Three types of people were revealed through our study: one for whom empathy is stronger than systemizing (Type E brains); another for whom systemizing is stronger than empathy (Type S brains); and a third for whom empathy and systemizing are equally strong (Type B brains). As one might predict, more women (44 percent) have Type E brains than men (17 percent), while more men have Type S brains (54 percent) than women (17 percent).As you may have noticed, scientific findings that put women in a bad light are frowned upon, but don't worry. The NYT op-ed I've just quoted goes on to say this:
According to what I have called the "extreme male brain" theory of autism, people with autism simply match an extreme of the male profile, with a particularly intense drive to systemize and an unusually low drive to empathize. When adults with Asperger's syndrome (a subgroup on the autistic spectrum) took the same questionnaires we gave to non-autistic adults, they exhibited extreme Type S brains. Psychological tests reveal a similar pattern.The author of this piece, Simon Baron-Cohen, posits that the increase in autism is "the genetic result of 'assortative mating,'" as two strong systematizers have children together. He doesn't go on to say it, but it seems necessary, if this is to be the theory, to have an idea why more strong systematizers are mating these days.
And this analysis makes sense. It helps explain the social disability in autism, because empathy difficulties make it harder to make and maintain relationships with others. It also explains the "islets of ability" that people with autism display in subjects like math or music or drawing - all skills that benefit from systemizing.
It's outrageously politically incorrect to go where that theory seems to be headed and say that the women's movement is to blame for autism. More women in the workplace means that more men meet and bond with women who share whatever brain type they have. It thus becomes more likely that two extreme brain types will have children together. In the pre-feminist set-up, men would be more likely to mate with women who would nuture and care for them. Her empathizing brain type would moderate his and save their children from autism. But in the modern world with equality of the sexes in a relationship, the man is much more likely to mate with someone who shares his qualities of mind. I'm not saying I believe this is what is happening. I'm just noting that this criticism of the women's movement is lurking inside Baron-Cohen's theory of autism.
IN THE COMMENTS: People scramble to deny what must not be permitted to be true!
ADDED THOUGHT: We shouldn't be afraid to discover the truth. If there is, in fact, something like an "S brain" and if the offspring of two "S brain"ers has a high risk of autism, the solution would not be to exclude women from the scientific workplace (obviously!) or even to discourage two "S brain"ers from marrying. It's just a matter of giving good genetic advice to persons planning to become parents so that they can choose to have children by artificial insemination if they don't think the risk is appropriate. But I don't know enough about autism to have an opinion about whether the condition really is such that we should try to prevent autistic children from being born. It may be that the two "S brain"ers would produce an extraordinary individual, who might be difficult for us to understand but who would bring great gifts into the world, which we should want to see and embrace.
Posts
34 comments:
I started to read your entry and thought that it looked awfully familiar. I may have commented here earlier that I had recently read a book entitled "The Essential Difference", and it turns out to be by the author of this article.
What might be missed if you don't read his book, is that he is talking about means of bell curves, when he is talking about a male brain and a female brain. Indeed, he includes numerous graphs illustrating this. The mean of the male "sysemizing" bell curve is to the right of the female mean, whereas the mean of the female "emphathizing" curve is to the right of the male mean.
Which ties right into what Larry Summers was saying, that the most outstanding, say, physicists, are out in the extreme tails of the ("systemizing") bell curve, and thus, since the male mean is to the right of the female mean, out in the end of the tail, there are going to be a fair number more males than females.
This doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of good female scientists and engineers out there, and that there can't be quite a few more, but rather that it is likely that males are going to continue to predominate at the Nobel Prize level.
Also note that this isn't an either/or dichotomy. We all fall somewhere on a two dimensional grid. He includes in his book tests for these traits (that I have queried him on). I score quite high on "systemizing", but above average on "emphathizing", despite being male. It is just that, on average, males score higher on systemizing than on emphatizing, and females the opposite.
I am not sure if the author's jump to equating autism, and its less severe cousin, Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is as strong as his original point on male and female brain tendencies.
