Q&A with Dr. Robert Deaner, sex differences researcher

I have a question for the professor. Do you think letsrun is sexist?

I don't want Harvard to know I post on here! you show me yours and ill show you mine. Make sure you contact the right office. soooo who were you checking up on? did they have the degree?

Pathetic response. You claim a degree from a named university, you should own that claim.

Show you mine? Sure. Ph.D. Anthropology, 1972. Harvard. Check it out anywhere you like. I prefer the shortened form of my name, so if you're searching you had better use "Donald D Mitchell" and, sad to say, my parents stuck me with a suffix: "II." I had nothing to do with it.

If you really have a Harvard degree, you can search the alumni records. So can I.

The other guy? Lived L.A. Claimed a Harvard Ph.D. in physics. Not a chance. No record whatsoever.

The verification guy is (or was, in 2004) P. Dwyer, FAS (that's the "Faculty of Arts and Sciences"), 20 Garden St, Cambridge MA 02138.

You're up.

Nutty Professor wrote:

The second question, about how to make more women motivated, is a very important one. I haven't given it much thought, but I would suggest that the more you make running similar to swimming and school (highly structured coaching environment with high expectations), the more women will respond. But let's not forget that our society's much larger problem is a lack of children being motivated to perform in a highly dedicated way at school. The problem is obviously greater for males and for children of low SES. One reason that I (and many people interested in educational achievement) focus on sports is that it is one domain where boys generally do show greater motivation and persistence. So maybe it can teach us something important about how to reach them.

That's an interesting way to think about it—male competitiveness in sports being the EXCEPTION to the larger societal trend of males not "caring" as much about education, college, employment, etc. I guess I was looking at it through the lens of a regular coach. What is it about a highly structured coaching environment with high expectations that motivates girls to achieve more? Is it because, in a highly structured atmosphere, they are getting constant feedback and approval for their efforts? O

That's an interesting way to think about it—male competitiveness in sports being the EXCEPTION to the larger societal trend of males not "caring" as much about education, college, employment, etc. I guess I was looking at it through the lens of a regular coach. What is it about a highly structured coaching environment with high expectations that motivates girls to achieve more? Is it because, in a highly structured atmosphere, they are getting constant feedback and approval for their efforts? O[/quote]

Yeah I suspect your intuitions are right on this about feedback, although I’m not sure this is the most important thing. And sports and school are to some extent different ends of the spectrum, but it depends on the sport and school environment. And the “real world” isn’t necessarily more like school though – it depends on the job, and prevalence of “male-style” and “female-style” jobs is changing. Here are some more thoughts.

Females (or female style individuals) are more prone to:

Uphold a job/role within a social community or network, especially of kin or highly respected friends

Maintain balance between skill/display/sport achievement and domestic or other life domains

Compete to be attractive and sexually faithful

Use indirect tactics to compete, such as gossiping

Males (or male style individuals) are more prone to:

“Show off” one’s abilities relative to others, esp. physical skills

Spend much time developing a unique or offbeat skill

Engage in physical competition

Uphold job/role within a group competing against other groups esp. in physical competition

Tolerate losing competition to in-group member

Tolerate role (even subordinate) within larger group, even if personally disliking some members of the in-group

Most of this is standard evolutionary fare. Read Anne Campbell, Roy Baumeister, Joyce Benenson, David Geary, Elizabeth Cashdan, David Buss. Some of the references are in my running review paper that can be downloaded here:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1842663

The only coach I know of who has talked about this stuff is Anson Dorrance (UNC soccer), although his views were shaped by his experience not theory or research. Obviously it would be great if the researchers and the coaches could work together. There are lots of applications for such knowledge besides sports.

Rob and Don,

I began coaching high school girls a few years ago (after having coached youth runners for years) and your data mirrored my observations. In running, the top section of races is less competitive for girls. It is very interesting that this trend is similar in all age brackets you looked at.

The Why is fascinating and keeps me coming back to this thread. I am only a coach and father and not a social scientist, so my perspective is limited only to the many hundreds of kids I've coached over the years. But as almost anyone except for the angry feminists and intellectually castrated men will tell you, boys and girls are different. Much of that difference is innate. That difference is important enough that I have to remember to shift my coaching style somewhat when coaching each gender, even as the training is largely similar.

The high school kids that I'm now coaching were born in roughly 1993 - 98. This is way past the dawn of the boom of female sports in America.

Of the 20 girls on this years' cross country team, I have a fairly good understanding of their parents' background, except for the mothers of three of the freshmen. Of the remaining 17 mothers:

3 were foreign born in third world countries and did not compete in organized sports

3 American born did not participate in sports as children (one was a cheerleader)

5 run now consistently as adults

1 ran in grade school only

5 (that I know of) were high school athletes - two were stars. One of those was a D1 scholarship athlete.

