Gender Differences in Creativity: An Outline of Current Research

Introduction

This text does not aim to be a definitive answer to the controversial question of differences in creativity between the genders. In current psychological research, only gender differences in intelligence are a more controversial topic. The aim of this text is to answer the question whether there is research which, by using suitable testing methods and statistical evaluation, can observe certain gender differences. If we establish differences, then comes the more difficult question of determining whether these differences are caused by socio-cultural or biological influences, or by their mutual interaction. The text wants to spark interest in the issue and at the same time to point out ways in which gender differences can be studied. I conclude the text with a speculative part that suggests what consequences possible differences in the creativity of the genders might have.

Why study gender differences in creativity?

Today we live in a society that many theorists and sociologists call the information, post-industrial, network or cognitive society (e.g. Castells, Bell, Imbesi), and that is marked by an emphasis on the processing, analysis and production of information, i.e. an immaterial commodity which is bound neither to place nor to time, and which can be quickly transformed and sent to any place connected to the global network of the internet. The theorist and practising architect Lorenzo Imbesi notices the role of design (and indirectly also of creativity) and argues that although information is an important commodity today, far more important for firms is the generation of new ideas, and thereby of information, which gives them an advantage in competition, because it is precisely through design and creativity that firms distinguish themselves and communicate the added value of their product to the public. Creativity provides a differential advantage to firms, but also to individuals, for this skill is valued in the current economy of the information or cognitive society. People who are able to use their creativity on the labour market as well thus have an objective advantage over those who are not. Potential differences in creativity between the genders would therefore have not only economic but also social impacts on society.

From the point of view of education, gender differences are also important, because differences should be incorporated into theories and into pedagogical practice so that every child can reach their maximum potential, which will be possible when we have the most precise information about the specifics of their skills and of their cognitive strategies and styles, where by cognitive style we mean the way in which an individual processes information (Sternberg and Grigorenko, 2001). If gender differences in creativity are demonstrated, the child’s gender is an important variable that needs to be taken into account when applying educational-psychological theories in education.

Last but not least, a reason to study gender differences in creativity is the noticeable historical absence of women in fields requiring creative and intellectual skills, as one of the world’s leading experts on creativity, Dean K. Simonton, observed in his publication Greatness: who makes history and why (Simonton, 1994). Is the lack of women in eminent artistic and scientific fields a consequence of socio-cultural influences in the form of historical discrimination and lack of access to education, which persisted until the twentieth century and in many respects persist to this day (Abraham, 2014; Baer and Kaufman, 2008), or can research on creativity show that the causes are not only socio-cultural in character, but that differences at the biological level play their part too?

 

A working definition of creativity

Before I describe current research on creativity, it is appropriate to define which concept or definition of creativity this text works with. I start from a widespread definition, frequently cited in the literature, which describes creativity as the production of results of activity, or of ideas, that are new, surprising and useful (e.g. Hennessey and Amabile, 2010; Boden, 2004, p. 1). At the same time, I am aware in this text that the situation around the definition of creativity is multi-layered and that there are complex models of creativity with which experts try to capture creativity as something that does not exist only in the heads of individuals as a cognitive skill, but is at the same time defined contextually in relation to society and culture, as the componential models of creativity by Amabile (Amabile, 1983) make clear, or the socio-cultural model (Sawyer, 2012, p. 123), which argues that the result of an activity is creative when society or the experts of the given field find it creative. We find similar contextual thinking in a subject of human inquiry that has historically been bound up, often indistinguishably, with creativity: in art. Art theorists such as Arthur Danto and, after him, George Dickie came up with the institutional theory of art, according to which an object cannot become an artistic artefact of its own accord. Only when this object is integrated into the context of art, in Danto’s words the “Artworld” (Danto, 1964), consisting of theorists, curators, art theories, interpretations, museums, objects and artists, can the object become art. Among other things, this influential theory explains why a Brillo box or a urinal is not art in its ordinary environment, while the same objects used by Warhol or Marcel Duchamp already are. Danto writes that what makes everyday objects in the hands of these artists into artistic artefacts is a certain theory that is able to place them in the Artworld. Without [artistic] theory it is unlikely that we would see them as art; in order to see them as such, they must be part of the art world (Danto, 1964, p. 581). This parallel between the sociocultural model of creativity and the institutional theory of art seems so obvious to me that it has surely been worked out by other authors, yet so far I have not come across the connection between them in the literature.

How to study gender differences in creativity?

At present, the main tool for testing creativity is psychometric tests of divergent thinking, which test an individual’s ability to generate as many alternative uses of given objects as possible. This test dominates current research, which may bring several methodological problems with it. First of all, it is a test that focuses on evaluating fluency, i.e. the quantity and not the quality of the options the individual has come up with. Furthermore, these tests are oriented towards verbal skills, which may disadvantage other domains of creativity, for example the visuospatial (figural) one, and thereby also one of the genders, especially against the background of research revealing that girls and women surpass their counterparts in language skills, perceptual speed and verbal fluency (Artola, 2010).

Another type of test focuses on the figural domain of creativity; its task consists in producing an original drawing, and it is mostly used for testing children and secondary school students. From a qualitative point of view, the test evaluates the number of objects (fluency), flexibility, originality and elaboration of details (Artola, 2010).

Besides psychometric tests, creativity can be studied by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging at the level of individual brain structures, where above all the shape and activity of a given part of the brain, correlating with the individual’s activity, are the empirical data by which comparisons between individuals can be made.