But I did find that part of the book quite interesting from a personal point of view. It is likely that my girlfriend is borderline (but functional) AS. Because of the predominence of males in the ranks of both autism and AS, much more has been done detecting and working with them. It appears that females are often harder to detect, as the author points out at the end of his book. He kindly referred me to a couple of references, written by women (one with AS) that have been quite helpful.
Bruce: The bell curve of it isn't missing from the article.
Agreed. I reread the article before you pointed this out. Sorry.
Annpundit asks over at Instapundit:
'DOES "ASSORTATIVE MATING" CAUSE AUTISM? Simon Baron-Cohen theorizes that the condition may result from the mating of two "Type S"-brained individuals.'
Interesting question. I think yes. The author has found that parents of autistic kids score higher on the systemizing tests than average, and that they also have a larger percentage of grandfathers who were both either engineers or scientists.
So, I worry about my grandkids. My daughter has strong systemizing from all four grandparents. The only grandparent who would have been questionable was my father, and, even though an attorney, he tested high enough during WWII to be placed in an engineering program at U. Ill. (where he met my mother, who was the outstanding science student there in 1944). Her father was an artillary officer and chemical engineer. On my ex's side, her father was an electrical engineer, as was her mother's brother. No surprise - we met on a software project.
So, I am going to warn her that if she ends up marrying someone with a similar background, they just might have autistic, or at least AS, boys.
Luckily, my girlfriend had had a hysterectomy long before we ever met. We figure that if we had had the kids we wanted together, that there would have been a decent chance at AS, esp. given that she is probably borderline.
So, this is probably as good an explanation as any as to why certain schools in Silicon Valley have such high incidences of autism and AS.
I am not sure that this interbreeding is totally a bad thing. It has been suggested that both Newton and Einstein were at least borderline AS. At the bottom of the article was a link to other related articles, including one that suggested that maybe the problem with "treating" autism and AS, esp. with bright kids, is that it is being done wrong because they misunderstand what is going on, and that if viewed as extreme systemizing behavior, many of the weird and odd behaviors of the autistic become more understandable.
In other words, since there may be a tie between extreme systemizing and Nobel level physics, etc., it may be advantageous for society to deal with this apparent side effect in a more humane and productive way.
Stranger: You can delete your own post and rewrite. In rewriting, consider that I'm only discussing probabilities, so to point out that something isn't necessarily so doesn't contradict what I've said.
I think that the point is that one of the best ways to meet your future spouse is in the workplace. But that means that if you are working in a job that requires a lot of Systemizing, that your mate is more likely to be the same, just from proximity.
As noted, it sure happened to me. I met my ex on a software project. We are both fairly high "S" types, and have such from both of our respective parents. So, no surprise that our daughter is also a high "S" type, though I think she has a lot more "E" than her mother.
And I think that she is attracted to "S" types. The guy she was hot for the last two years of middle school was the one person in her grade who could beat her in math.
So, the worry is that because of proximity, the number of high "S" types marrying each other is apparently increasing, maybe dramatically, and possibly could be resulting in an increase in autism and/or AS.
Assortive mating could also be the result of meeting a mate in other situations not limited to work. It seems likely that large university departments collect people differently than small colleges. Or that attending graduate schools increase the likelihood. Might not knowing this give potential partners a rational basis for a more varied social life?
I agree with the Annpunidit here. We are really only talking possibilities here. I have seen concerns that there has been a statistically significant increase in diagnosis of autism and AS in certain Silicon Valley communities, and this would potentially answer that, assuming that this phenomenon exists in the first place, etc.
Bob,
Agreed. That is one reason that I intend to mention this in a couple of years when my daughter goes away to college. She may ultimately end up with another high "S" type, but if she does, I want her to know the potential ramifications, assuming that this theory is correct.
The idea that there is a genetic link to autism is worth considering. (I'm sure if it proves true Bobby Kennedy, Jr. will find other windmills to tilt against). The science, as Leeontheroad suggests, will be difficult, but its an interesting idea. My own limited experience tends to support the link, FWIW.
Barbo,
Or, alternatively, it may be attributable to our increased ability to diagnose the condition.
Bruce: That's just about what I was going to say. I'll just add that we may be misdiagnosing and have decided to define the range of normal differently, perhaps because there are treatments and people with a financial interest in providing them.
