out to be half a point-point even smarter than the average guy. Why were the results of comparing the averages so different?

The male intelligence average was "pulled" up by a relatively small group of males with very high IQs. Yes, there are more geniuses among the strong half, but in the same way there are more mentally ill people (but they just forgot to count them during the initial testing), but how often have you heard about women serial killers or maniacs?

This phenomenon is connected with the fact that males are the testing ground for evolution. Among them, both successful evolutionary "innovations" and explicit genetic marriage are more common. By the way, this is also related to the fact that many genetic diseases (for example, hemophilia) are characteristic only of males.

But proven and proven evolutionary solutions are fixed on women. This explains why smart women are loved by men, such ladies are the darlings of evolution. Doubt they love it? In vain, but more on that below.

So who is smarter?

So, we found out why the average man is not smarter than the average woman, and also found that the percentage of geniuses is small. Why are there so few female scientists? And here's why: the mind is the same for both, but the representatives of the sexes use it in completely different ways. To understand the differences, it is necessary to turn to distant antiquity. What did male and female humans do in prehistoric times?

A man hunted a mammoth, explored the territory, fought with the enemy. My wife cooked mammoth meat, sewed clothes, dried scalps. The male mind is directed to research, finding solutions, unraveling the mysteries of life.

The weaker sex is better at solving repetitive tasks of the same type. It does not at all follow from this that someone's mind is better or worse, both types of intelligence work in symbiosis, effectively complementing each other. Men explore, discover, conquer, their fighting girlfriends master.

Because of this difference in the use of one's own mind, legends arise that men do not like intelligent women. This is not entirely true, one might even say - not at all. Naturally, men love smart women, and not very smart, and even very stupid - in general, any.


In taste and color, as they say, all candy wrappers are different. What men really can't stand is women who are "manly" smart, that is, those whose minds are "attuned" to the masculine type.

For some reason, it is believed that a man will not tolerate a smart woman next to him. What should smart people do in this case? All my life I have been diligently pretending that they “confuse Gogol with Hegel” or ...

It is extremely rare that the joint life of the descendants of Adam and Eve does without clarifying the eternal question: who is smarter - men or women? Many spears were broken in these battles, but "things are still there." For some reason, it is believed that a man will not tolerate a smart woman next to him. What should smart people do in this case? All my life I have been diligently pretending that they “confuse Gogol with Hegel” or ... Once, during a lunch break, I involuntarily witnessed a conversation between two men in the dining room of a business center:

Is it true that you and Svetka ran away?

And what? So many years together...

Estimate, she lied to me all the time: she was at home with the children, she was such an exemplary housewife, and then I accidentally found out that she was working as a freelancer - writing cool computer programs for security systems.

So what?

Like what? And after that, what, on ..., a programmer?!

So draw conclusions: is it really safe to save the family (and is it honest?) to pretend to be a fool.

Why are men afraid of smart people?

Reason one. A man is afraid that his pride will be hurt. Against the background of a smart woman, he will look “not very” with all the ensuing consequences: parents tease (“where did our fool dug up such a clever girl?”), Friends chuckle (“and you consult with yours, maybe he will tell you something smart!”), children do not respect (“and mom knows better than you!”).

The second reason. High intelligence implies demand. And demand is the key to success. The saying "if you're so smart, why are you so poor?" sunk into oblivion. Today, a smart woman has every chance of making a good career and making decent money. And how should a husband feel next to her, “missing the stars from the sky”? Approximately like the hero of A. Batalov Gosh from the film “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears”: “her status is higher than mine, personal status!”

Reason three. The most banal: just a man frankly stupid. And he understands perfectly well that he will never "take" a higher bar. And why? When you can find a girl whose abilities will be lower, and who will "look into her mouth" no matter what he says to her. Scientific approach

Who is smarter - men or women - science does not know for sure, as well as whether there is life on Mars or not. Periodically, scientists conduct research on this topic, the results of which contradict each other.

So, a study by John Philip Rushton showed that the IQ of the average man is almost four points higher than that of a woman.

On the other hand, the highest IQ, according to the Guinness Book of Records, was recorded by 10-year-old American Marilyn vos Savant - 228 units (and this is 28 units higher than the IQ of A. Einstein himself!).

On the third hand, it has long been proven that the hemispheres of the brain in women in men are developed differently. In men, the one that is responsible for logical and spatial thinking dominates, and in women - for memory and figurative thinking. Therefore, you can often hear that if a man is smarter, then a woman is smarter and wiser.

