Whether women and men are psychologically very similar or quite different is a contentious issue in psychological science. This article clarifies this issue by demonstrating that larger and smaller sex/gender differences can reflect differing ways of organizing the same data. For single psychological constructs, larger differences emerge from averaging multiple indicators that differ by sex/gender to produce scales of a construct’s overall typicality for women versus men. For example, averaging self-ratings on personality traits more typical of women or men yields much larger sex/gender differences on measures of the femininity and masculinity of personality. Sex/gender differences on such broad-gauge, thematic variables are large relative to differences on their component indicators. This increased effect magnitude for aggregated scales reflects gains in both their reliability and validity as indicators of sex/gender. In addition, in psychological domains such as vocational interests that are composed of many variables, at least some of which differ by sex/gender, the multivariate distance between women and men is typically larger than the differences on the component variables. These analyses encourage recognition of the interdependence of sex/gender similarity and difference in psychological data.

中文翻译：

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了解男女心理差异的幅度需要看到森林和树木

女性和男性在心理上是否非常相似或完全不同是心理科学中一个有争议的问题。本文通过证明更大和更小的性别/性别差异可以反映组织相同数据的不同方式来阐明这个问题。对于单一的心理构念，更大的差异来自于对因性别/性别不同的多个指标进行平均，以产生一个构念对女性与男性的整体典型性的量表。例如，对女性或男性更典型的人格特征进行平均自我评价会在人格的女性气质和男性气质方面产生更大的性别/性别差异。相对于其组成指标的差异，在如此广泛的主题变量上的性别/性别差异很大。汇总量表的这种增加的影响幅度反映了它们作为性别/性别指标的可靠性和有效性的提高。此外，在诸如职业兴趣等由许多变量组成的心理领域中，其中至少有一些因性别/性别而异，女性和男性之间的多元距离通常大于组成变量的差异。这些分析鼓励人们认识到性别/性别相似性和心理数据差异的相互依存关系。女性和男性之间的多元距离通常大于成分变量的差异。这些分析鼓励人们认识到性别/性别相似性和心理数据差异的相互依存关系。女性和男性之间的多元距离通常大于成分变量的差异。这些分析鼓励人们认识到性别/性别相似性和心理数据差异的相互依存关系。