The power of many small sex differences in cognition, personality, and interests
Agneta Herlitz, Joakim K E Frostegård, Martin Asperholm, Richard Bränström, Elizabeth Guest, Joakim Martinsen, Hedda Sonnegård, Kimmo Sorjonen, Lisa B Thorell, Björn N Persson · 2026
Read The power of many small sex differences in cognition, personality, and interests by Agneta Herlitz, Joakim K E Frostegård, Martin Asperholm, Richard Bränström, Elizabeth Guest, Joakim Martinsen, Hedda Sonnegård, Kimmo Sorjonen, Lisa B Thorell, Björn N Persson (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13219607.txt.
Description
Agneta Herlitz and colleagues test whether many sex differences add up to something large in a 2026 study. Taken one at a time, differences between men and women in cognition, personality, and interests are small, with distributions that overlap heavily, which has led some to argue they barely matter. The team asked what happens when thirteen measures are read.
Participants aged thirty-five to forty-five, 1,465 women and 1,302 men, completed cognitive tests and questionnaires on personality and interest in people versus things. Differences on the single measures ran in the expected directions and were modest alone. Combined in one model, they sorted eighty percent of participants by sex. The combined profile explained a substantial share of the variation in occupational gender segregation, the pattern of men and women clustering in different jobs. The authors argue that waving off small differences one by one misses their collective weight in shaping outcomes.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Agneta Herlitz, Joakim K E Frostegård, Martin Asperholm, Richard Bränström, Elizabeth Guest, Joakim Martinsen, Hedda Sonnegård, Kimmo Sorjonen, Lisa B Thorell, Björn N Persson |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 45 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |