Question

Describe AND give real-life examples of males and females are different in the structure of our brains, social cognition, cognition and aggression.

Answer 1

Brain structure and anatomy : there has been a lot of research examining this but the results are mixed. There is definitely some difference because growth of the brain is influenced by presence of more testosterone or estrogen in the body which are male and female hormones respectively. There are studies which say that men and women brains differ in their size of amygdala,hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, how the brains are wired , what networks are used etc. The results are however mixed and its important to understand that this may be largely dependent on genetics, environment and culture.

Social cognition : Women have better social cognition according to recent research which means ability to reecognize and process others emotions and also modulate ones won expression appropriately. Women are better at recognizing facial effects, expression processing and emotions in general. Men were only better at recognizing specific behaviour which includes anger, aggression and threatening cues

Cognition and Cognitive abilities: Men are better at executive functioning,working memory and spatial abilities i.e recognizing directions, maps, geography etc. Women are better at short term memory and long term memory. They can recall information easier than men.

Aggression : Men are generally more aggressive than women cause of testosterone. Even completed suicides are more common in men than women, i.e women attempt more suicides but men complete more suicides by upto 4 times because of more aggression in them. This is because of hormonal differences in the amount of testosterone and estrogen.