504105

research-article2014
CDPXXX10.1177/0963721413504105Reis, CarothersGender Differences

Current Directions in Psychological

Black and White or Shades of Gray: Science

2014, Vol. 23(1) 1926
The Author(s) 2014
Are Gender Differences Categorical or Reprints and permissions:
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Dimensional? DOI: 10.1177/0963721413504105

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Harry T. Reis1 and Bobbi J. Carothers2

1
Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester,
and 2Center for Public Health Systems Science, Washington University in St. Louis

Abstract
Sex differences are a perpetually popular topic among scholars and lay audiences, but no research has addressed the
underlying structure of these differences. Many people assume that sex differences in social behavior are categorical
that these differences represent fundamental distinctions between two distinct categories (taxa) of humans. Contrasted
with this view is the idea that sex differences are dimensionalthat differences between men and women indicate
nothing more than relative positions along overlapping continuous dimensions. We used taxometric methods to
examine whether a variety of well-established sex differences are indicative of taxa or dimensions. The evidence clearly
supported the latter. Thus, for the psychological constructs that we examined, there is little support for believing that
sex differences are anything more than individual differences that vary in magnitude from one attribute to another.

Keywords
sex differences, taxometric methods, essentialism

Ask anyone to tell you what men and women are like and
they likely can rattle off a long list of attributes. Men are
strong, aggressive, and good at building things, for exam-
ple, whereas women are caring, emotional, and have good
verbal skills. Even children as young as 3.5 years old are
able to associate men and women with gender-stereotypic
traits (Reis & Wright, 1982). Documented differences in the
behavior, traits, or physiology of men and women are
abundant: Once peripheral to scientific psychology, sex
differencesand to a lesser extent, similaritiesare now a
popular research topic, incorporated regularly into jour-
nals, textbooks, and curricula (Eagly, Eaton, Rose, Riger, &
McHugh, 2012). For example, in the decade from 2003 to
2012, PsycINFO reported more than 30,000 articles pub-
lished under the index term human sex differences.1 Small
wonder, then, that sex differences are widely recognized
by laypersons and scholars alike.
Underlying observed differences are implicit assump-
tions regarding what these differences mean about the
nature of women and men. The extensive array of sex
differences sometimes leads observers to conclude that
men and women represent two fundamentally distinct
categories of humans, or taxa. Popular books, such as
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (Gray,
1992), which has sold more than 50 million copies world-
wide, exemplify this tendency. An alternate perspective,
which we call the dimensional approach, suggests that
gender differences are simply the average position of men
and women measured along continuous dimensions.
Our research was designed to compare these two
positions on a series of behaviors and personal attributes
that have been widely studied by researchers interested
in sex differences. In this regard, Hyde (2005, 2007)
reviewed sex differences in 46 meta-analyses spanning
diverse cognitive, social, and personality domains and
concluded that men and women are substantially more
similar than they are different. Although valuable in its
own right, this sort of review is limited to an examination
of the degree of overlap in the score distributions of men
and women and, thus, the results obtained cannot reveal
whether observed differences indicate the existence of a
Corresponding Author:
Harry T. Reis, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in
Psychology, University of Rochester, Box 270266, Rochester, NY 14627
E-mail: reis@psych.rochester.edu

