My model would be something like, people self-select into different majors, so the political/gender differences in the general population would get exaggerated by getting selected into universities.
Similar to how if you were to e.g. take a sample of programmers and a sample of nurses and union them together, the sex differences in interests in the combined sample would probably be like d~2 or d~3 or so rather than the d~1 you'd get from the general population.
(I guess strictly speaking controlling for ascertainment origin would probably overcontrol for this effect, so maybe that's not the best way of doing it. Idk what the best way would be, short of getting a general-population sample, which brings its own difficulties.)
Though the fact that you find relatively small differences by major in the plot in the link suggests my assumption about it confounding the results was wrong.
I don't know why you think the university self-selection would amplify rather than reduce sex differences. Men and women who go to university are selected mostly on the same traits, not different ones.
STEM vs the Humanities (to make it polar for a moment) work with very different ways of thinking/ methodology, even definitions of what is to be considered as knowledge. It is not the same traits that self-select for them and it is not the same traits selection from the side of the university happens upon, at least not in our days. Simply not possible because in the humanities you don't even have the hard tools for selection as it can be done in STEM. The traits might go down to basic cognitive differences, of which IQ might be one, but also what S. Baron-Cohen describes as male brain vs female brain, including hyper-male brain. Not sure if this is a question of averages, it might be a question of distributions. It could even be the tiny upper tail that makes the difference. Meaning: Could it be, that, the smaller the (anyway always small) number of hypermale brains (in the S. Baron-Cohen definition, which is not so clear and probably partly wrong) in an academic field, the more broken it will be in our days? Geoffrey Miller has also touched on that. Cory Clark also.
Mainly through differences in major. Like if Comp Sci is 90% male and selects for people who don't care so much about well-being but a lot about rigor and advancing knowledge, while psychology is 80% female and selects for people who care a lot about wellbeing and not so much about rigor.
I suspect adjusting results for major might offer some evidence that more scientifically minded women care more about knowledge advancement than the females in gender studies, and vice versa for men. Yes. Males majoring in art vs engineering might run the same way. However, on the whole, I find it telling we even require this type of study in the first place when our eyes have already told us for thousands of years what studies like this seem to simply confirm. Generally speaking, women care more about group think. Because of this, which has a real positive benefit to families and tribal groups - and even larger racial groups - they are easier to condition around issues and ideas of belonging and "social justice," which is simply Bolshevik-speak of preference for foreign out-groups over one's own group in the name of "kindness" (a word which ironically derives from "kin"). They are more susceptible to "modifying the standards of the in-group" per Samuel Flowerman (via Andrew Joyce of the Occidental Observer). I'd argue this is the biggest reason why we see so many women in college now in the first place. They were brought there of a purpose.
It isn't the major - for the most part. It's the women. It's the men.
What do women tend to major in more? And where they're gravitating more toward STEM these days, why is that - and is there a correlation between calls to "intersectionalize" it (de-male and de-White the, specifically, male White creation of and influence in modern science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the very first place) and the amount of women now pursuing STEM, and the amount of non-White college admissions to STEM programs (usually in spite of lower scores and capability)? Are these also correlated with the amount of "Liberal" - which is a lacking descriptor - influence (policy makers, admissions, financial aid, media publicity, etc. etc. ) in bringing women in who never really had much of an interest before modernity beat them over the head that they should, as well as non-White male groups - into, again, colleges and universities established by White males - in the first place? Of course there is. Of course there is a correlation. Individuals don't exist in nature. If one can't go to "STEM" programs without males - White males - first being born and then creating the possibility of those things, the systems of measurement, the classification, the tools, the buildings with sewers beneath them and running water and lights, well...
Reminds me of Carl Sagan, "If you want to make an apple pie, first you have to create the Universe."
This may come off as a rant. The idea that it might just be the major kind of stuck out.
There's been a certain amount of keeping women out of areas of learning - I think this is true. And there are exceptions to everything. So encouraging capable women toward trying on new things might make some sense. However, on the whole, is it really just conditioning that kept most women in secretarial work, early childhood education and psychology for so long? If not, why are we so surprised to see research confirming males seem to care less about feels, and women care more?
How nice would it be if humans weren't herded like cows - and we just found the places that naturally fit ourselves, to benefit our own, rather than allow ourselves be told what we should prefer, and herded from one place to the next.
It isn't the major by and large. It's the sex. If this study were only on English or History majors - Humanities majors - I have little doubt the findings would be the same.
I agree. As one who spent a lifetime in the university, not all majors are the same—nor attract the same personality types. We always had the Liberal Arts “soft sciences” like sociology and such, then there was STEM. Of course the soft sciences became worse over the years as pseudo disciplines like”Gender Studies” and the like were created for the marginal student to major in.
Interesting that as "wellbeing" goes up, "advance knowledge" goes down, and in the same way, "social justice" looks inversely related to "academic rigor".
Are these the competing interests that lie on a spectrum:
wellbeing< - >knowledge (emotion vs. fact gathering)
social justice< - >rigor (not sure what the tradeoff here is, maybe an implicit acknowledgement that meritocracy sacrifices diversity?)
Psychology, sociology and anthropology are female and "minority "ethnic group dominated majors and provide the foundation for the whole "social justice"mindset
I regret to inform you but…
I think it would be nice to adjust the results for major, since intuitively I'd expect that to be the primary confounder.
You mean majors change people's opinions (sort of true confounding), or majors as proxies of broader beliefs? Here's a plot. https://x.com/KirkegaardEmil/status/1916588757014249722
My model would be something like, people self-select into different majors, so the political/gender differences in the general population would get exaggerated by getting selected into universities.