Another way of studying creativity is a historical look at individuals who, by the quantity and quality of their work, have earned an eminent position in the eyes of experts in their domain, but also of the wider public. This view shows most clearly that gender differences in creative and cognitive eminence exist. Even though the historical view provides the least information for explaining the differences from a cognitive point of view, it is immensely useful for studying how the wider context influences, or in the case of women limits, creative work, especially given the greater emphasis in current creativity research on componential (Amabile, 1983) and socio-cultural models (Sawyer, 2012, p. 123) of creativity.

Research on gender differences in creativity

Psychometric tests

In 1974 Kogan (Kogan, 1974) carried out the first major study of gender differences in creativity, and already at that time, that is, roughly 43 years ago, he remarked that if any research demonstrated that one of the genders was more creative than the other, a considerable wave of criticism would descend upon it. In his own research, however, Kogan found that there is relative equality between the genders. Baer and Kaufman (Baer and Kaufman, 2008) revisited Kogan’s finding and confirm that although evidence has since appeared in the literature that in certain areas one gender has the upper hand, we can still speak of relative equality in creative abilities.

Baer and Kaufman review current articles devoted to the topic and in their summary mention that most studies find no differences between boys and girls, although they mention that there are studies in which one gender scores better, and a similar number of studies argue exactly the opposite. (Baer and Kaufman, 2008) Where, on the other hand, they do find a difference in favour of men is in what they call creative productivity, i.e. the absolute number of creative works produced by men. He and Wong (He, 2011) further examine the literature and conclude that statistically non-significant differences were reported in tests of creative personality, of the product of creative work and of the creative process. They also confirm that some studies found significant differences in favour of men and some in favour of women.

Artola et al. (Artola, 2010) summarise research on gender differences in creativity and comment on an analysis of more than 80 studies that examined gender differences in tests of divergent thinking, indicating that more than half of the research shows no gender differences, two thirds of the remaining research point to better results for girls or women, and one third of the research then attributes better results to boys or men.

Given the complexity and instability of the definition of creativity, which encompasses several paradigms of how to conceive of creativity, Abraham points out the speculative nature of an approach that tries to reduce the whole concept of creativity to the single variable of gender (Abraham, 2014). In a 2016 meta-analysis Abraham (Abraham, 2016) further points out that in her review of the existing literature there is very little research that would unambiguously demonstrate the deep-rooted notion that women are more creative in the verbal and artistic domain, whereas men are more creative in mechanical and scientific fields. I will follow up on this point with research in the section of the text presenting data which show that when results are analysed not from the point of view of the mean but of the variability of results, it is possible to identify unambiguous differences in mechanical reasoning and mathematical skills, above all in the upper percentiles of the distribution of results, where men are represented more than women.

When we focus on preschool and adolescent children, research shows that in this age category some gender differences may occur. Artola et al. (Artola, 2010) tested children’s verbal and figural (graphic) creativity, and girls scored statistically significantly better both in verbal creativity and in the overall score of so-called global creativity, which includes both types of creativity. The better score of girls was seen above all in the mean of the distribution of results, which was higher than that of boys. Artola et al. cite other studies supporting their own empirical results, which indicate, in contradiction to Abraham, 2016, that women score better than men on tests of language skills, perceptual processing speed and verbal fluency.

As for figural creativity, boys did better in it only at primary school level, above all in their ability to elaborate the drawing and to use original elements. Among secondary school students Artola et al. still find differences in favour of girls on verbal tests, whereas the earlier figural advantage of boys no longer shows. It seems that whatever differences and advantages there are between girls and boys in the pre-pubertal age and at the onset of puberty, over time these differences even out, and during puberty they begin to reverse in favour of boys (Abraham, 2016).  Some researchers point out that the cause could be the fact that certain areas and structures of the brain involved in language processing, spatial memory and the development of social skills develop at a different speed and in a different order in the two genders (Hanlon, 1999; Sax, 2005, 2007). Lynn (Lynn, 1999) argues, by means of his own so-called developmental theory, that the faster maturation of girls results in their higher average IQ around the age of 13, but already around 15 the maturation of girls slows down, whereas in boys it continues, which according to Lynn causes not only the IQ deficit to be made up, but, after the age of 16, even a higher average IQ score by up to 4 points. Lynn’s theory is controversial and, as he himself writes in the article, it has quite a few critics, yet it meets the elementary criteria of scientific work, and so in gender differences in creativity too his theory can be taken as one of the hypotheses explaining possible differences, not least because creativity correlates positively with an IQ of 120 and higher (Jauk, 2013; Franková, 2011, p. 19).

Research on differences in figural work

While the evaluations of figural creativity show similar results, if we look more specifically at the content of the drawings that children make, we find noticeable differences. Abraham cites research by Japanese researchers who looked at how children’s drawings differ when they are given free rein to draw whatever they want. Iijima and colleagues (Iijima, 2001) report that they find gender differences in the motifs, colours, compositions of objects and expressions in children’s drawings: “Boys tend to draw moving and mechanical objects in dark and cold colours and often use bird’s-eye-view compositions, whereas girls like to draw motifs of people (above all girls and women), flowers and butterflies in light and warm colours and tend to arrange the motifs [in the picture] in a row on the ground” (Iijima, 2001). Iijima et al. explain that apart from objects and colours, boys differ from girls in their drawings by placing greater emphasis in the composition on the three-dimensional depiction of relations between objects. This type of composition appears in boys in 24.4% of cases, whereas in girls it is very rare, at 1.9% of cases. Conversely, a two-dimensional composition in a row occurs in girls in 74.4% of cases, while in boys in 20.4%. Boys moreover tend to emphasise the main elements of the picture in the composition; girls draw the individual objects in the scene with roughly equal weight (Iijima, 2001). These differences say nothing about whether they stem from socio-cultural influences or whether biological factors also stand behind them. In the case of the research by Iijima and colleagues, it must be taken into account that the research took place in Japan, a strongly conservative country where gender roles are still clearly separated.

Not least for this reason, Iijima and colleagues also included in the research girls diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a genetic disorder that is present already prenatally and manifests itself in an overproduction of adrenal androgen. Girls with this disorder show physical as well as behavioural masculinisation (Hall, 2004; Kongenitální adrenální hyperplázie) and masculine patterns in play, playing with objects preferred by boys (Hines, 2000). Research appears in the literature reporting that girls with CAH have smaller amygdalae than a control group of women and, in a task in which they watch a human face, activate the amygdala more than the control group of women, but not more than the control group of men (cited in Abraham, 2014).

Analysis of the pictures drawn by girls with CAH shows that their works display strongly masculine elements, noticeably more than those of girls without this diagnosis, and at the same time the works did not differ much from the drawings of healthy boys (Iijima, 2001). These results point to the fact that although research on creativity shows few differences between the genders, if we look at the ways or strategies by which the genders arrive at creative results, we do find clear differences. Abraham (Abraham, 2014) suggests that these differences in creative strategies, which can be seen in the research with girls diagnosed with CAH, point to possible biological differences in how the individual genders differ in solving creative tasks using different strategies, and these strategies, as Abraham claims, could be studied in brain activity, where we could discover correlations between different cognitive strategies for solving creative tasks and the manifestation of these differences in different parts of the brain.

Research from the standpoint of neuroscience

Neuroscientific research on gender differences in creativity examines the truth of the thesis that there are functional or structural differences between the genders which manifest themselves in creative tasks. Structural differences have indeed been confirmed in the cortical thickness of the anterior part of the temporal lobe and of the orbitofrontal region in men, and in greater cortical convolution and complexity in the neocortex in women (Luders and Toga, 2010). Gender differences have further been observed in the processing of emotions, where in women increased activity in the left amygdala was found in reaction to negative emotions, while in men the same part was more active with positive emotions (Stevens and Hamann, 2012).

Abraham (Abraham, 2016) cites a meta-analysis of gender differences in brain structure, in which 167 studies met the criteria of the meta-analysis, and which pointed out that research in the literature has shown in men a greater volume of grey matter in several regions, for example the amygdala, the hippocampus, the posterior cingulate gyrus (posterior gyrus cingulis), the putamen (part of the striatum), the temporal pole (in the temporal lobe) and the cerebellum. Women, by contrast, have more grey matter in the regions of the frontal lobe, the frontal gyrus, the middle frontal gyrus, the parietal operculum, the thalamus, the lateral occipital cortex, the insular cortex and Heschl’s gyrus. The differences occur not only in volume, but also in the density of the matter in the given areas.

A widely popularised study which also points to the existence of structural gender differences is the research on the human structural connectome of the brain, modelling differences in the connectivity of the individual hemispheres. While in men it showed greater connectivity within the hemispheres (so-called intrahemispheric connectivity), in women, conversely, it found greater connectivity across the hemispheres (so-called interhemispheric connectivity) (Ingalhalikar, 2014). Abraham (Abraham, 2016) adds that this research was an example of the controversy that shrouds the study of gender differences at the level of neuroscience, for while some judged it entirely groundbreaking, other researchers fundamentally questioned it, pointing out, for example, that the research incorrectly presented the differences in connectivity between and within the hemispheres as a qualitative difference, although they were rather quantitative differences, which, according to Joel (Joel, 2014), the reader can hardly notice. Here, however, I disagree with Abraham that Joel’s criticism represents a binary opposition to the position of the authors of the research. For in her critical letter Joel admits that the authors found differences in the strength of some connections, but criticises the fact that these differences are not as fundamental, i.e. qualitative, as the authors present them, but merely quantitative (Joel, 2014).

Since the cited literature points to the existence of structural brain differences, it makes sense to examine whether these differences also manifest themselves in creative tasks. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Abraham (Abraham, 2014) and her colleagues found that while there are no differences in the results of creativity tests, which implies a behavioural similarity of the genders, the imaging revealed that the genders use different brain structures for the same creative performance. Even though both genders made heavy use of the left cerebral hemisphere, men showed greater activation in parts such as the inferior frontal gyrus, the orbitofrontal cortex and the inferior parietal lobule, while in women, conversely, parts such as the anterior and posterior superior temporal gyrus and the superior parietal lobule were more activated. Even greater differences were found in the test of generating new uses for familiar everyday objects: in men, brain networks associated with semantic memory operations, learning based on predefined rules and outcome-based decision making were activated. In women, in the same test, it was above all the superior temporal regions that were activated, which are associated with the production of spoken language and with language comprehension (Price, 2010). Furthermore, compared with men, women made more use of the anterior superior temporal regions, which are involved in speech processing, and of the posterior superior temporal regions, which relate to theory of mind, social perception of faces or recognition of biological motion and audiovisual comprehension (cited in Abraham, 2014). In brief, it seems that men use brain structures involved in semantic cognition, rule-based learning and decision making, whereas women activated brain regions related to speech processing, social perception and theory of mind.

A similar division is followed by the empathising-systemising (E-S) theory of Simon Baron-Cohen, who developed this theory in the context of studying autistic subjects. E-S theory presents the idea of two imaginary opposite poles, two cognitive strategies. On one side is the systemising or analytical style, which excels in analysing and building systems, and on the other side the empathising style, which excels in the ability to read and predict human behaviour. Baron-Cohen speaks of autism as a hypermasculinisation of the brain (Baron-Cohen, 2005), in which repetitive, systematic behaviour and difficulties with theory of mind, which is a necessary condition for the ability to read human behaviour and thus to “empathise”, are the two extremes on the E-S spectrum which, in the combination of high S and low E, meet in autistic subjects. Baron-Cohen considers the systemising brain to be psychometrically male and the empathising one psychometrically female (Baron-Cohen, 2002), which is supported by further research by Baron-Cohen and others showing that women are on average more interested in people, whereas men show greater interest in inanimate objects (Baron-Cohen, 2012).

Baron-Cohen does not argue that only men have “male brains”, but claims that the S-type brain is more frequent in men and the E-type brain is in turn found more often in women. In his earlier research Baron-Cohen distinguishes sex from gender, considering sex biologically given, whereas he recognises gender as a socio-cultural construct; in his most recent work (Lai, 2017), however, the term “sex/gender” already appears in the work of him and his colleagues, expressing the impossibility of fully separating these two concepts, which is also reflected in one of the main theses of his E-S theory, which says that rather than secondary sexual characteristics, what decides typically male or typically female behaviour and cognitive patterns is the influence of prenatal testosterone, which in increased quantities can lead in both sexes to a (hyper)masculinisation of the brain, and thereby of cognitive patterns/styles (Baron-Cohen, 2002).

Baron-Cohen cites several empirical studies that comment on the influence of prenatal testosterone on the behaviour and interests of children. Around the first year of life, sexual dimorphism shows in the preferences for what children fix their attention on. When watching film samples, boys prefer a moving car, whereas girls prefer a film showing a human face, which follows E-S theory, predicting in boys a greater interest in moving inanimate objects (mechanical systems) and in girls an interest in human subjects and their faces (Baron-Cohen, 2012). Furthermore, unlike boys, girls show more eye contact around the first year, the length of eye contact being an inverse function of the levels of prenatal testosterone, i.e. the more prenatal testosterone, the less the child seeks eye contact (cited in Baron-Cohen, 2012). Baron-Cohen replicated these differences in a widely cited study on newborns a day after birth (Connellan, 2000), where the authors argue that a day after birth it cannot be expected that socio-cultural influences could noticeably affect newborns, and therefore argue that these differences are consistent with biological causes, most probably of a neurogenetic and/or neuroendocrine character.

At the same time, it is possible to mention here the already cited research from Japan analysing children’s drawings, which likewise follow the characteristics predicted by E-S theory, and new research, first published in 2016, which tests preferences for gender-stereotypical toys by examining three cohorts of children by age: from 9 to 17 months, from 18 to 23 months and from 24 to 32 months. Gender-stereotypical toy preferences were found in all these groups. With increasing age, the stereotypical preferences grew stronger (Todd, 2017).

If, according to Baron-Cohen, women are statistically more likely to have cognitive patterns and a cognitive style that draw on and benefit from empathising, whereas men draw on a systemising cognitive style, will this also show in gender differences in creativity? Lin et al. (Lin, 2012) looked in their research for the relationship between creativity and personality characteristics and found a significant positive correlation between openness to new experience (Openness) and the score on a test of divergent thinking, whereas emotionality correlated negatively with creative problem solving (insight problem solving). Lin et al. report that women did better on tests of divergent thinking and men scored better on tests of creative problem solving. Creative problem solving differs from the test of divergent thinking in that, although here too creativity is necessary for solving an open question, it requires a concrete solution, whereby this creative activity takes on a closed character and resembles far more the scientific process of searching for a solution, while divergent tasks can rather be likened to open-ended artistic processes (Lin and Lien, 2013). The difference between divergent thinking and creative problem solving further shows in that, according to empirical evidence, these two tasks do not correlate with each other, and creative problem solving is better predicted by intelligence, working memory capacity and gender differences in personality traits (Lin, 2012), whereas these cognitive factors no longer correlate with divergent thinking. For this reason Lin et al. (Lin, 2012) suggest that this surprising finding could be explained by the dual-process theories of cognition. These postulate that people use two alternative systems of cognitive processes: System 1 and System 2. System 1 is a heuristic system that processes information in an associative mode, intuitively, without much effort. It is the system that evolved earlier and it includes prior knowledge and experience. System 2 (the analytical system), on the other hand, includes logical and rule-based processes, which are not effortless but draw on cognitive resources. This second system is evolutionarily younger and enables abstract, syllogistic thinking (Lin, 2012). Lin and Lien, 2013, proposed that System 1 is a suitable cognitive style for divergent thinking, while a combination of System 1 and System 2 is necessary for creative problem solving, because besides generating possible solutions an analytical judgement is also needed as to which solution is most suitable in the given context of the problem. Their research showed that this relationship, and with it the hypothesis of the dual-process theory, holds: in women they found statistically significantly better scores on most parameters of the divergent tests, including the personality characteristics of openness to new experience and emotionality, which correspond to the System 1 cognitive style, whereas in men they found better results on most parameters of creative problem solving, and men were statistically significantly less open to new experience and less emotional (Lin, 2012). In short, according to the research of Lin, 2012, divergent thinking correlates positively with intelligence and strongly positively with openness to new experience, emotionality and extraversion, which are characteristics that correlate with the female gender and also with the System 1 cognitive style. Creative problem solving, on the other hand, correlates negatively with emotionality and strongly positively with intelligence, which are characteristics that further correlate with the male gender and also with cognitive System 2. It should be noted that Lin, 2012, finds that personality characteristics, above all openness to new experience, reduce the predictive power of gender in tasks of creative fluency and flexibility, where gender differences in fluency were entirely eliminated when the regression analysis took openness to new experience into account as a separate variable (for the detailed data of the regression analysis see Lin, 2012).

