Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and MethodsHollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Science
Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods
Hollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Psychophysiology
In 1906 Helen Bradford Thompson published her dissertation, from Chicago
University, entitled "The Mental Traits of Sex." This volume gives a
summary of the scattered bits of experimental work done previous to that
time, and presents her numerous experiments on a group of men and a group
of women at Chicago University. The result of her tests in various mental
traits is that the differences between the sexes were in no case as great
as the individual differences within either sex. Men differed from each
other in these experiments (as did women also, among themselves), as much
as men differed from women. In only two of the many traits tested was a
reliable difference found between the central tendencies of the sexes. In
speed of voluntary movement (tapping) men were quicker than women, and in
memory women were superior to men. On the whole, however, the result
indicated equality of mental ability between the sexes.[15] It will be
enough for the present purposes to say that after about twenty years of
collecting data by scientific experiment, the hypothesis that there is any
innate sex difference in average intellectual ability has been abandoned by
all psychologists who base their statements on scientific evidence. For
example, Dr. E. L. Thorndike, in the most recent edition of "Educational
Psychology" (1914), writes as follows, in summing up the experimental work
on sex differences in average intellectual ability:
"The most important characteristic of these differences is their small
amount. The individual differences within either sex so enormously outweigh
any difference between the sexes that for all practical purposes any such
difference may be disregarded.... As is well known the experiments of the
past generation in educating women have shown their equal competence in
school work of elementary, secondary and collegiate grade.... The
psychologist's measurements lead to the conclusion that this equality of
achievement comes from an equality of natural gifts, not from an
overstraining of the lesser talents of women."
Thus our first question, Are there innate sex differences in average
intelligence, which would call for differentiation of vocations on the
ground of sex? may be thus answered: So far as the literature of fact tells
us, we know of no considerable sex differences in average mental ability.
The evidence of experimental science (and on this point there is now a
large amount of evidence available) shows that by the test of averages the
sexes have equal ability to perform mental tasks.
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