This article from Wired: "The Geek Syndrome" is a really fascinating read about the increase of cases of Autism and Aspergers, especially in the Silicone Valley. Seems to suggest that "geeks" who meet and mate tend to produce children with these disorders.
Stranger: I question whether an extreme S type would be good at dealing with children. And it's unlikely that an extreme male S would find and manage to get together with an extreme female S outside of a very specialized workplace, especially considering the rarity of such females.
duh
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers.html
Feminism may be part of the explanation, but I suspect that increased levels of assortive mating (spouses with similar personalities) are significantly related to people finding spouses in different settings than before.
If (as used to be typical) you marry someone who you met in high school, through church, through family, etc, you are choosing from a pool of partners that is not selected on systematization grounds. If (as is now more common) you marry someone you met in college, in grad school, or in the workplace, you are choosing from a pool that is to some extent filtered on systematization ability. Thus, partners are more similar to one another, even with no change in people’s preferences.
You can believe that increased autism is caused by increased assortative mating and that this is caused by more women working and not yet blame feminism or the women's movement.
If you don't think feminism or the women's movement are responsible for more women working.
An alternative theory holds that more and more women worked because technology turned "homemaking" into a short-term and/or part-time occupation. That in effect men refused to support women who planned to stay out of the workforce, and feminism responded by saying, "You can't fire us; we quit."
Of course, nowadays, just about any woman who told a potential mate that she planned never to get a paying job, would soon be looking at his receeding back.
Has anyone actually determined that autistic or AS children are more likey to have two type-S parents, or is this just the author's theory?
Roger: I think there are a lot of men who like the idea of a stay-at-home wife. And there are also many women, including women who could do well professionally, who think devoting oneself to raising children and keeping house is honorable. The man you describe as everyman doesn't deserve a good wife -- working or not.
I question whether an extreme S type would be good at dealing with children. And it's unlikely that an extreme male S would find and manage to get together with an extreme female S outside of a very specialized workplace, especially considering the rarity of such females.
For this theory to work they don't have to "be good at dealing with children," they just have to have them.
Another aspect of feminism that may contribute here is that it is now more acceptable for girls to display S-traits such as being good at math. They used to be told it would be off-putting to boys if they displayed such traits, and it probably is to E-boys, but it's more attractive to S-boys. So now liberated S-girls are both less attractive to E-boys and more attractive to S-boys. And displaying their S-traits openly makes it easier for S-boys to find them--all conditions ripe for assortative mating. In nature this often results in one species splitting into two...it would be so cool if that happened to us, just because it would drive the creationists and "ethicists" crazy.
Jeff,
I no longer have the author's book (it was a library book), but the second half of the second page of his article implies that they have done qualitative research on this and found that autistic kids have parents that tend to be more "S" than average. I must again put in a plug for his book: "The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain." You may not agree with everything he says, but it is thought provoking.
I think that you still cannot discount assortive mating. Until the last third of the 20th Century, you just weren't going to high "S" type females spending all their time with high "S" type males, esp. as you do now. You just didn't have the filtering that you do now, with some jobs absolutely requiring this.
I think back to my software days, and almost all of us were high "S" types. You couldn't do the job otherwise. The one guy I worked with who didn't excell at this, happily went into management.
Even as we went into the 2nd half of the 20th Century, we didn't have all that many jobs that absolutely require this type of mind. Now we do.
During the 15 years I spent in software, all of my girlfriends were met at work, and I will suggest, all were significantly above average in Systemizing. They were just the women I saw on a day to day basis.
Ann,
You're right. I spoke too sweepingly. However ...
"Many men like the idea of a stay at home wife." They also like the idea of eating less and exercising more. Okay, there I go all sweeping again.
Many men like the idea of a stay at home wife, in a large house, driving several nice cars, taking nice vacations and eating in nice restaurants. When reality forces them to cut back, what's often cut is the stay at home part.
And, yes, many women feel that "raising children and keeping house is honorable." But they run up against the same problem, especially since the rise of two-income families has significantly raised the price of houses.
