Does "gender gap" here matter more than what larger fractions show? For example, they say "women desire more Affirmation" but 49% have it as a top two while 56% have "time" in the top two. Men also have 54% for time in the top two. I feel like that's more interesting than looking at percentage differences (which tbh don't really seem to matter that much for this statistic).
EDIT: a striking example of this, they say "women give more gifts" in terms of LL they express, as a finding. But only 32% have this as a top two expressed LL, so a good majority of women don't even have gifts as a top two expressed LL. So, who cares about the percent difference 8%, does it matter? What does it even mean? What if 1% of men did X vs 9% of women? Why would the interesting takeaway be "wow, women are more likely than men to do X!!" vs. "gee, a sheer minority of people do X at all."
Saying the words "women are more likely than men to do X" leaves the reader unfortunately with the impression "many women do X," whereas that might not be true.
>Saying the words "women are more likely than men to do X" leaves the reader unfortunately with the impression "many women do X," whereas that might not be true.
I wonder if this is related to "X is better than Y." leading to "How dare you say X isn't bad!" I didn't, X can be extremely horrible, it can be the second most horrible thing to exist. The only qualifier I gave was that Y was at least one rank more horrible than X. If instead I had used "Y is worse than X" this likely wouldn't have happened.
I'm wondering if many people, when reading a relative comparison, imagine it in some absolute setting and then assume that was the intended information to convey. If your case they imagine a case where more women than men do X, meaning they imagine a whole lot of women doing X and very few men doing X, even though it could actually have been 2 of every million women vs 1 of every million men.
>>>Saying the words "women are more likely than men to do X" leaves the reader unfortunately with the impression "many women do X," whereas that might not be true.
Is there an accepted term for the extra caveat-ing and qualifying that people do with language these days to avoid the non-logical misinterpretations of factual statements by stupid people?
The data is interesting, but I see it as poor quality. People are horrendously bad at self assessment on average, and many have "main character" syndrome that biases them towards claiming favorable traits they may lack in practice.
There's a reason you don't ask a woman for advice on dating women, or men on how to date men. Most people, particularly young people, don't actually know what they want. Personality tests aren't worthless, but you're essentially asking people about themselves that way.
A better study should ask one sex their perception of the other. This is imperfect, but I believe personal experience is more useful than self assessment or personality tests. In the end, it's how the sexes actually interact that matters.
I think a much better way would be to ask the best friends of people to anonymously rate their friend and how they date. The best friend will be close enough to probably have a good idea. Obviously they like the person if they are friends (so there are biases here as well) but they might be more likely to notice patterns the person is otherwise oblivious to.
Sciences and scientists (quoting the terms used in the OP site) that publish statistics as bar charts in company blog post typically make it just a bit difficult to assess any quality at all. I simply would not even bother trying to interpret the data in its current form.
While far from a good study, nor a good analysis of the data, it does introduce some aspects to think about in terms of what one wants in a relationship. For example, the PopSci phenomenon of Love Languages is not exactly the most scientifically valid measure; but it still has utility in making people in a relationship become more aware in how to listen and more effectively communicate with a partner. [1]
While the study does present the love languages. The section about “love attitudes” seems like it could have similar utility for understanding what one wants in a relationship. Providing some ideas to introspect with about one aims to feel and/or express in a relationship. I'm wondering if anybody here has any good resources on the topic? Since the site and study seems to keep mum on that topic.
My wife and I read the book on love languages just prior to getting married. I don't think it's a scientific fact or anything, more like a well thought out linguistic tool for discussing feelings.
It simplified the process of learning each other's needs and communicating, and through time we've gotten better. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Is there even a consensus that love languages are a valid concept? I ask because it's hard to see how falsifiable the idea is, reading about love languages seems highly "westernized" when love is a universal feeling not bound by culture.
How do love languages apply to women in Saudi Arabia or Papua New Guinea? What about subsistence farming communities in Africa? What about native tribes in Brazil or Colombia?
IDK, love languages seem like any other pop psychology fad like Myers–Briggs or whatever came before it then promptly forgotten.
It's generally used as a starting point for discussing relationship needs. I put this under the flawed but useful category. Although it's really just another way to label yourself to others.
I don't see it as harmful but I'm sure we'll see more about it in the future as it has grown in popularity. Every woman in their 20s/30s I talk to has at one time mentioned it to me which was not the case until about 2 years ago.