So 11 mothers were or are currently competitive athletes, and of the other nine, eight of the mothers are very supportive of their daughter's sport.

The support for these girls from their families is very strong, and there is an obvious sense of elevated status for athletes at this smaller school. That includes the status of girls, who like to wear their spirit wear advertising their sport. Where is the societal disapproval or subtle cues that girls should not try to succeed at sports?

I don't see it. I see the opposite - girls encouraged and supported in their athletic endeavors. That includes their male peers who respect athleticism and athletic accomplishment. The skill differential between boys and girls in no way escapes the boys, however, and that admiration is a little less for the good girls than for other boys who are good at that same sport.

Except for distance running. Our girls get more respect than the boys.

To be fair, I've had kids whose parents wanted the girls to work or babysit, but most middle class parents encourage and support their daughters in whatever activities they do. I suspect it is just more important for more girls than boys to have other greater priorities than sport.

Rob did a nice job of listing those priorities.

Girls will be girls wrote:

I am only a coach and father and not a social scientist, so my perspective is limited only to the many hundreds of kids I've coached over the years. But as almost anyone except for the angry feminists and intellectually castrated men will tell you, boys and girls are different. Much of that difference is innate.

Wow, thank you for your insightful comments. From now on, I will keep my intellectually castrated ideas to myself! You're right that these differences are so obviously mostly innate. I don't know why the author even bothered to do the study! Why do people even research this stuff? They should just go get your opinion and get rid of all this intellectual mumbo jumbo.

Please don't dominate the rap, Jack,

If you've got nothing new to say.

If you please don't back up the track

This train got to run today.

get ugly wrote:

Girls will be girls wrote:

I am only a coach and father and not a social scientist, so my perspective is limited only to the many hundreds of kids I've coached over the years. But as almost anyone except for the angry feminists and intellectually castrated men will tell you, boys and girls are different. Much of that difference is innate.

Wow, thank you for your insightful comments. From now on, I will keep my intellectually castrated ideas to myself! You're right that these differences are so obviously mostly innate. I don't know why the author even bothered to do the study! Why do people even research this stuff? They should just go get your opinion and get rid of all this intellectual mumbo jumbo.

He could have just called you a blithering idiot too lacking in common sense to see things everyone else takes for granted.

As has been said before on this thread, anyone who doesn't think males and females are innately different is both stupid and incredibly ignorant of human biology, particularly physiology and neuroscience. Go to your library and check out a book on behavioral endocrinology and another on ethology. Upon completion, you'll probably be so ashamed of your prior idiocy you'll never open your mouth again. There's little argument to the proximal causation of differences among males and females. What researchers like those in this thread are working on is the ultimate causation (the "why" in an evolutionary sense). There's not much argument about the how or what. Geezus some people are stupid.

Thanks for the compliments and for sharing this interesting background info on your experience and athletes. It's what I suspect is generally true (most female runners receive plenty of support, just like most males do) but it's nice to see someone on the ground confirming it.

It would be neat, of course, to do a larger survey study to get a better idea of how representative your observations are, especially in various areas of the U.S. It might be difficult to publish because it's not the result most want to hear, and it's a "negative result," failing to find a difference.

It also would be interesting to hear other coaches/athletes weighing in on this too, although there would be obvious biases as letsrun seems to be mostly populated by men.

Best wishes,

Rob

Message board stardom is not my thing...I'll leave that to TxRUNNerGrl Apparently you were involved in some sort of murder case as well. (if you really are who you claim to be, my sincere apologies and condolences).....hmmm that really makes me inclined to reveal my name to you. who has the coolest name in this directory, I think I'll go with a suffix too, my parents didn't give me a suffix but I always wanted one. (you see what im saying?)

you don't believe I have a Harvard degree so why should i believe you have a Harvard degree. (According to alumni directory I still have my degree!). How my name in that directory and your name in that directory and how Deaners name in the Duke directory make his crappy research more "valid" is just humans being stupid errr evolved.

do you have facebook?

I think that's what we call a "non-responsive answer," but I'll let it go. I don't believe you, but in the end I suppose it doesn't matter. As in that old New Yorker cartoon, on the internet no one knows you're a dog.

I don't recall that anybody was arguing that earned degrees made any part of the research "valid." You don't like the work, but you don't say why, beyond your belief that discrimination can account for it all, and some sort of belief in "matriarchal" societies.

But it's not worth starting this all up again.

I wasn't the one trumpeting my Harvard degree, though -- it was you. Usually I don't mention it, because people get all weird. H-bomb and all that. If you really have one, you know what I mean.

As for the murder, "involved" is about right. It will have been 43 years in Jan 2012, and no one's been brought to justice. The most important person of interest died, but I keep hoping for something to turn up.

Facebook? I can't think of a reason I'd want to friend you.

Best to let this thread die its natural death.