At the same time, since 1965, there has been a theory of gender evolution by V. Geodakyan, which says: evolution experiments on men, and “invests” everything more proven and better in women ... And who to believe? And most importantly - what does all this give us, simple smart women, "in practice"?

"Lovely, what a fool" or "Horror, what a fool"

So, if you still don’t dare to “press your intellect” on your loved one, do it wisely (don’t blame me for the pun). In other words, don't overdo it. Jokes about blondes are not in vain so popular among the male audience: they don’t want to see stupid geese next to them, who have “long hair and short mind.” And the difference between "charm, what a fool" and "horror, what a fool" is determined by one or two. Therefore, having decided to cultivate the image of a “naive girl” in a relationship with a man, follow the simple rules:

you shouldn’t often recommend yourself aloud for a fool in front of a man - “oh, what an idiot I am, I forgot how it works again!” etc. (he will end up believing it and starting to not only get annoyed, but also call you that himself, and this is already hard to endure); always be extremely honest in financial matters: even if you want to give him a surprise gift by spending on him part of the family budget, you don’t have to “admit” that today a gypsy “divorced” you on the street and your wallet is empty (a man will think: is he earning money by hard work for that woman? And even after learning soon that the cash went to him for a new shirt , “the sediment will remain”); never give a reason to his friends to doubt your mental abilities: you can “lose” chess to your husband at home, but when you get out with friends to the billiard club, you must “show class” (every man is by nature an owner and he must be sure that his "trophy" is the envy of others). "Be quiet, you will pass for a smart one ..."

Now remember: who was the best student in your class at school? Girls. Who at the institute received an increased scholarship and had the least “tails”? That's right, beautiful girls again. This leads to a sad conclusion: you don’t want to “bend under a changing world”, dreaming of finding a partner as smart as yourself, keep in mind that there are few smart people, and there aren’t enough of them for everyone. Many modern young people simply “mow down” like smart people, picking up here and there on top, covering their poor horizons with a few sonorous phrases. How to determine that your man is really not a fool? To begin with, he must be erudite and well-read (nobody has yet canceled a good education). Then he is witty and enterprising, which will quickly find the right way out of a difficult situation. Further, he is not a chatty and not an avid debater (life has long proved that it is not truth that is born in disputes, but an unnecessary insult to anyone in the spirit of “well, I know better!”). And finally, - held in his profession (a man, up to 40 years old, “looking for himself” in different areas, can’t be called smart by anyone). Moreover, it is better that it (i.e. profession) be close and understandable to you: look for your destiny in your circle.

But, fortunately, it also happens that a woman who has “two superiors” behind her lives happily ever after with a simple manager who is quite successful in her business. The main thing is that they are GOOD TOGETHER. So, the question “who is smarter - men or women” is better not to raise at all. This will be a truly smart way out.

For the first time in 100 years, scientists have recognized that women are smarter than men.

“Over the past hundred years, the level of intelligence of men and women has been steadily increasing, but women are progressing faster. This is a consequence of modern life,” says world-renowned professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, James Flynn.

New studies by scientists have shown that only 4-5% of brain cells are actively working in men, while in women - 7%.

Scientists from different countries have counted more than 40 differences between men and women. This, of course, is not about appearance, but primarily about the difference between the brain of a man and a woman.

For example, it is known for certain that in general, on average, only 5% of brain cells are actively working in a person. But in women it is predominantly “activated” up to 7% of such cells, whereas in men - only 4-5%. In addition, the fair sex has a better developed right hemisphere of the brain. Therefore, they are better given the study of foreign languages. For the same reason, women are more emotional ... "

In addition, the main feature of the female brain is a developed intuition. It is thanks to her that the representatives of the weaker sex find solutions in cases in which the male mind is powerless. They can read the non-verbal signals of another person and nature, in other words, they have the so-called sixth sense.

Women have an innate ability to notice and decipher the smallest details, they read in the eyes- literally. Intuition is especially well developed in mothers, because during the first years of life they focus only on the child's wordless signals ...

And if the stronger sex is prone to generalizations, the weak one is to analysis. A woman always notices the depth, the essence of an event, and her husband fixes it, because his brain works technically. And it is because of these differences that we complement each other so perfectly.

The fair sex, for example, naturally has a stronger immune system in general. Therefore, they are more resistant to various ailments, in particular infectious ones. Although, by the way, the birth of a child can greatly weaken women's immunity.

According to statistics, life expectancy in almost all countries is greater than that of men. It is the fair sex that should thank estrogen - a hormone that has a beneficial effect on metabolism and protects their body from various adverse conditions. Also, the loss of a small amount of blood every month has a positive effect on bone marrow function in women ...