I'm sure different cultures will have different ways of expressing affection thus leading to a different set of "Love Languages".
The term "validity" is thrown around a lot but there's no universal measure of psychometric validity. In simple terms, something is valid if it's predictive of something else that is useful (usually a behavior or another construct). There's plenty of studies that investigate the validity of love languages around things like marital satisfaction etc. More importantly, for the purposes of this study which is just based around self-reported preferences (and not psychometric properties), validity doesn't really matter. Reliability does, and there are is plenty of research around the reliability of these scales.
Personally I find it to be a useful model. It's not going to perfectly describe every relationship accurately. But I find it gives me an opportunity to be introspective about a relationship and my contributions to it, including my shortcomings.
Not everything needs to be scientifically rigorous to make a positive impact. Though I agree it's useful to keep in mind the limitations of a given description. MBTI is neat but making it part of a job application feels like a step too far.
that's an interesting take, there is something very deflationary and depressing when one realizes ideals were inflated and unrealistic. Staying practical as a grounding mechanism, fascinating stuff.
All things considered, I was expecting there to be much higher gap between genders and ages.
At only one point is there more than a 10% difference. In my experience men and women claim entirely different wants and needs.
The differences between men and women are usually not as dramatic as standup comedy and television make them out to be. The differences aren't dramatic, but they are statistically significant.
Or any other social institution for that matter: religion, newspapers, families, schools, sports, &c. Social institutions are fundamental or at the very least complicit in the legitimization of the social mechanisms of typification. That is to say, licensing the idea and practice that individual behavior can be simplified to types.
We all know the dangers of using oversimplified models in other contexts, but the same applies here and happens to be one of the largest generators of present conflict. It's a classic map-territory problem applied to people themselves and - whether the map makers know this or not - those who control the maps can sometimes also control the territory.
It's a meta-study based on already "summed-up" attributes, so at least two levels of information loss. And it's hardly qualitative. It can easily say, "both want X", but not touch at all "how" they express this want, or how they perceive X.
Yes, giving identical labels to very different phenomena is a big problem in this kind of survey-based approach.
On Maggie McNeill's blog, one post touched on the idea that women want sex to last longer. She pointed out that women do frequently say this, but what they mean is that they want foreplay to last longer.
In my experience men and women's emotional levels aren't very different but how they respond to those emotions can be different because cultural context must also be navigated. In America it isn't manly to express a deep craving for cuddles, but every heterosexual woman I've met have been surprised by how touch-needy men end up being.
Basically this just tells me that people lie on personality tests, or they interpret questions differently. Behaviorism is the only science in psychology. Question answering should be considered a behavior, and not a reflection of internal characteristics. In that light, you essentially have, among men mostly, a behavior, direct presentation of mating intentions, which has been consistently punished, and the opposite behavior, reflection of female mating desires, which has been inconsistently rewarded. The result is either duplicity or avoidance. It seems that the reverse phenomenon may occur for expectations later in the relationship, as evidenced by females initiating 90% of divorces among college-educated women.
No wonder that a website based around personality testing that describes the author's INTP score would uncritically engage with the ideas of love languages and attitudes - former of which is based on the anecdotal observations of a priest and was never well-validated by science
I think love languages are good tool for getting on the same page 1:1 with a partner, but they're only marginally more useful than horoscopes. Things like "my partner really appreciates if I've got my arm around them while watching a movie" or "my partner appreciates if I get a pot of coffee going while they're in the shower" are good things to establish, and love languages are a good lens to establish them. But so many people want concise objective measures of who people are, and put way more weight on things than they deserve.
Although neither is scientific, as a framework for talking about relationships, love languages are far better than horoscopes because love languages are purely personal preferences and horoscopes are random based on birth date.
Not necessarily, but it is a particular potential flaw in surveys regarding private and intimate subjects, or those affecting social status or self-perception.
I thought I had that desire most of my life and recently figured out that was far more about my major anxiety to be able to provide quality "service" (as the article calls it) in all relationships, from casual conversation to romantic. Obviously, there are still times I want to be alone, but I'm more aware if it's due to anxiety and try to deal with that feeling if it is. That's just what I figured out for myself, not trying to speak for anyone else.
A good thought experiment here would be: If you were magically assured that the other people would be thrilled to be around you, find all your jokes funny, etc (fill in your own fantasies), would you still want to be alone?