 

Criticism of research on gender differences in creativity

Although psychometric studies of creativity do not demonstrate an unambiguous superiority of one gender over the other, and rather tend towards the assessment that in the most widely used creativity tests, i.e. in tests of divergent thinking and of alternative uses of everyday objects, the genders are equal in creativity, in the brief overview above I identify several patterns that might after all uncover certain differences. First of all, it emerges that up to the age of about 16 girls score the same as or better than boys and at the same time differ qualitatively in the results of figural creativity tests, where girls prefer a two-dimensional, colourful composition depicting human, above all female, figures, whereas boys’ drawings significantly more often show a three-dimensional composition containing moving objects rather than human figures. What I find interesting is the fact that these seemingly gender differences practically disappear if we take into account the genetic disorder of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which at the hormonal level changes girls so that they show patterns of drawing and interests that are stereotypically, at least in our Western society, associated with masculine patterns of behaviour and interests, and this even though these girls underwent surgery of the sexual organs and were raised in such a way that the same socio-cultural influences should act on them as on the girls in the control group. That gender differences begin to show in favour of boys with the onset of puberty could correspond to the research of Baron-Cohen, who has long advocated the theory that the prenatal amount of testosterone, regardless of gender, influences whether a given person will show behaviour, interests and skills corresponding to stereotyped (hyper)masculinisation.

Subjects on the autistic spectrum, women and men alike, whom Baron-Cohen studies, can according to him be regarded as an extreme case of the male brain, which shows in above-average systemising and below-average empathising, as his E-S theory defines these skills. The cited research supporting aspects of E-S theory, such as the sex/gender dimorphism in children’s toy preferences or eye contact, is not without its critics. A seminal book analysing the general problems of research on gender differences, not only in creativity, Delusions of gender: how our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference, was written by the academic psychologist Cordelia Fine (Fine, 2011). Barres (Barres, 2010), in a review of this book from which I draw below, writes, for example, that Fine focuses on the research design of the already mentioned and widely cited study of newborns and their preference for looking at a face versus a moving object, on which Baron-Cohen bases his argument. Fine claims that the research design does not rule out the possibility that in the experiment the researcher may have unconsciously cued the newborn to attend to one particular object. Fine further writes that even if we did find these differences in newborns, it is not clear how relevant they are for behaviour in adulthood. Last but not least, Fine points to methodological shortcomings of the research in the form of a small number of test subjects and the exaggeration of insignificant differences, which according to Fine can be compensated for by a suitably chosen intervention in the form of practising and training the given activity.

Fine joined Joel with her critical commentary on the already mentioned study of the human connectome, Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain (Ingalhalikar, 2014), which demonstrated greater connectivity within the hemispheres in men and between the hemispheres in women. Fine considers this research “neurosexist” (Fine, 2013), because in her opinion the authors of the study overstepped what the data show when in their article they speculatively suggested that: “male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes”. (Ingalhalikar, 2014) With this finding of differences in brain connectivity between the genders, Ingalhalikar et al. here provide a structural argument for the research of Lin, 2012, which from a behavioural point of view describes two modes of cognitive processing (relevant for creativity), namely the modes mentioned above, System 1 (intuitive and associative) and System 2 (analytical, rule-based). Fine specifically described the connectome study as “subtly neurosexist”, because it “supports and legitimises gender stereotypes in a way that is not scientifically grounded” (Fine, 2013). Fine (Fine, 2013) cites research (Im, 2008) which argues that structural differences in brain connectivity are a consequence of differences in body size (women are on average smaller than men, which in absolute numbers leads to a smaller brain, but to the same size if we take brain size relative to body size into account), because a larger brain does not mean just a simple enlargement, but brings with it necessary structural changes that make the larger size possible. Moreover, according to Fine, this study does not take into account “gendered” experiences such as hobbies, the subjects studied at school and university, and participation in sports.