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20 Reis, Carothers
taxona classification that distinguishes one group of
people from another group of people in a nonarbitrary,
fundamental manner (Ruscio & Ruscio, 2008; Waller &
Meehl, 1998). Researchers performing taxometric analy-
ses ask whether the underlying (latent, unobserved) sit-
uation is a single distribution or composed of two or
more groups (each with its own distribution) (Meehl,
2004, p. 39). In other words, and as explained later, taxo-
metric analysis is concerned less with the magnitude of
differences than with the pattern (correlation) of differ-
ences across several variables examined simultaneously.
We used this analytic tool to empirically determine
whether, when it comes to psychological attributes, dif-
ferences between men and women are better conceptu-
alized as fundamentally distinct or as relative positions
along a single dimension.
Dimensional and Taxonic Models in
Sex-Difference Research
The appeal of a categorical approach is not limited to lay
audiences. Some evolutionarily oriented researchers, for
example, have treated mens and womens social behav-
ior as categorically distinct, thereby reflecting the diver-
gent adaptive tasks imposed by reproductive differences
and the effects of these differences on humans inherited
biological, cognitive, and behavioral makeup (e.g., Buss,
1995; Geary, 2010). Another well-known example is the
tend-and-befriend model, which posits that men and
women respond to stress in a fundamentally different
manner (Taylor et al., 2000) that is linked to the influence
of the neuropeptide oxytocin. Indeed, tacit acknowledg-
ment of the possibility that mens and womens behavior
may be categorically distinct often leads researchers to
search their data for gender differences, if not analyzing
mens and womens data separately.
Dimensionalist assumptions characterize researchers
who believe that sex differences represent the relative
position of women and men along continuous dimen-
sions; these dimensions may be grounded in personality
traits (e.g., agency and communion; Spence & Helmreich,
1978), temperament (Brody, 2000), hormonal influences
( Jordan-Young, 2010), or life experiences. For example,
by describing how most societies stratify boys and girls
socialization experiences on the basis of sex, and how
these differential experiences shape the development of
traits and competencies, researchers have suggested,
implicitly or explicitly, that there exists a single continu-
ous dimension along which individuals can be shifted
through experience (e.g., Wood & Eagly, 2012). The
dimensionalist position also appears in social neurosci-
ence (notwithstanding the fact that neural sex differences
are frequently, and often misleadingly, interpreted as
support for categorical models). In this case, the
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Correlation 1
Men
Height
Correlation 2
Women
Correlation for
Full Sample
Hair Length
Fig. 1. Schematic showing within-groups versus between-groups
(or full sample) correlation patterns underlying taxometric analysis.
Adapted from Multivariate Taxometric Procedures: Distinguishing
Types From Continua (p. 13, Fig. 3.1) by N. G. Waller and P. E. Meehl,
1998, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Copyright 1998 by Sage Publications.
well-documented plasticity and deep intricacy (Eliot,
2011, p. 897) of the human brain has been used to explain
why reliable sex differences in brain structure and func-
tion may have relatively small behavioral impact (Halpern,
2012).
What Is a Taxon?
Before we describe our work, it is important to explain
what a taxon is and is not. Members of a taxon have a
greater likelihood of possessing traits that are character-
istic of that taxon than nonmembers do. Thus, knowing
that a person has two X chromosomes makes it more
likely that this person will develop breasts, ovulate, have
little facial hair, and exhibit other female physical charac-
teristics than if this person has an X and a Y chromo-
some. In contrast, although students who receive an A in
a course are in a different category than are students who
receive a B, the difference is not a taxon because the
underlying dimension (student performance) is continu-
ous. Knowing on which side of the cutoff a student falls
on one variable would be relatively uninformative about
which side of the cutoff a student falls on other attributes
(Waller & Meehl, 1998).
Figure 1 graphically illustrates how the presence of a
taxon influences data. When a taxon exists, variables
tend to have restricted range and are uncorrelated within
each group. For instance, height and hair length are
probably uncorrelated within each sex (as the flat regres-
sion lines indicate). However, combining groups creates
a correlation, which is often large, as the diagonal regres-
sion line indicates, because cases within each group tend
to be similarly extremethat is, they fall on either side of
the midpoint of the distribution. In the absence of a
Gender Differences 21
taxon, the groups are not similarly extreme and, there-
fore, combining groups does not produce an inflated cor-
relation. Thus, the between-groups and within-groups
correlation patterns of multiple (three or more) variables
assessed in the same individuals determines whether
data are indicative of a taxon or a dimension.
Examining Taxa and Dimensions in
Social Behavior
Three statistical tests are commonly used to infer the
existence of a taxon: MAMBAC (mean above minus
below a cut), MAXEIG (maximum eigenvalue), and
L-Mode (latent mode). Table 1 describes 7 representative
examples of the 22 analyses we conducted; the full set is
reported in Carothers and Reis (2013). For each analysis,
we used the actual properties of each data set (e.g., skew,
number of indicators, number of participants, correla-
tions among indicators) to create simulations that depict
what the data would look like if in fact a taxonic or a
dimensional structure existed. As is customary in taxo-
metric analysis, we then visually compared the curve
generated by the actual data with these two simulations
to determine which one represents a more plausible
underlying structure. Because none of these tests is
definitive and interpretation is largely visual, consistency
across multiple methods is used to confirm ones conclu-
sions (Waller & Meehl, 1998).2
We selected data sets for our analyses on the basis of
standard recommendations in the literature (Waller &
Meehl, 1998). Generally speaking, relatively large data
sets having at least three moderately correlated and con-
ceptually linked variables are needed (see Ruscio,
Table 1. Representative Variable Sets for Analyses of the Latent Structure of Psychosocial Attributes Related to Sex
Analysis
Sexual attitude and behavior
Mate selectivity
Sociosexual orientation
Social intimacy
Empathy
Masculinity/femininity/care orientation
Inclination toward science
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Haslam, & Ruscio, 2006, for a detailed discussion of the
criteria for selecting and grouping items). We first sought
to validate our approach using two domains in which we
expected to find clear evidence of a taxon based on sex:
physical strength and anthropometric measurements. We
reasoned that these domains would be taxonic because
men and women differ physically in obvious ways.
Individuals who tend to be extreme on one variable
should also tend to be extreme on other variables in that
data set. For physical strength, we used three variables
from the 1998 to 2002 National Collegiate Athletic
Association outdoor track heptathlon and decathlon
championships: distances in the long jump, high jump,
and javelin throw. For anthropometric measurements, we
used several measurements from the Centers for Disease
Control and Preventions National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey III: height, shoulder breadth, and
waist-to-hip ratio. Some variables were combined into
composites to satisfy the mathematical requirements of
our analyses. In each data set, a clear taxon based on sex
was obtained.
Figure 2 shows the results of our analysis of the data
on physical strength. For all three methods (mean above
minus below a cut, maximum eigenvalue, and latent
mode), the data better resembled the taxonic simulation
than the dimensional simulation. Very similar patterns
were obtained for the anthropometric measurements.
Thus, we concluded that this type of analysis is suitable
for identifying a sex-based taxon if it exists.
Our substantive analyses were run on a series of 22
discrete data sets in the published literature, which com-
prised 122 indicators and 13,301 individuals from 13
unique studies. These samples were relatively diverse;
Variable set
Appeal of multiple partners; appeal of sex with a stranger; attitude
toward sex without love; frequency of orgasm; frequency of
thinking about sex; frequency of masturbation
Importance of financial prospects and status; desire for children;
dependable character; importance of good looks; emotional
stability
Number of partners expected; number of one-night stands;
fantasizing about someone other than partner; comfort with sex
without love; comfort with casual sex; require closeness for sex
Provisions of guidance, reassurance of worth, nurturance, and social
integration in close relationships
Fantasy, Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, and Personal Distress
subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980)
Masculinity (agentic traits); femininity (communal traits); caring for
others
Enjoyment and interest in science; ease of learning science;
environmental awareness
22 Reis, Carothers