I don't mean to make these people out to be especially selfish or dishonorable. But a one-income family can do considerably less than a two-income family. If those two-income people were your peers, it takes a special couple not to feel deprived, and to stick with the one-earner plan.
Roger: There are a lot of extra expenses involved when both parents work, such as childcare and more expensive meals as well as the additional clothing and commuting expenses that working entails. If the stay-at-home person puts effort into home cooked meals and smart shopping, the one-earner family could come out ahead.
Roaring Tiger,
You do make some good points. Interestingly, one study I saw awhile back theorized that male homosexuality may be a result of lower than normal prenatal testosterone at certain critical points in gestation - possibly due to maternal stress.
So, the author might be seen as proposing two different theories, one hormonal based, and the second genetic. Or, maybe they aren't conflicting. Obviously, we don't have enough information yet.
One reason that I do question whether more right brain activity in girls is the cause of more "S" type women is that both my mother and her aunt were extrordinarily good at math, at a time when this was not considered proper female behavior. That great aunt got her master's from Columbia at a time (1925) when she was the only woman in the math department.
As for parenting, just remember that Systemizing and Emphathizing are not mutually exclusive. Someone may be higher than average in both, or in neither.
But this does bring up my girlfriend, who, as noted above, is probably borderline AS. She gets so frustrated with her daughter. She asks, "Doesn't she think these things through? Its almost as if she is parenting totally on emotion". Well, her daughter probably is, while her mother never did anything as a parent that she had not thought through thoroughly.
Dear Lord, Jung and Myers-Briggs by any other name...
I don't know, Ann, this also sounds a bit of a stretch to me, but I would have to see Baron-Cohen's data for a more cogent response (and yes, I am aware that as Med School student I should be able to parse together a good reply, but hey, I'm on holiday).
In the absence of anything pertinent to say which hasn't been covered above already, I have two observations:
Simon Baron Cohen...any relation to Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Ali G?
In fact, this theory might be on to something, as one of the topics I recall from having done "diseases" in my second year is that Autism is more prevalent in children of male engineers, than in any other professional job category.
And I've always thought that engineers were the ultra-alpha males of the intellectual world. *shrug*
BTW, my great-grandmother was one of the first OB-GYNs in Britain, and her daughter-in-law, my grandmother, was a lawyer.
My dad is insane, but he's not autistic.
I think we need to see that data.
Cheers,
Victoria
Victoria,
I would suggest starting with his book that I cited earlier (see the first post) and is cited in the article. He had voluminous end notes, but don't remember off hand how well this section was documented - not being a researcher, I typically don't read them.
Ann,
It is certainly possible that all the money brought in by a spouse working can be spent on working expenses for that spouse. But it is extremely unlikely.
The fact that the working spouse will no longer have as much time and energy for careful shopping and cooking will also result in spending more money.
But for the vast majority of people, two earners means significantly more disposable income than one earner.
Bruce, thank you for the tip.
I looked up The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen in my Med School library, but no luck.
Fortunately, the public library had it, and I will place a hold on the book ASAP.
Curiously, though there are 10 copies available in several branches, look at how one was labeled:
Fiction - shelved by Author 155.33 BARO In Library
Nonfiction 155.33 BARO In Library
Hello.
Troubling...
Cheers,
Victoria
I don't think it's women in the workplace so much as women in high-tech. There was a spate of articles a few years ago about the high rate of autism in silicon valley and other high-tech enclaves. geeky men who previously wouldn't have a chance at finding an appropriate mate marry geeky women, and produce autistic kids.
I think there's a lot of merit to thinking of autism as a heightening of typically male strengths and weaknesses and a lowering of typically female strengths and weaknesses. I don't think this can fully explain autism. My wife is not a systemizer of the sort Baron-Cohen is talking about. The typical autistic Myers-Briggs profile would be an extreme ISTJ. My wife is INFP. On all traits except introvertedness, she's the opposite. Yet we have one son diagnosed with autism and another who seems to have enough symptoms that he might be as well. I certainly think there's a genetic issue, but it can't be just from when two people who are strong systemizers have children together. Her parents aren't strong systemizers either. Her dad is maybe middle of the road, and her mom is like her.
Post a Comment