Baron-Cohen’s already mentioned research with newborns offers a counter-argument, however, when it claims that the preference for perceiving a face versus an object differs already by the first year of life, and the study from 2000 (Connellan, 2000) shows differences from the very first day, which is too early for any socio-cultural influences to have an effect. This study, as we know, Fine criticises for shortcomings in its methodology. Baron-Cohen, as one of the co-authors of the study, responds to this, however, when in a review (Baron-Cohen, 2010) of the book Delusions of Gender he points to Fine’s evident political dimension: in the book she cites many (male) scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries and tries to compare them with current scientists who would perhaps today likewise strive to deny women basic human rights and tie them “to the kitchen stove”; in other words, Baron-Cohen suggests that Fine writes in her book as if nothing fundamental had changed about sexism in science. After this rhetorical introduction, however, Baron-Cohen turns to the concrete arguments of Fine’s that he sees as problematic. So, first, he disagrees that by merely changing socio-psychological variables when testing cognitive differences we can erase all differences. Baron-Cohen agrees that expectations and how a person feels during a test are important parameters, but writes that: “the fact that manipulating social variables changes behaviour does not prove that it is these very variables that cause spontaneous sex differences in the first place” (Baron-Cohen, 2010). After Baron-Cohen responds to the methodological criticism of his research, he mentions an important point concerning Fine’s position: while Baron-Cohen and other scientists are, according to Baron-Cohen, moderate in claiming that gender differences are most likely influenced both by biology and by social (socio-cultural) influences, Fine’s position is radical in that it rejects any possibility that biology plays some role in gender differences. The polemical character of Fine’s argumentation and her mixing of politics and science, according to Baron-Cohen, ignore the fact that a person (a scientist) can support gender equality and oppose any discrimination in society and at the same time be interested in and study gender differences.

We find further criticism of research on gender differences in an article for the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, which Fine published together with Jordan-Young, Kaiser and Rippon (Rippon et al., 2014). They point to institutional problems of neuroscientific research on gender differences by citing research which claims that only studies confirming gender differences get published, and moreover that databases containing these differences allow one to search only for sex/gender differences, not for similarities. Rippon et al. further propose that neuroscientists who want to study gender differences validly should familiarise themselves with research in gender studies, and above all with the concept of intersectionality, which in gender studies denotes the principle that “important social identities such as gender, ethnicity and social class mutually constitute, reinforce and naturalise one another”. (Rippon et al., 2014)

As I showed at the beginning of this section, the study of gender differences in creativity is inconsistent, and given the difficulty of grasping creativity as a phenomenon alone, it is a difficult task, for not only must such research have the necessary methodological tools to tell biological and socio-cultural influences apart, but at the same time it must constantly contend with the way creativity as a concept keeps being redefined. In other words, research on creativity and gender differences is not easy, and since it is not a purely logical task in which we can simply derive the correct answers from axioms, we cannot avoid speculation. I fully agree with the criticism of Fine and others that research on gender differences in creativity, and more generally in cognition, is very prone to quick and irresponsible popularisation in the media, whereby distorted information is disseminated into society that may reinforce false and harmful stereotypes. On the other hand, in my opinion it is not possible to criticise any research that demonstrates gender differences for “neurosexism”, just as it is not possible to accuse all studies demonstrating gender differences of inadequate methodology. People are social beings and it is inevitable that an interaction between biology and social influences exists, to which the field of epigenetics has responded, acknowledging precisely this interaction as fundamental for switching certain genes on and off during a person’s life as a reaction or adaptation to the environment in which the organism finds itself. As Baron-Cohen states, extreme social determinism, as advocated by Fine and others, leads, for example, to the conclusion that developmental neural disorders such as autism, learning difficulties and delayed language development, which affect boys more than girls, as well as left-handedness, which also occurs more often in boys, have to be explained solely from the standpoint of social and sexist influences in society or of sexism in the family (Baron-Cohen, 2010). It is possible that sooner or later it will be shown that the reasons why more boys than girls are left-handed are purely socio-cultural, but the research cited above on brain structures, on the strengths and weaknesses of the individual genders in creativity research and on the relationship between autism and gender is for now convincing enough for us to say that biology influences more than 0% of the differences between the genders, and let research show exactly how high that number is.

Research on historical eminence and male variability

Whether we accept that gender differences in creativity exist on the basis of biological or of socio-cultural factors, in the real world we observe a noticeable difference in how the individual genders are represented in eminent creative achievements and performances. This historical discrepancy was mapped, for example, by Dean K. Simonton, an authority in the field of the psychology of creativity (Simonton, 1994). The answer to the question whether the lack of women in eminent artistic and scientific fields is a consequence of socio-cultural influences in the form of evident historical discrimination and lack of access to education, which noticeably persisted until the twentieth century and in many respects persist to this day (Abraham, 2014; Baer and Kaufman, 2008), or of the biological, structural or behavioural differences presented in this text, is complicated and requires an interdisciplinary view of the problem that would include research in the psychology and neuroscience of creativity, but also sociology and history. Clearly, this is beyond the scope of this text. Nevertheless, I will try to summarise research that could shed new light on this issue, above all because it is a little-explored part of research on creativity and gender differences.

He and Wong (He, 2011) examined differences in creativity among 499 boys and 486 girls using a relatively new creativity test, the Test for Creative Thinking – Drawing Production (TCT-DP), which was constructed on the basis of the componential model of creativity of the German professor Klaus K. Urban. The test was designed to allow a more holistic conception of creativity than the classic, quantitative tests of divergent thinking offer (Urban, 2005). The test comprises six pre-drawn figural fragments, which the test subject must develop in any way they like and use in their own drawing. The test is designed so that the resulting drawings can be evaluated by several criteria, among them, for example, composition, elaboration, risk-taking, breaking (conceptual) boundaries or rules, unconventionality, affect and humour (Urban, 2005).

