AUTHOR: Satoshi Kanazawa
PUBLICATION NAME: Psychology Today
DATE OF PUBLICATION: October 3, 2010
SUMMARY: Girls mature faster than boys, so the “male advantage” in intelligence does not seem to appear until after puberty. Due to a large difference in maturity level, comparing two boys at age 10 is considered the equivalent to comparing two girls at the age of 12. Older and more mature children have a greater cognitive capacity than those children younger and less mature.
Britain’s National Child Development Study took a group of about 17,000 newborns in March of 1958 and followed them for more than fifty years, measuring their IQs at set dates. Using data from this interesting study, it is apparent that at ages seven and eleven (before puberty), girls have a higher IQ than boys. This indicates that prepubescent girls are more generally intelligent than prepubescent boys.
At age 16, however, measuring the IQs of the same group of children, it is evident that the roles have been reversed: males at this age have a slightly higher IQ than females.
Kanazawa claims that the later male advantage in intelligence is attributed to both maturity as well as height. This height theory connects to a previous post by Kanazawa and study, which can be found here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200901/why-men-are-more-intelligent-women
The notion that young girls are more intelligent than young boys is widely accepted and is no surprise. Boys are much less mature than girls. However, the theory about teenage boys and men being more intelligent than teenage girls and women is somewhat controversial. It is an interesting concept, one that I believe will take many more years and many more studies to actually prove, if it ever can be proved.
LINKS TO STUDY: none
ARTICLE: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/girls-are-more-intelligent-boys-men-are-more-intelligent-w
SUBMITTED BY: Courtney Caglia-Hilty
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