We have all heard the expression that women come from Venus and men come from Mars.

Traditionally, each sex has been attributed markedly different personality characteristics, something that research in psychology has always been interested in addressing, not without finding controversy along the way.

What are the differences in personality between men and women? Are they as striking as believed? is it due to the culture or are there really biological factors behind them that explain them? we will try to solve these questions in this article.

Personality differences between men and women

The fact that women are attributed different personality traits from men is not surprising. Everyone, even if they do not recognise it, has a preconceived idea of what masculinity and femininity is and, therefore, also has, to a greater or lesser extent, prejudices associated with people belonging to one of the two biological sexes.

The psychological differences between men and women have always aroused interest, not only from personality psychologists, but also from philosophers, artists, doctors and many others.

The traditional image in the West is that men are less sensitive than women, with a greater degree of emotional stability. Women have been associated with tenderness, warmth, empathy and sympathy, while men are seen more as tough and distant. In addition, and according to collective thinking, men with traditionally feminine traits or women with masculine ones, in the most sexist cases, are seen as less men or less women, respectively.

In any case, what we can see is that traditionally personality differences have been associated with the categories of men and women. The big question behind it has been whether these were really as markedly significant as they have always been assumed to be and to what extent they depended on what is culturally gender or what is biologically sex.

Research over the last twenty years has partially agreed. It has given strength, although relative, to the classic ideas of what men and women are like in terms of personality, agreeing that personality traits in both sexes have a high inheritance component and remain stable throughout a person’s development.

Gender Differences and the Five-Factor Model

When talking about personality traits in psychology, the following definition is often used: consistencies in a person’s affection, thinking and behaviour that remain more or less stable throughout situations and individual development, having a high predictability throughout the person’s life.

Within the study of personality, the most used conceptualization is the one proposed by Robert McCrae and Paul Costa , the Five Factor Model. This model divides the personality into five dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, cordiality and responsibility. Each of these dimensions is made up of facets, which help to pinpoint, in a fine line, the person’s personality.

Within extraversion there are several facets, among which we can take assertiveness and positive emotions as examples. Two people can be, in quantitative terms, equally extraverted, but one can be more assertive while the other can have more positive emotions.

In 2001, McCrae and Costa, together with their colleague Antonio Terracciano, conducted research on gender differences between cultures, to elucidate what the differences between both genders were and whether they were consistent across cultures . That is, if what was traditionally seen in the West, insensitive men and cordial women, was something that also occurred in other cultures and to what degree. The following is a summary of their findings going from dimension to dimension.

1. Neuroticism

Neuroticism refers to negative affect, that is, those personality traits that make a person prone to suffer from anxiety, anger, depression and other stressful emotions .

Both McCrae and Costa, as well as other researchers before and after their study, have found that there are indeed important differences in this dimension between men and women.

In the vast majority of studies it is observed that women have higher scores in this dimension compared to men . This may also be related to the risk of suffering psychological disorders. It is not surprising that, with women having the highest scores in this type of trait, they are also the demographic group with the greatest risk of suffering mental disorders such as depression and anxiety disorders.

Among anxiety disorders, disorders such as phobias, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety, and panic attack disorder are much more common in women. Disorders such as major depression, dysthymia, and borderline personality disorders are also more common in women.

However, it should be noted that within the neuroticism dimension there is one aspect that has attracted the attention of researchers, since it seems to relate very differently from study to study between men and women. It is the case of anger, or rather hostility . Some studies have found that men have higher levels of hostility than women, something that would coincide with the traditional image of the violent man that is held in cultures such as the Mediterranean.

However, in other studies this is not the case. Either women are seen to have greater hostility, usually verbalized rather than converted into physical aggression, or both genders are seen to have no difference in this regard.

2. Extraversion and cordiality

If we go back to the first studies on personality differences between men and women, as is the case with Bern (1974), we can find that, when dealing with interpersonal traits, we talk about femininity and masculinity.

These dimensions, which today are highly criticized, would refer to which features related to extraversion and cordiality would be associated to women and which to men. Basically, according to traditional models, masculinity is referred to as a measure of dominance , while femininity is referred to in terms of kindness, tenderness, love, care for upbringing…

Subsequent studies, which avoid using such controversial labels as masculinity and femininity, have attempted to address the two related dimensions: extraversion and kindness/cordiality. In McCrae and Costa’s model, extraversion would be related to the male dominance of the traditional model, while kindness would be related to the desire to please and not generate hostility, more related to femininity.

Women, according to research, tend to be more oriented towards kindness and tenderness . However, it is worth noting that there are studies that seem to indicate that women are more extraverted and, in others, that they are less so.