From the point of view of gender differences, the use of the TCT-DP indicates no difference in the mean of the results between the genders and only a minimal trend in favour of boys, which is relatively consistent across several test samples but statistically non-significant (Urban, 2005). He and Wong (He, 2011) report non-significant gender differences among schoolchildren from the first to the seventh grade and, in a sample from Hong Kong, among students aged 12 to 16. Last but not least, the TCT-DP test has been well received among creativity researchers and is considered a valid test of creativity (He, 2011; Urban, 2005).

He and Wong (He, 2011) were the first to try to look at gender differences in creativity through the prism of statistical variability (variance) in the distribution of results. Although in the context of research on gender differences in creativity this is a new approach, we have known since the end of the nineteenth century, as Ellis reported in 1894, that the male sex shows greater variability in both physical and mental characteristics (Ellis, 1974). He and Wong (He, 2011) cite research finding greater variability in men in mechanical reasoning, mathematics and spatial processing, and in women in verbal reasoning and short-term memory. Greater variability in men also shows more generally in mental abilities, and in women in self-confidence.

Hyde (Hyde, 2008) reports greater male variability in mathematics tests on a sample of American students. While their research did not demonstrate any fundamental gender differences in the mean of the distribution of results, it finds greater variability among boys in all tested school grades (grades 2–11 in the American school system), in a ratio ranging from 1.11 to 1.21 in favour of boys. Much more interesting are the data from the edge of the distribution, at the 95th and 99th percentiles. Here, in the white population, we find at the 95th percentile a ratio of 1.45 in favour of boys, and at the 99th percentile it is already 2.06. For the Asian population, however, these results are different: at the 95th percentile boys outnumber girls only in a ratio of 1.09, and at the 99th percentile Asian girls are even more represented, in a ratio of 1.09.

To test the hypothesis that men are more variable (the so-called Greater Male Variability hypothesis), Hedges (Hedges, 1993) uses an extensive battery of cognitive tests, see (Hedges, 1993), including the WAIS IQ test in its full scale. The results of his tests show that in 22 cases out of 28 men outnumber women on the right tail of the distribution. In six cases women are more represented on the right tail of the distribution, in tests of spelling, language tests, the speed and accuracy of clerical tasks and the “digit symbol” subtest of the WAIS IQ test. In 15 cases there are more men on the left tail of the distribution, and in 7 cases men are more numerous on both tails of the distribution.

If we look at the percentiles, at the 95th percentile of the skill distribution there are more men on 6 of the 28 tests, in a ratio of 2:1 (5 of them are tests of mathematical, spatial and mechanical skills). In mechanical reasoning the ratio is 16:1. At the 99.9th percentile of the distribution there are more men on 7 of the 28 tests, in a ratio of 5:1, where in mechanical reasoning it is a striking 236:1 and in the mathematics test 12:1. The figures reported by Hedges are consistent with the data presented by Pinker (Pinker and Spelke, 2005), who shows persisting noticeable differences in mechanical reasoning, spatial reasoning and mathematical word problems, whereas women, he claims, excel in mathematical calculation.

He and Wong (He, 2011) further cite the well-known Scottish national survey from 1932 (the gold standard of testing cognitive abilities according to Pinker in Pinker and Spelke, 2005), in which 95% of eleven-year-olds took part in intelligence testing. This massive test showed that although there is a large overlap between men and women in the distribution of results, men are more represented on both tails of the distribution. In layman’s terms, the distribution shows that more of the geniuses and “anti-geniuses” are men.

 

Fig. 1: A graphic representation of the different variability of IQ test results between the genders. The mean of the distribution is the same. (Scottish Mental Survey, 1932)

Will the different variability also show in a test of creativity? He and Wong (He, 2011) answer in their article that it does. On the TCT-DP test, boys have statistically significantly greater variability on 5 of the 10 sub-scores. In the part of the distribution where z ≥ 1, i.e. 1 or more SD above the mean, the ratio in favour of boys was 1.61, and for z ≥ 2, i.e. 2 or more SD above the mean, it was 3.40. In the central part of the distribution around the mean there were, as the Greater Male Variability hypothesis predicts, more girls. The authors also stress that although they found statistically non-significant differences in the subtests of the TCT-DP, in the overall score they found no statistically significant gender differences, thereby following the previously cited research.

He and Wong (He, 2011) thus confirm that in creativity tests too, specifically in the TCT-DP, one can observe the trend visible in other domains of cognitive skills, where men are the gender that is more variable and women the gender that clusters around the mean of the distribution. It must be noted that the different variability in the distribution of skills of course includes brilliant girls as well as average men. Different variability, however, as Hedges (Hedges, 1993) writes, has a fundamental influence on how many talented girls and boys we can expect at the highest levels of skill. Hedges writes that even if the mean of the distributions of girls and boys on a given skill is the same, greater variability guarantees that, for example, at the 95th percentile the number of men in this part of the distribution will exceed the number of women. Assuming, of course, that we are dealing with a normal, Gaussian distribution (curve). Greater variability in the skills mentioned is thus a strong candidate for explaining why in the real context of the world we see gender differences in eminent creativity. Unfortunately, however, the Greater Male Variability hypothesis tells us nothing about why differences in variability exist. He and Wong (He, 2011) do cite several hypotheses that identify the causes in biological, cultural-historical or socio-environmental factors, but, as they claim, most of this research is still speculative, all the more so in the context of creativity research, where it has to be demonstrated that these factors play a role in the creative production of individuals.

