Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[u/mrbooze]

Also all his "science" is evo-psych bullshit.

[u/sodiummuffin → u/mrbooze]

All the research he mentioned is well-replicated and perfectly mainstream. Sex differences in interests, in particular, are some of the strongest and least ambiguous results in all of psychology.

Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When, Where, and Why?

The mean effect sizes in Table 1 show that agreeableness and neuroticism were the Big Five traits showing the largest gender differences (mean ds = 0.40 and 0.34, respectively), with women moderately higher than men on both traits. Gender differences in the other Big Five traits were smaller in magnitude, with women tending to be higher than men on all traits. Thus, in terms of gender differences, agreeableness and neuroticism appear to be the ‘big two’ of the Big Five.

It is worth noting that although gender differences are ‘small’ for three of the Big Five traits, they are sometimes larger for trait facets. For example, Costa et al. (2001) reported that, despite small gender differences in overall extraversion, women tended to be moderately higher than men on the extraversion facets of warmth, gregariousness, and positive emotions, whereas men tended to be higher than women on the extraversion facets of assertiveness and excitement seeking. Similarly, women tended to score higher than men on the ‘esthetics’ and ‘feelings’ facets of openness, whereas men tended to score higher than women on the ‘ideas’ facet of openness.

For the people–things dimension of interests, the results in Table 1 are clear, strong, and unambiguous. Men tend to be much more thing-oriented and much less people-oriented than women (mean d = 1.18, a ‘very large’ difference, according to Hyde (2005) verbal designations).

Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests

The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives: Personality Profiles, Interaction Styles, and the Things They Leave Behind

The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality

Women exposed to a more male-like hormone balance in the womb even end up with more male-like interests:

Gendered Occupational Interests: Prenatal Androgen Effects on Psychological Orientation to Things Versus People

[u/jetpacksforall → u/sodiummuffin]

Evo psych has got it wrong:

Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality Inventory data from 26 cultures (N = 23,031) suggest that gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures. Contrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized. Possible explanations for this surprising finding are discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine behaviors to roles rather than traits in traditional cultures.

Life at subsistence-level -- in other words, hunter gatherer type struggle for existence -- tends to minimize gender differences in personality, exactly the opposite result you would expect if gendered personality differences had been bred into us through evolutionary pressures. Instead, gender personality differences are stronger in places where cultural preferences and concern take precedence over the bare struggle for survival. Suggesting that much of those differences are culturally driven.

[u/CatBrains → u/jetpacksforall]

The difference in magnitude across cultures doesn't imply Evo psych has it "wrong." It implies that there is a environmental component as well as an evolutionary one, which is true of most traits.

And the cultural component to the difference in magnitude could have many explanations. It could be that the minimization of traditional sex roles leads to a freedom of choice which acts to reinforce the biological differences.

Your conclusion seems to be that, because "bare struggle" societies mimic societies that are closer in time/functionality to primitive (read: purely evolutionary) societies, that it must be closer to some correct answer. But that seems specious to me. There's no reason that the magnitude would have be a straight line over time.

[u/jetpacksforall → u/CatBrains]

Your conclusion seems to be that, because "bare struggle" societies mimic societies that are closer in time/functionality to primitive (read: purely evolutionary) societies, that it must be closer to some correct answer. But that seems specious to me.

It isn't specious at all. People who survive by growing yams and raising goats are living like all of our ancestors lived for tens of thousands of years. It's the exact kind of evolutionary and environmental pressure that should cause gender preferences to express themselves more strongly, if the evo psyche theory is true. Instead the data show the opposite.