That distinguishes between "I truly want to be alone" and "I want to be alone because I am not the person I wish I were".
That's a useful realization. I have come to similar realization for myself in recent years. In case it is useful to others who might see this, I have found it useful to explore this dynamic in myself through the framework of avoidant attachment styles. There are some helpful resources and supportive communities available online for people wanting to find happier/healthier ways of navigating their attachment style. In particular there are a couple of avoidance focused subreddits that I've found supportive and they keep a list of links to other resources that many find helpful.
You're welcome. Just so you are aware, if you go down that route, there are some attachment style resources/communities (even pretty mainstream ones) that demonize avoidant attachment styles a bit, so if you run into that, know that those might not be the best places for someone with avoidant style to look for help but that there are places that are more supportive of us.
That's a really powerful self-discovery. Obviously some people are more introverted than others, but introversion has more to do with how we handle (over)stimulation than it does desire for social connection and acceptance. Humans are incredibly social creatures by nature. Even the most introverted people usually want connection.
I'm extremely fortunate to have a partner that valued what we had enough to stick around for a long time but, this past year, it was starting to reach a breaking point. That lead to big talks, some scary but polite, some loud and angry. A lifetimes worth of under-the-surface stuff all came out over just a few months.
What I think we figured out is that we have "compatible" (co-enabling) anxieties that keep our relationship mostly functional. That feels like a drastic over-simplification but accurate, I think. All I know is it feels like the most emotionally productive year of my life and our relationship is way better now. However, I still haven't figured out how to tone down the anxiety much :)
> What I think we figured out is that we have "compatible" (co-enabling) anxieties
Good news, you're completely normal. Every couple has their unconscious dance both in a positive and negative way.
Barring physical ailments, low vitamin D (etc), the solution for anxiety is do your healing work. Anxiety is often unresolved fear, anger, shame, guilt, etc. Everyone has anxieties, and they have to be dealt with daily.
In my case, I used to want to be in a relationship, but with age the prospect lost all appeal, and people ceased being interesting to me in that way at all. I never get the thoughts "oh, this person is really nice, I wonder whether I should ask them out on a date" anymore. I do however value normal friends a lot more than I used to. Still I need space even from friends. My life wouldn't be as enjoyable without the solitary mountain hikes and shooting photos of animals for hours alone.
I wonder how much the small number of "gift" lovers is because of cultural mores, that if you say, "oh yeah mostly what I want is my significant other gifting me things" you sound like a shallow gold digger.
Gender stereotypes are social issues. They are not international and also differ per age cohorts even in the same region. I would be curious to see the same set of results split into different demographics and not just gender + age cohort.
You are mixing gender roles and sex here. Yes, variables like the ratio of sex hormones will lead to different results but that's not all there is to it.
Matriarchal societies would definitely have different results than a country where women have no rights. Even in countries that are more average in gender equality, how do you explain the difference between countries in the percentage of women in leadership positions or in parliament?
"Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in developed societies (such as France and the United States) compared to less-developed countries (such as Zimbabwe and Malaysia)" ¹ ²
¹ Funder, David (2010). The Personality Puzzle. NY: WW Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-93348-2.
² Costa, P.T.; Terracciano, A.; McCrae, R. R. (August 2001). "Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 81 (2): 322–331. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.2.322. PMID 11519935.
> Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in developed societies (such as France and the United States) compared to less-developed countries (such as Zimbabwe and Malaysia)
One theory I have heard to explain this is that is wealthy societies, men and women are free to follow their own differing inclinations, while in poor undeveloped societies people choose whatever path offers the best economic and survival outcomes.
They haven't made this assumption, they've explicitly stated there was not sufficient data but acknowledged that other people not covered by the survey exist.
intersexuality concerns sex, not gender, where non-binary, genderqueer, etc. individuals exist. The social construct of gender is what is being studied here
EDIT: a striking example of this, they say "women give more gifts" in terms of LL they express, as a finding. But only 32% have this as a top two expressed LL, so a good majority of women don't even have gifts as a top two expressed LL. So, who cares about the percent difference 8%, does it matter? What does it even mean? What if 1% of men did X vs 9% of women? Why would the interesting takeaway be "wow, women are more likely than men to do X!!" vs. "gee, a sheer minority of people do X at all."
Saying the words "women are more likely than men to do X" leaves the reader unfortunately with the impression "many women do X," whereas that might not be true.