Extreme Male Brain

Thank you for the link :)

Does he have an agenda/did he do it on purpose or ...

He's always struck me as a bit of a prat.

A clever prat, mind you.

Much xpost.

Because it's a proportional thing, SQ - I believe; it's ages since I read it. It's not about having a fixed amount of one quality or another. As you say, 'high' on both would put the result in the middle - ie, they wouldn't actually be high in the given context.

I was responding to the very common complaint about any such system, where people claim they have high levels of both qualities so the system must be wrong.

You're right, it does use 5 different characteristics so it's a sliding scale which allows for a reasonable stab at the the proportional approach. The tests aim to measure a respondent's strength of interest in (drive towards) rule-based structures and their drive towards understanding & interacting with people. As it's all about proportions, the results are given as a quotient.

From the Wikipedia article:

E or S. E-S profiles show reliable sex differences in the general population (more females showing the profile E>S and more males showing the profile S>E).[1]

The E-S theory is a better predictor of who goes into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects than is gender.[2]

Neither of those statements claim to say whether the difference is innate or learned.
The first one says more men get a high SQ score, while more women get high EQ.
The second says people with high SQ are more likely to go into science than other people, irrespective of gender.

It would have been better if Baron-Cohen hadn't called it "Male Brain" but his data (and subsequent studies) do show that more men than women have a proportionally high SQ with lower EQ.

Like I said earlier, I seem to remember he said something like type S, which we'll call male brains. Type S and type E would do just as well of course. And he spends quite a lot of time clarifying that male brain doesn't mean male, and vice versa. Which just makes me want to shout "so don't use it then".

But not as headline worthy.

I have no idea whether he has an agenda beyond that. I suspect that is sufficient.

He had no need to call them male and female did he.

He could have called them a b c or something.

And noted that on average more men were a and more women were c or whatever.

Does he have an agenda/did he do it on purpose or is he just a bit sexist and so it made sense to do it that way and oh look what a surprise it ties in with my view of men and women?

That makes more sense fallenmadonna.

Certainly some people are shit at systemising and are quite horrible as well

Balanced E=S

Male ES

Balanced could be high E, high S or low E, low S.

Two dimensions, low E to high E, low S to high S. Not one dimension with S on one end and E on the other.

I think.

Yes, TFM ... surely, if he's describing a spectrum with high S / low E at one end and the reverse at the other, then any combinations with fairly equal 'amounts' of both would be in the middle?

But then surely neither of them would be "high", they would both be in the middle.

Someone upthread said there a 5 different brain "types" in this system of classification he is using, so how have the 5 been boiled down to 2 labelled male and female?

Yes, TFM ... surely, if he's describing a spectrum with high S / low E at one end and the reverse at the other, then any combinations with fairly equal 'amounts' of both would be in the middle?

Either I'm being remarkably thick (not unknown) or most critics are missing the point of such a system?

He does talk about a highly systematising and empathising brain BTW. It just isn't pathologised.

You know what's odd about these threads. Not just this one, it's a frequent topic.

All these efforts to quantify & correlate different types of mind are attempts to systematize the available information

Messy, would you say you're high on cognitive and affective empathy? Or higher on affective, perhaps?

Actually, just read the link, and this is the bit that sums up my main objection to SBC:

"He employs a dichotomy between the empathizing female brain and the systematizing male brain. Apparently, he has never considered the idea that systematizing and empathizing could exist in extreme measure in the same brain. His theory leaves out those of us who both systematize and empathize in non-normative ways."

Exactly! Why do we always have to think in terms of specialisms, in binary terms of either / or. I've always had a problem with that because I have a mathematical brain AND I am very emotional.

Why does society always feel the need to pigeonhole people as either / or?

My DS is an Aspie but/and he's a great empathizer, more so than the most stereotypically sensitive girl you could imagine. However whenever he empathizes people (who know he's an aspie) shake their heads and say that he's overcompensating or that he is practising learned behaviour. Seriously you just can't win.

Or sometimes people who believe in innate differences say that it's because I'm a single mum I have brought him up "like a girl", which makes me laugh because I mean -duh! if it's learned behaviour, it's not innate".

Not necessarily, because even if traits don't change, you can learn to manage your traits through early intervention, surely.

DD is rule driven, absolutely. So we teach her the rules, and she can behave in a socially appropriate way. Her behaviour changes, but not her way of dealing with things.

It might have to be dates and Lomotil, then

That's really interesting, Starshit, thank you.

I must avoid hyperfocusing on it I've already wasted a sunny day ...