Summary of research on gender differences in creativity

Most of the cited research agrees that in psychometric and behavioural tests of creativity there are no statistically significant differences between the genders. On the basis of structural differences and different cognitive styles, including different strengths and weaknesses, research shows that the genders most likely use different cognitive strategies, stemming from their cognitive styles, to achieve the same creative result.

According to research, we see gender differences in children’s figural creativity, where the genders use different motifs, colours and composition. Girls with the genetic disorder congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) show on the given test of figural creativity very similar, even stereotypically masculine, preferences for theme, colour and composition, which indicates the possibility that hormones mediate gender differences, not the socio-cultural construct of “gender” as such. The text follows up on the hormonal influences on gender differences by citing the research of Baron-Cohen, which shows that an increased prenatal amount of testosterone plays a role in the development of autism, which he characterises, through his E-S theory, as a hypermasculine type of brain that excels in systemising but has problems with empathising. The preference for systemising over empathising also occurs in autistic girls, by which Baron-Cohen again indicates a hormonal mediation of gender differences.

This text further cites research from neuroscience in which, using functional magnetic resonance imaging and on the basis of structural differences of the brain, the possibility is discussed that the genders use different parts of the brain for the same results, and thereby also different cognitive styles and strategies.

The cited studies are, however, criticised by, among others, feminist-minded male and female academics, who point to flawed methodologies and poor interpretations of data, including an insufficient knowledge of current research in gender studies and of the concept of intersectionality, which according to some authors should be recommended reading for all neuroscientists who want to study gender differences competently.

Finally, this text discusses the Greater Male Variability hypothesis, which for over a hundred years has claimed that men show greater variability in many cognitive and other traits. I cite several authors who confirm this hypothesis, including a considerable difference in mechanical reasoning, which at the highest percentiles on the right tail of the distribution of this skill indicates that men predominate there. This hypothesis has also been confirmed in creativity research, where, although the mean of the distribution is the same for the genders, looking at the same data through variability uncovers gender differences.

 

Discussion: consequences of gender differences in creativity?

We live in today’s information society, which favours individuals who are capable not only of analysing complex information but also of creating new information. Imbesi (Imbesi), for example, claims that design, as a creative activity, is one of the few fields capable of creating the values by which firms and brands distinguish themselves from one another. Castells, Bell and others wrote earlier that the capacity for highly abstract and technical manipulation of information and for generating new information is important for life in the information society. That is also why potential gender differences may have a fundamental influence on how the strengths and weaknesses of the individual genders will manifest themselves on average. If the genders differ in creativity and cognitive styles, it means that on average men and women approach problems in different ways. Abraham (Abraham, 2014), for example, states that if this is so, such gender differences constitute a possible argument for more actively evening out the representation of women in important fields with influence on society, for women (and, from my point of view, also men showing a stereotypically feminine cognitive style) can bring to problem solving a new dimension of cognition and creativity, one that is missing in an environment dominated by a purely stereotypically masculine cognitive style.

At the same time, gender differences in creativity and cognition would mean that pedagogical and educational materials should reflect these differences so as to make the most of the potential of the strengths of the individual genders and to lift the negative aspects of their weaknesses.

Last but not least, the development and design of technologies, architecture and urban planning could take these differences into account in order to be better adapted to the individual genders.

Acknowledging the existence of gender differences in creativity and cognition, should research demonstrate them, could have a positive influence on the current discourse about existing gender discrepancies, which from the point of view of radical social determinism are the result of historical discrimination and still persisting sexism.

On the other hand, I am aware of the danger that a confirmation of gender differences represents, for it could serve as proverbial oil on the fire and, in the eyes of certain individuals, could represent a confirmation of all stereotypes and a free hand to continue, or even intensify, discrimination on the basis of gender. A rational approach, however, would mean that although there are differences in the mean or the variability of the distribution, it is logically wrong to attribute to an individual all the characteristics of the group to which that individual belongs. In other words, whether or not gender or other differences exist in certain social groups, we should always treat individuals on the basis of their concrete characteristics, not according to hypothetical characteristics obtained by analysing which social group the person belongs to.

I am, however, of the opinion that the world is too complex a “system” for us to be able to afford to lie to ourselves, for we cannot predict how that lie will play out in the world. Even if we had good intentions, we can do more harm with a white lie than we intended. In my opinion, the research cited in this text suggests that the biological influence on gender differences is probably greater than 0%. Research that tries to uncover biological gender differences, not only in creativity, should therefore be legitimate. At the same time, it cannot be overlooked that this topic is at the centre of many political debates, and is therefore a topic that also arouses many negative emotions on “both” sides of the imaginary conflict. That is why I agree with Fine and others who call for research on gender differences to be a science applying the strictest standards to the evaluation of results. Despite strict standards and the peer-review process, however, research does get published in which fundamental shortcomings come to light over time. But the fact that research on gender differences in creativity contains shortcomings cannot a priori mean that these shortcomings arose because the authors of the research hold sexist views. Just as Fine calls for more rigorous research on gender differences, the criticism of research should itself also meet the strictest criteria, for the label “neurosexism” not only criticises the methodology of a study but at the same time implicitly says that the researcher deliberately used poor methodology in order to push their political goals. Here it only remains to mention Baron-Cohen once again and his reminder that scientists can support gender equality and oppose any discrimination in society and at the same time study gender differences (even with inevitable missteps and errors).

 

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