But the male hormone, testosterone, is “to blame” for the fact that after stressful situations, blood coagulates faster in the stronger sex, which often causes the formation of clots and blood clots in the vessels. As a result, they are more likely to suffer heart attacks and strokes.

One more thing. Probably everyone knows that the male sex chromosome consists of an X chromosome and a Y chromosome. The female has two X chromosomes. Most of the "harmful" genes are concentrated in the Y chromosome itself, so they are more often manifested in men. In particular, these are genes that cause accelerated aging, the development of various diseases, early death, and even baldness.

In women, the reproductive system, bone and skin age faster. But immunity, the cardiovascular system, on the contrary, is slower than in men.

It is also interesting that in the stomach of a man there are more enzymes responsible for the breakdown of alcohol than in a woman's. Therefore, men drink a lot and get drunk more slowly. There is such a feature of the male body - in the stronger sex, the body temperature is 0.2 degrees higher than in women. In general, a lot here also depends on genetics. But this may explain why men are less cold.

By the way, the hearts of men and women also fight differently. If a man's heart beats 70 times a minute, then a woman's heart beats 85. And all because women are less trained.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT:

  • sense of smell in women is 20% better developed due to the activity of the female sex hormones estrogen;
  • in women already six times better with an ear for music, than in men;
  • the female body needs sleep an hour more than male;
  • Every day a man speaks an average of 7,000 words, and a woman - three times more. It turns out that women have shorter vocal cords and it is easier for them to speak.

Inquisitive minds have been asking this fundamental question for more than one century. So who is really smarter?

It's all about symmetry.

The most important thing that scientists have been able to firmly find out in this matter is that the brain, on the activity of which the intellectual level of a person depends, works the same way in both men and women.

And yet, despite the fact that the form and basic functions of the left and right hemispheres in men and women are surprisingly similar, nevertheless, as recent studies by German scientists have shown, they still work differently, they have its specificity. For example, it turned out that the female brain operates much more “symmetrically” than the male one, its hemispheres interact more intensively in the implementation of basic functions. Men, on the other hand, think more “asymmetrically”, that is, a pronounced advantage of one of the hemispheres is noted in the activity of their brain. That is, when a man's left hemisphere works, the right "does not interfere" and vice versa.

As it became known from further studies, this difference in the processes of functioning of brain activity stems from the anatomical features of the brain in both sexes. In this regard, we recall that both hemispheres are connected by spikes called the corpus callosum, which consists of nerve cells that carry out the coordinated activity of the hemispheres.

It turned out that in women the corpus callosum, as a rule, is somewhat larger than in men, although the mass of the brain is somewhat less. It is this feature (large corpus callosum) that provides the weaker sex with a wider flow of information between both hemispheres. In men, a narrower corpus callosum stands in the way of this flow, which to some extent limits the flow of information from one hemisphere to another.

Weak strong sex.

It has long been noticed that only men are capable of operating with one right hemisphere with an almost disabled left. Apparently, therefore, in life they are more vulnerable, less protected. After all, oddly enough, they are very easy to offend, offend, offend. Unable to withstand ridicule, "losing his head", the man is prone to extremes, up to "hand-to-hand combat." It also happens like this: having chosen a goal for himself, he will strive for it firmly and stubbornly - rushing like a tank.

If the goal is not achieved, carefully hiding his feelings, he falls into depression, suppressing it with large doses of alcohol or a bunch of pills.

But the saddest thing is that a man tries to keep all his problems inside himself, which can lead to serious illnesses. Women are less capable of this. It has been scientifically proven that they are quicker outgoing, emotionally more liberated, talkative. After a conflict situation, they easily make contact with the offenders, willingly share with their friends about what happened, after that they can go to the store, buy themselves a beautiful brooch or a fashionable hat, and they will feel better.

It is believed that a man is more stingy, inclined to save money, increase his fortune, and a woman spends money with a light hand, often acquiring things that the family could well do without. This statement is not supported by everyone.

Remember, they say, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky could easily lose a thousand rubles and his wife's coat in a casino. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, being an avid gambler, often lost not only his own money, but also those taken from the cash desk of the editorial office of the Sovremennik magazine, which he headed. Speaking of the stinginess of men, we do not mean drunkards who, suffering from alcoholism, drink away their entire salary to the penny.

Representatives of the weaker sex, according to scientists, are capable of much more. They demonstrate especially remarkable talents in the process of comprehension of foreign languages. This phenomenon is explained by the fact that the "acoustic" center, located in the right hemisphere of the brain, has a "logical" department in the left hemisphere, dealing with "letters" and "grammar".

