Suppose that some researchers conduct a study about cognitive abilities, and they find a relatively large gender difference. From this information, you would expect to find that
a. the overlap in the frequency distributions for males and females will be relatively small.
b. the gender difference is likely to be biologically based (e.g., caused by hormonal differences).
c. the same results are likely to be obtained if the study is conducted in a different social setting.
d. the same results are likely to be obtained if the study is conducted with participants who are either older or younger.
Question 2Suppose that researchers have tested a group of high school students on a cognitive task, using well-controlled conditions. Then they created graphs for the scores of the males and females, and they found that the two graphs had only a small overlap. Which of the following conclusions would be most likely?
a. One of the two groups must have greater variability.
b. The researchers probably selected biased samples.
c. The two genders probably differ in their skill on this task.
d. The researchers' findings are consistent with the results of other studies, where there are substantial gender differences on cognitive tasks.
Question 3According to the discussion at the beginning of the section on gender comparisons in cognitive abilities, there is usually a large overlap in the distribution of females' and males' scores. An important implication of this finding is that
a. on most tests, most men score higher than most women.
b. researchers' expectations probably caused the overlap.
c. men's scores are more variable than women's scores.
d. many men and women will receive similar scores.
Question 4One important point discussed at the beginning of Chapter 5 is that females and males typically have overlapping distributions for their scores on cognitive tests. Which of the following statements is not a reasonable conclusion from this finding?
a. Many males and females receive similar scores.
b. You can often find a male-female pair whose scores are the reverse of the general trend.
c. The samples are likely to be biased.
d. The variability within each group is usually larger than the size of the gender difference.
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