a
Categorical Comparison Data Dimensional Comparison Data

0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16

0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16

Mean Difference

Mean Difference
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
50 Cuts 50 Cuts

b Categorical Comparison Data Dimensional Comparison Data

0.6

0.6
Eigenvalue

Eigenvalue
0.4

0.4
0.2

0.2
0.0

0.0

1.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
25 Windows 25 Windows

c
Categorical Comparison Data Dimensional Comparison Data
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Density

Density

3 2 1 0 1 2 3 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
Factor Scores Factor Scores
Fig. 2. Results of analysis of data on physical strength. Results are shown separately for mean above
minus below a cut (a), maximum eigenvalue (b), and latent mode (c) statistical tests. Solid lines rep-
resent the minimum and maximum for the simulated data. Shaded bands represent the middle 50% of
the comparison (simulated) data points. For more information on the interpretation of these graphs,
see Ruscio, Haslam, and Ruscio (2006). Adapted from Figure 3 presented in Carothers and Reis (2013).

some were composed of American college students, taxometric methods, the samples were large, ranging
some were composed of adolescents, and others were from a few hundred to several thousand participants.
based on probability samples of American adults. All of Together, the data sets spanned a diverse range of topics
the data sets involved self-reported attitudes, preferences, that are widely thought to differ by sex and are some-
or behaviors, and all of the analyses included three to six times described in taxonic terms.
variables. In some cases, the variables were based on Results of these analyses can be summarized suc-
single items, whereas in other cases, we used composites cinctly: In nearly every case, the data unambiguously
created from highly correlated items. As required by resembled a dimensional model better than a taxonic