To confirm what has been said, one can cite the legendary episode mentioned in the History of Herodotus (5th century BC), when the Scythians waged war with the Amazons. Having learned that their opponent was women, they decided on their advice not to kill them anymore. The fights stopped, both sides united and began to live together, and each man got to wife the woman with whom he had to fight. It is curious that their languages ​​were completely different, they did not understand each other. Husbands were never able to learn the language of their wives, while wives easily learned the language of their husbands.

In men, poor interaction between the hemispheres of the brain is reflected in the poor study of not only a foreign, but often their native language.

And women in this respect are successful, because it is relatively easier for them to express thoughts and feelings in a verbal shell and grammatical structures.

In addition, as American scientists have found, the coordinating center for speech muscles (the so-called Broca's center) is 20 percent larger in them, and the word recognition center (the so-called Wernicke's center) is 30 percent larger than in men.

Benefits for men.

This was shown by the so-called "common factor", which is present in all IQ tests. According to factorial theories of intelligence, it is this factor that shows the general level of a person's mental development. “You are told the last four digits of a phone number and then asked to repeat or reverse them.

So, in the latter case, much more intellectual effort is required to correctly complete the task, ”said Rushton about the tests. Although far-reaching conclusions from the tests apparently should not be drawn, since, on average, the academic performance of women is higher than that of men. And yet.

Now, armed with new knowledge, you yourself can try to answer the question posed in the title of this article.

Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Isaac Newton, Sergei Korolev, and here, on you - Sofia Kovalevskaya. If male scientists have been around for a long time, and their achievements are familiar to everyone, then who is this Sophia, and how did she get here among smart men ?! And by the way, she is a professor of mathematics, also not khukhr-muhr!

So who is smarter, men or women? Indeed, there are far fewer Nobel laureates among women than among men, and the weak half of humanity can rarely boast of great achievements. Why such injustice? And let's look at this from a scientific point of view - physiology and psychology.

What does science say about it?

The male brain weighs 100-150 grams more than the female. But does weight really affect intelligence? Look, an elephant's brain weighs more than 5 kg, but it is far from a person. But you need to know the features of the human brain depending on its gender.

Men have a developed lower temporal lobe of the brain, and the more brilliant a person is, the larger this lobe. The female intellect "hides" in the temporal and frontal cortex - they are responsible for speech. This is where the stereotype has developed that women first talk and then think.

Canadian University scientist F. Rushton, together with his colleagues, conducted IQ testing between boys and girls entering universities. Studies have shown that the level of intelligence development in young men of the stronger sex is still higher by 3.6 points. Although some pundits questioned this experiment.

Many other studies have found the following:

    Women read faster, retell what they read more easily, they have a large vocabulary and associative thinking.

    Men have a higher indicator in the exact sciences: they find it easier to do mathematics, physics, chemistry and practical classes in these sciences.

Many representatives of the weaker sex explain their intellectual loss in front of men by “competitive struggle”. Discrimination, they say, men infringe on us! But statistics are stubborn: there are twice as many very smart men with an IQ of 125 as women, and nearly six times as many male geniuses with an IQ of 155! So where is the competition and discrimination? It has been scientifically proven that men are smarter than women.

And why compete? Being a real woman is much more honorable than being a crammed professor. Read, and you will understand that it is much better and easier to be weak, even in the mind.

Who is smarter, given the development from childhood

Girls really develop much faster in infancy - they start walking and talking earlier. But when children grow up and enter society, it is difficult to say who is ahead of whom, since everyone develops depending on their gender.

Girls are diligent and calm, unlike boys who need large spaces in different planes. That is why girls are so fascinated by games in a narrow circle: dressing up dolls and embroidering with beads, while boys have to run and jump everywhere and play war games.

Such preferences can be explained from a scientific point of view: nature created a woman to be a mother and a keeper of the hearth. Her mind must be directed in this direction and requires patience. The boy will grow up to be a future protector and earner. Accordingly, it is he who must think and develop a strategy for all these tasks. And it's harder, you know.

In addition, survival without losses is important for many women: they do not like to take risks and more often preserve traditions. For men, progress is important: relying on logic and practicality, it is they who are looking for new goals and an opportunity to advance them. Therefore, they suffer more from stress than women.

But here, too, nature tried: having rewarded a man with intellect and logic, she removed the increased emotionality that women have. Men are more self-possessed and persistent, and do not shed unnecessary tears. In a stressful situation, they prefer to calculate all possible moves in advance, without succumbing to panic.