A new study published in the January 4 issue of PLoS ONE reveals that men and women have significant personality differences. Differences between men and women and the extent of their differences have long been the issue of debate.
Marco Del Giudice of the University of Turin in Italy and his team have now found a new method to measure and analyze personality differences, which according to them is more accurate than previous methods.
In a study involving over 10,000 individuals, about half of them female and the other half male, the researchers used personality measurements to carry out personality tests that included 15 scales, including traits like warmth, sensitivity, and perfectionism.
When the researchers compared the overall male and female personality profiles after having accounted for multiple traits, they observed differences in each individual trait, although combined these differences where extremely large between the sexes.
The study suggests that earlier measuring strategies for measuring such differences have been inadequate, given that these methods focused only on one trait at a time and also failed to adjust for measurement errors.
The researchers conclude that there has been a consistent underestimation of the true extent of differences in male and female personality traits.
Written by Petra Rattue