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Gender Differences 23
model. In other words, the data showed little or no ten-
dency toward the existence of a taxon and, instead, were
consistently better matched to an underlying dimensional
structure. To illustrate this conclusion, and because sex
differences in interest in the disciplines of science, tech-
nology, engineering, and mathematics is a timely topic,
we provide results from our analysis of inclinations
toward science. These data were taken from a sample of
American 15-year-olds (2,660 girls and 2,645 boys) who
participated in the Programme for International Student
Assessment (a program run by the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development), which sur-
veys interest in science and scientific careers. As Figure 3
shows, all three analyses were appreciably closer to their
dimensional simulations than to their taxonic simulations,
a result confirmed by their strong dimensional fit indices.
Thus, the evidence points clearly to the conclusion that
orientations toward science are dimensional and not
taxonic.
Implications and Conclusions
Taken together, our results indicate that at least for the
psychological attributes that we studied, gender differ-
ences should be considered as having an underlying
dimensional structure and not a taxonic structure. What
this means, in simpler terms, is that although there are
average differences between men and women, these dif-
ferences do not support the idea that men are like this,
women are like that. Had a taxon been identified, it
would have meant that knowing that a person possesses
male (or female) characteristics on one attribute would
imply that the person also possesses other male (or
female) attributes. The fact that our results instead sup-
ported a dimensional conceptualization indicates that
this inference is unwarranted; these sex differences are
better understood as individual differences that vary in
magnitude from one attribute to another rather than as a
suite of common differences that follow from a persons
sex. Of course, it is still reasonable to talk about sex dif-
ferences. However, these differences should be consid-
ered in terms of overlapping continuous distributions
rather than natural or discrete categories.
If differences between men and women reflect varia-
tions along a continuum, there is little reason to focus on
explanations for categorical distinctions, much less to
reify them in essentialist terms. Yet this sort of thinking is
common, and not just in the Mars-Venus community. For
example, as Fine (2010) explained, the influence of neu-
rosexismthe tendency to justify differential treatment of
men and women by citing differences in neural anatomy
or functioncan be seen in educational and employ-
ment disparities, in arguments about same-sex schools
and institutions, and in many types of family and marital
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conflict. Nevertheless, every time people invoke biology
to explain gender differences, they further strengthen the
view that women and men are different human kinds
(Prentice & Miller, 2007, p. 205), a view that is inconsis-
tent with our findings.
Although essentialist thinking is often justified by
appealing to biological causation, it is important to rec-
ognize that on the basis of our findings, we are not argu-
ing a position with regard to questions about biological
or sociocultural causation. One can just as well be essen-
tialist for sociocultural reasons (Bohan, 1993; Rangel &
Keller, 2011). To the extent that social-cultural processes
lead males and females to be treated differently, and to
be segregated into different activities during develop-
ment, it is reasonable to expect that a taxon might
emerge. Moreover, biological models can be dimensional,
such as when a particular hormone relates incrementally
to a particular behavior. Broadly speaking, our results are
consistent with those biosocial models that view biologi-
cal and sociocultural influences as essentially continuous
and interactive, thereby encouraging individuals along
developmental pathways that promote the development
of varied propensities and dispositions (e.g., Wood &
Eagly, 2012).
This reasoning suggests an interesting and important
caveat to our results, namely, our reliance on data col-
lected in the past three decades from North American
adolescents and adults. This data set comprises people
who live in a time and a place in which gender-based
prescriptions on behavior, both culturally and historically
speaking, are relatively weak, which suggests that indi-
viduals who populate this culture may have become
detaxonified. It is plausible that a gender taxon might
be identified were some psychological archeologist to
unearth an appropriate data set from an earlier era. This
seems unlikely, however, given that sex-difference
research was far less common before feminism led scien-
tific psychology to pay attention to women and womens
experiences (Eagly et al., 2012). More realistically, the
modern-day world contains many cultures in which men
and women are treated much more differently than in the
relatively egalitarian culture of the current samples. Most
cultures divide at least some activities by sex, but the
degree varies considerably from one culture to the next.
We would expect such divisions of activity and labor to
have broad and important consequences for the kinds of
psychological characteristics that we studied, as Eagly
and Woods (1999) social-role theory has established.
Taxometric procedures provide a useful method for
exploring these consequences.
Why do some people construe the social behavior of
men and women in categorical terms? The tendency to
think about the social world categorically is universal
(Medin, 1989); as Fiske (2010) observed, We love
24 Reis, Carothers

a
Categorical Comparison Data Dimensional Comparison Data

0.18

0.18
Mean Difference

Mean Difference
0.14

0.14
0.10

0.10
1000 3000 5000 1000 3000 5000
50 Cuts 50 Cuts
b
Categorical Comparison Data Dimensional Comparison Data
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Eigenvalue

