Re: Gender and Cognitive Style

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
22 Nov 1998 01:06:31 +0100

Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net> writes:

> Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> > At 12:30 PM 11/20/98 -0500, Mikey wrote:
> >
> > >I would say that since women have a dominant right brain, while men are
> > >dominant left, usually, of course
> >
> > What? *What????* WHAAAAH
>
> Sorry, I don't have any cites or anything. This is just one of the things
> I've heard frequently. I'm perfectly willing for someone to disabuse me of
> the notion....provided they have facts...

When I first read your posting I reacted somewhat like Damien. When I looked up things in Kalat my position softened a bit, but I still think you are exaggerating the difference a lot. There are certainly differences in cognitive style (as your skiing example shows), but I don't think lateralization is the whole story (in that case you would observe many more left handed women than men, and I seem to recall that that isn't true).

The interesting transhumanist question here is of course: how do we change our lateralization? Is it possible using training (possibly augmented by plasticity increasing drugs)? Is it worth the effort?

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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