Within the extraversion dimension, there are two facets where there are differences in terms of gender. Women score higher on the warmth facet, while men are more assertive.

3. Openness to experience

Men and women are viewed differently in terms of their cognitive style. This does not mean that one gender is more intelligent than the other, but that the way they choose to expand their cultural and knowledge level is different .

In the West, from a philosophical perspective, men have been seen as being guided by reason while women are guided by emotions, using both terms as opposites.

Within the Five-Factor Model, and avoiding the pejorative use that has traditionally been made of this contraposition, differences have been seen within the dimension of openness to experience depending on gender.

It is not that there are differences in terms of the dimension of openness to experience, but with respect to facets within it. Women score more on facets such as aesthetics and feelings, while men score more on the facet of ideas .

Women are also more sensitive to emotions. For example, in a study carried out by Eisenberg’s group (1989), evidence was found that the female gender was better able to express and identify non-verbal language.

4. Responsibility

The studies here are not clear. On the one hand, significant differences can be found during adolescence in terms of responsibility, with boys being much less responsible than girls. However, as you grow up, things seem to even out.

What is remarkable is that men have traditionally been seen as less responsible, especially for carrying out acts of ‘courage’ or basically taking risks that may endanger their physical integrity. This search for dangerous situations would be related to a strategy to achieve status within the peer group.

Explanations behind gender differences in personality

When it comes to dealing with human behaviour and its heritability, theories have always been proposed, some taking into account biological aspects and others focusing on social factors. This has been part of the now classic debate on parenting and inheritance, also called ‘nature vs. nurture’. In the following we will look at the two main approaches to explain why there are personality differences between men and women.

Biological theories

These theories argue that sex-related differences are due to innate factors that have evolved through natural selection . Evolutionary psychology holds that the sexes differ in domains that have adaptive importance depending on whether one is male or female.

.

For example, females in mammals have the ability to become pregnant, in addition to carrying out actions such as breeding and nursing.

This would explain why human women are more likely to have a good relationship with their offspring. Women who are kinder and behave with warmth and tenderness towards their children promote the survival of their children if this evolutionary approach is taken.

Other biological theories that have been put forward to explain why women are more prone to problems related to neuroticism, especially depression, have to do with hormones.

Although this has not been entirely clear over the decades, the possibility has been raised that hormones such as estrogens influence the emotional stability and also the very personality of individuals.

The possibility has also been raised that different levels of androgens during earlier development influence aspects such as interests, activities and the manifestation of violent behaviour.

Sociocultural theories

On the other hand, social psychology has defended the idea that gender differences are due to factors more related to the culture itself . Depending on the social role that men and women are expected to play in a certain culture, they will try to behave accordingly.

This pressure, already present since childhood, makes people of both genders end up internalizing the personality traits expected of them, making them part of this personality. These theories are accompanied by a controversy as to whether gender roles are purely cultural creations or are something that has a biological basis and that culture has taken it upon itself to exaggerate.

Cross-cultural studies

In an attempt to clarify the importance of biology and culture in relation to gender differences, McCrae and Costa, along with a large number of other personality psychologists in an infinite number of studies have made this approach in multiple cultures.

Cross-cultural studies, that is, studies carried out in several cultures, allow obtaining evidence about the relative importance of biological aspects with respect to cultural ones in gender differences. The idea is that, if personality traits are influenced more by genetics than by the environment, then it is to be expected that the same patterns are repeated around the world.

As we already indicated in the previous section, one of the explanations within the biological theories would be the fact that men and women, by possessing different types of hormones, would consequently have different personality traits, being remarkable the relation of female hormones with emotional instability.

It should be noted that certain patterns have been found in most cultures, the classic one being that women are more cordial and sensitive than men. However, taking into account how globalized the world is today , is it possible to know to what extent this is not an influence of Western culture on the media?

If a historical review is made, it can be seen that, traditionally in most cultures the role of leader, who as a rule must be assertive and even violent, has been attributed to men, who bring together, according to stereotypical ideas of gender, these traits.

Bibliographic references:

  • Costa, P. T., Jr., Terracciano, A., & McCrae, R. R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(2), 322-331.
  • Del Giudice, M., Booth, T., and Irwing, P. (2012). The distance between Mars and Venus: Measuring global sex differences in personality. PLoS ONE 7(1): e29265.
  • Kajonius, P. & Johnson, J. (2018). Sex differences in 30 facets of the five factor model of personality in the large public (N = 320,128). Personality and Individual Differences,129, 126-130.