Participation rates and the difference in performance of women and men in chess.

Journal article

The superiority of men over women in chess has been cited as evidence that there are fundamental differences in male and female intelligence (Howard, 2005a, 2006; Irwing and Lynn, 2005). An alternative interpretation of the difference is that it is due to differential male and female participation rates in chess (Charness and Gerchak, 1996; Bilalić and McLeod, 2006; Chabris and Glickman, in press). This has been dismissed by Howard (2006) on the grounds that changes in the difference in skill level between top male and female players in recent years are not correlated with changing relative participation rates. Here it is shown that Howard's analysis is misleading. The data are consistent with differential participation rates as the explanation of the gap between the performance of women and men in chess.

Authors: Bilalić, M; McLeod, P

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Journal of biosocial science
• Volume: 39
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 789-793
• Publication date: 2007-09-01
• DOI: 10.1017/S0021932007001861
• EISSN: 1469-7599
• ISSN: 0021-9320
• Language: English
• Keywords: Humans; Competitive Behavior; Psychomotor Performance; Play and Playthings; Problem Solving; Mental Processes; Sex Factors; Male; Gender Identity; Female; Visual Perception; Intelligence; Space Perception; Recreation