Eigenvalue

1.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
25 Windows 25 Windows
c Categorical Comparison Data Dimensional Comparison Data
0.4

0.4
0.3

0.3
Density

Density
0.2

0.2
0.1

0.1
0.0

0.0

4 2 0 2 4 2 0 2
Factor Scores Factor Scores
Fig. 3. Results of analysis of data on science inclination (average of enjoyment, value, activity frequency,
interest in learning, interest in science career, ease of science tasks and learning, and environmental
awareness). Results are shown separately for mean above minus below a cut (a), maximum eigenvalue
(b), and latent mode (c) statistical tests. Solid lines represent the minimum and maximum for the simu-
lated data. Shaded bands represent the middle 50% of the comparison (simulated) data points. For more
information on the interpretation of these graphs, see Ruscio, Haslam, and Ruscio (2006). Adapted from
Figure A17 in the Supplemental Material section of Carothers and Reis (2013).

dichotomies (p. 689). Belief in a sex taxon provides an rooted in cultural tradition, and effectively account for
epistemic rationale for stereotyping on the basis of sex. behavioral differencesdescriptors that apply well to
To be sure, there are good reasons to rely on a persons sex. Indeed, social perceivers are often fairly accurate in
sex for forming first impressions and for organizing the their assessment of differences between the sexes, as
abundant information that our complex social world pro- Wood and Eagly (2012) noted. Rather than suggest that
vides. Social cognition favors categories that are readily social perceivers are inaccurate, the findings presented
observable, are discrete, have sharp boundaries, are here focus on potentially erroneous or unexamined
involuntary and mostly immutable, describe differences understandings of the structure and consistency of these

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Gender Differences 25
differences. Of course, some differences between men
and women are taxonicphysical strength and anthro-
pometric measurements were identified as such in our
workand future empirical research could provide fur-
ther insight into other differences indicative of taxa. The
present research focused on only a select set of psycho-
logical characteristics, all assessed by self-report, and it is
possible that other characteristics or behavioral measures
would reveal categorical differences. Identification of the
latent structure of psychological constructs could be a
valuable step in theory development (Ruscio & Ruscio,
2008).
In conclusion, we hope that these and other innova-
tive methods help shine empirical light on fundamental
questions about the nature of women and men. At
least with regard to the properties that we studied,
rather than representing distinct categories of humans,
women and men are cut from the same psychological
cloth.
Recommended Reading
Carothers, B. J., & Reis, H. T. (2013). (See References). A fuller
account of the research on which the present article is
based.
Eliot, L. (2009). Pink brain, blue brain: How small differences
grow into troublesome gapsand what we can do about
it. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. A reader-
friendly discussion of neuroscientific research on sex
differences.
Fine, C. (2010). (See References). A thought-provoking, well-
reasoned account of how the findings of sex-difference
research are often misinterpreted.
Hyde, J. S. (2005). (See References). Written by a scholar who
has conducted many meta-analyses of sex differences, a
thoughtful consideration of the evidence for sex differences
and sex similarities.
Wood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the
behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins
of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699727. A
review of what is arguably the most comprehensive theory
of the origin of sex differences in behavior.
Author Contributions
Both authors developed the study concept jointly. B. J. Carothers
collected and analyzed the data under the supervision of H. T.
Reis. H. T. Reis drafted the manuscript, which was reviewed
and approved by B. J. Carothers.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the many colleagues who shared
their data sets with us. We also thank John Ruscio for sharing
his expertise on taxometric methods.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with
respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.
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Notes
1. To determine the emphasis of current work, we randomly
selected 100 articles from the PsycINFO search. The first author
classified these articles according to their predominant focus.
The results were as follows: sex differences, 72; sex similari-
ties, 7; both sex differences and sex similarities, 8; contextual
moderation of sex differences, 3; and unclear or irrelevant, 10.
Of course, publication practices may bias the literature toward
significant differences rather than nonsignificant effects.
2. We also computed comparison curve fit indices (Ruscio
et al., 2006), which allowed us to determine whether the curve
generated by the actual data was closer to its taxonic or its
dimensional simulation. These results were consistent with the
visual analyses in supporting the dimensional solution over the
taxonic solution.
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