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Malmesbury's avatar

What does this mean for the claim that men's g-factor is higher than women's, that I think you mentioned some time ago?

According to a cursory search, it looks like women have been doing consistently better at mind-reading than men, with effect sizes around 0.2:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2022.100162

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-09240-009

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2022385119

Here's my interpretation, correct me if I'm wrong:

1. The g-factor and g-loadings are calculated by factor analysis based on a collection of various cognitive tasks

2. These collections typically *do not* include mind-reading tasks (even though mind-reading is arguably a cognitive task, what else could it be?)

3. If we were to include the RMET (and similar emotion-related tasks) into the datasets used to calibrate the g-factor, that would rotate the vector a little bit, and slightly change the loadings of the different tasks

4. That would slightly increase the average IQ score of women and decrease the average of men, possibly explaining a part of the gender gap

5. That may or may not improve the accuracy of IQ scores for predicting job performance/anti-social behaviour/etc (I suspect that recognizing emotions is relevant for job performance, at least in some jobs)

Am I understanding this correctly?

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BWS92082's avatar

I always wondered how the "correct" emotion of the eyes was determined by the test's creators. A poll? Interviews with the subjects in the photos?

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