Bjorklund and Kipp (1996) hypothesized that due to selection processes operative during human evolution, females have an inborn advantage over males in the ability to suppress inappropriate responses on tasks in the behavioral and social domains. To test this hypothesis, a meta-analysis was conducted on gender differences on simple delay tasks in which the participant is required to wait for a “go” signal before making an approach response to an enticing stimulus. The meta-analysis was performed on 113 effect sizes derived from 102 studies of 21,378 children who ranged in age from 1 year to 9 years and who lived in at least 15 countries. As hypothesized, girls exceeded boys in delay ability, with the gender differences being small in magnitude (Hedges’ g = .25–.26). The female advantage in delay ability held for both U.S. and non-U.S. samples of children. Further analyses found that girls outperformed boys on each of four simple delay tasks. Although the magnitude of the gender difference on the individual simple delay tasks did not differ as a function of age, the age ranges covered were narrow. Discussion focuses on two issues: (a) whether gender differences in delay ability can be explained by a factor other than inhibitory control and (b) whether parental socialization processes can explain the gender differences in delay ability. The evidence reviewed does not provide substantial support for either of these possibilities.

Bjorklund 和 Kipp (1996) 假设，由于人类进化过程中的选择过程，女性在抑制对行为和社会领域任务的不当反应方面比男性具有先天优势。为了验证这一假设，对简单延迟任务的性别差异进行了荟萃分析，在这些任务中，参与者需要等待“开始”信号，然后才能对诱人的刺激做出接近反应。荟萃分析对来自 102 项研究的 113 个效应量进行了分析，这些研究涉及 21,378 名年龄从 1 岁到 9 岁且居住在至少 15 个国家的儿童。正如假设的那样，女孩的延迟能力超过男孩，性别差异很小（Hedges' g= .25–.26）。美国和非美国儿童样本在延迟能力方面的女性优势。进一步的分析发现，在四项简单的延迟任务中，女孩的表现均优于男孩。尽管单个简单延迟任务的性别差异幅度不随年龄而变化，但涵盖的年龄范围很窄。讨论集中在两个问题上：(a) 延迟能力的性别差异是否可以用抑制控制以外的因素来解释；(b) 父母的社会化过程是否可以解释延迟能力的性别差异。审查的证据并未为这两种可能性中的任何一种提供实质性支持。