Similar to how if you were to e.g. take a sample of programmers and a sample of nurses and union them together, the sex differences in interests in the combined sample would probably be like d~2 or d~3 or so rather than the d~1 you'd get from the general population.
(I guess strictly speaking controlling for ascertainment origin would probably overcontrol for this effect, so maybe that's not the best way of doing it. Idk what the best way would be, short of getting a general-population sample, which brings its own difficulties.)
Though the fact that you find relatively small differences by major in the plot in the link suggests my assumption about it confounding the results was wrong.
I don't know why you think the university self-selection would amplify rather than reduce sex differences. Men and women who go to university are selected mostly on the same traits, not different ones.
STEM vs the Humanities (to make it polar for a moment) work with very different ways of thinking/ methodology, even definitions of what is to be considered as knowledge. It is not the same traits that self-select for them and it is not the same traits selection from the side of the university happens upon, at least not in our days. Simply not possible because in the humanities you don't even have the hard tools for selection as it can be done in STEM. The traits might go down to basic cognitive differences, of which IQ might be one, but also what S. Baron-Cohen describes as male brain vs female brain, including hyper-male brain. Not sure if this is a question of averages, it might be a question of distributions. It could even be the tiny upper tail that makes the difference. Meaning: Could it be, that, the smaller the (anyway always small) number of hypermale brains (in the S. Baron-Cohen definition, which is not so clear and probably partly wrong) in an academic field, the more broken it will be in our days? Geoffrey Miller has also touched on that. Cory Clark also.
Mainly through differences in major. Like if Comp Sci is 90% male and selects for people who don't care so much about well-being but a lot about rigor and advancing knowledge, while psychology is 80% female and selects for people who care a lot about wellbeing and not so much about rigor.
I suspect adjusting results for major might offer some evidence that more scientifically minded women care more about knowledge advancement than the females in gender studies, and vice versa for men. Yes. Males majoring in art vs engineering might run the same way. However, on the whole, I find it telling we even require this type of study in the first place when our eyes have already told us for thousands of years what studies like this seem to simply confirm. Generally speaking, women care more about group think. Because of this, which has a real positive benefit to families and tribal groups - and even larger racial groups - they are easier to condition around issues and ideas of belonging and "social justice," which is simply Bolshevik-speak of preference for foreign out-groups over one's own group in the name of "kindness" (a word which ironically derives from "kin"). They are more susceptible to "modifying the standards of the in-group" per Samuel Flowerman (via Andrew Joyce of the Occidental Observer). I'd argue this is the biggest reason why we see so many women in college now in the first place. They were brought there of a purpose.
It isn't the major - for the most part. It's the women. It's the men.
What do women tend to major in more? And where they're gravitating more toward STEM these days, why is that - and is there a correlation between calls to "intersectionalize" it (de-male and de-White the, specifically, male White creation of and influence in modern science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the very first place) and the amount of women now pursuing STEM, and the amount of non-White college admissions to STEM programs (usually in spite of lower scores and capability)? Are these also correlated with the amount of "Liberal" - which is a lacking descriptor - influence (policy makers, admissions, financial aid, media publicity, etc. etc. ) in bringing women in who never really had much of an interest before modernity beat them over the head that they should, as well as non-White male groups - into, again, colleges and universities established by White males - in the first place? Of course there is. Of course there is a correlation. Individuals don't exist in nature. If one can't go to "STEM" programs without males - White males - first being born and then creating the possibility of those things, the systems of measurement, the classification, the tools, the buildings with sewers beneath them and running water and lights, well...
Reminds me of Carl Sagan, "If you want to make an apple pie, first you have to create the Universe."
This may come off as a rant. The idea that it might just be the major kind of stuck out.
There's been a certain amount of keeping women out of areas of learning - I think this is true. And there are exceptions to everything. So encouraging capable women toward trying on new things might make some sense. However, on the whole, is it really just conditioning that kept most women in secretarial work, early childhood education and psychology for so long? If not, why are we so surprised to see research confirming males seem to care less about feels, and women care more?
How nice would it be if humans weren't herded like cows - and we just found the places that naturally fit ourselves, to benefit our own, rather than allow ourselves be told what we should prefer, and herded from one place to the next.
It isn't the major by and large. It's the sex. If this study were only on English or History majors - Humanities majors - I have little doubt the findings would be the same.
I agree. As one who spent a lifetime in the university, not all majors are the same—nor attract the same personality types. We always had the Liberal Arts “soft sciences” like sociology and such, then there was STEM. Of course the soft sciences became worse over the years as pseudo disciplines like”Gender Studies” and the like were created for the marginal student to major in.
"Who values academic rigor and freedom?
Women, leftism, and leftist women"
You have the question mark in the wrong place. It should read Who values academic rigor and freedom.
Women, leftism, and leftist women?
"It looks like the more women we get into academia, the less of a university it will be and the more of a left-wing emotional playground it will be."
Excellent point.
With hindsight, it's flabbergasting that people thought the Age of Aquarius would be a good thing!
The problem is that wellbeing and happiness are byproducts of fulfilling other goals.
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." - Charles Goodhart
I think we can solve the gendered bathroom problem by just segregating the entire building
Interesting that as "wellbeing" goes up, "advance knowledge" goes down, and in the same way, "social justice" looks inversely related to "academic rigor".
Are these the competing interests that lie on a spectrum:
wellbeing< - >knowledge (emotion vs. fact gathering)
social justice< - >rigor (not sure what the tradeoff here is, maybe an implicit acknowledgement that meritocracy sacrifices diversity?)
Psychology, sociology and anthropology are female and "minority "ethnic group dominated majors and provide the foundation for the whole "social justice"mindset
Women: "Waily-waily" (a'la Terry Pratchett). Men: "don't harsh my mellow". Same as it ever was.