PSYC 2740 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16: Minimum Programme, Effect Size, Gender Role

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2740
• Professor: Carol Anne Hendry

Document Summary

Large difference: minimalists and maximalists, those who describe sex differences as small and inconsequential take the minimalist position and offer two arguments. The first is that, empirically, most findings of sex differences show small magnitudes of effect. Minimalists tend to emphasize that the distributions of men and women on any given personality variable show tremendous overlap, which reflect their small magnitude of effect. A second argument advanced by minimalists is that whatever differences exist do not have much practical importance for behaviour in everyday life. If the sex differences are small and don"t have consequences for people"s lives, then perhaps we should concentrate on other psychological issues that are more important. In contrast, those who take a maximalist position tend to argue that the magnitude of sex differences is comparable to the magnitude of many other effects in psychology and should not be trivialized.