Handedness and Sex Differences in Intelligence: Evidence from the Medical College Admission Test

Halpern, Diane F.; Haviland, Mark G.; Killian, Charles D.

doi:10.1006/brcg.1998.1021

Cited by 63 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…It has been reported that women on average fall behind their male counterparts during the preclinical phase of medical education, but they usually catch up to or sometimes surpass men on some measures of clinical competence during the clinical phase of medical education (Hojat et al 1997b;Halpern et al 1998;Ferguson et al 2002). In addition, female physicians are rated higher on personal qualities such as helpfulness, human relationships, expressiveness, intrinsic career motivation, family responsibility and job security; while men obtained higher marks on personality features such as independence, decisiveness, self-confidence, extrinsic career motivation and orientation toward income and prestige (Buddedberg-Fischer et al 2003).…”

Section: (8) Volunteer Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality assessments and outcomes in medical education and the practice of medicine: AMEE Guide No. 79

Hojat

Erdmann²,

Gonnella³

2013

Medical Teacher

120

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In a paradigm of physician performance we propose that both ''cognitive'' and ''noncognitive'' components contribute to the performance of physicians-in-training and in-practice. Our review of the relevant literature indicates that personality, as an important factor of the ''noncognitive'' component, plays a significant role in academic and professional performances. We describe findings on 14 selected personality instruments in predicting academic and professional performances. We question the contention that personality can be validly and reliably assessed from admission interviews, letters of recommendation, essays, and personal statements. Based on conceptual relevance and currently available empirical evidence, we propose that personality attributes such as conscientiousness and empathy should be considered among the measures of choice for the assessment of pertinent aspects of personality in academic and professional performance. Further exploration is needed to search for additional personality attributes pertinent to medical education and patient care. Implications for career counseling, assessments of professional development and medical education outcomes, and potential use as supplementary information for admission decisions are discussed.''In the physician or surgeon no quality takes rank with imperturbability [which] means coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances and the physician who has the misfortune to be without it loses rapidly the confidence of his patient.''

show abstract

Section: (8) Volunteer Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality assessments and outcomes in medical education and the practice of medicine: AMEE Guide No. 79

Hojat

Erdmann²,

Gonnella³

2013

Medical Teacher

120

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Evidence purporting to show that left-handed individuals are overrepresented among precocious SAT takers, high-performing MCAT takers, and Mensa Society members all suffer from one or more serious problems such as selection bias, small sample size, or mixed results (Benbow, 1986;Halpern, Haviland and Killian, 1998;Perelle and Ehrman, 2005).…”

Section: Handedness and Cognitive Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation

Goodman

2012

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Left-and right-handed individuals have different brain structures, particularly in relation to language processing. Using five data sets from the US and UK, I show that poor infant health increases the likelihood of a child being left-handed. I argue that handedness can thus be used to explore the long-run impacts of differential brain structure generated in part by poor infant health. Even conditional on infant health and family background, lefties exhibit economically and statistically significant human capital deficits relative to righties. Compared to righties, lefties score a tenth of a standard deviation lower on measures of cognitive skill and, contrary to popular wisdom, are not over-represented at the high end of the distribution. Lefties have more emotional and behavioral problems, have more learning disabilities such as dyslexia, complete less schooling, and work in less cognitively intensive occupations. Differences between left-and right-handed siblings are similar in magnitude. Most strikingly, lefties have six percent lower annual earnings than righties, a gap that can largely be explained by these differences in cognitive skill, disabilities, schooling and occupational choice. Lefties work in more manually intensive occupations than do righties, further suggesting that lefties' primary labor market disadvantage is cognitive rather than physical. Those likely be left-handed due to genetics show smaller or no deficits relative to righties, suggesting the importance of environmental shocks as the source of disadvantage. Handedness provides parents and schools a costlessly observable characteristic with which to identify young children whose cognitive and behavioral development may warrant additional attention. * For their very helpful comments, I am grateful to Caroline Hoxby, Ed Glaeser, Amitabh Chandra and Felipe BarreraOsorio, as well as participants in the NBER Education Group meetings and the Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Seminar. Colin Sullivan and Heather Sarsons provided outstanding research assistance. Finally, I thank my left-handed wife, Anna Lumelsky, for encouraging this work even when the coefficients troubled her. All errors are my own.

show abstract

“…The largest differences occur in the extreme tails of the distributions; i.e. retarded and intellectually gifted portions of the intelligence range 24 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The medical students selected for the MBChB course are top achievers at school level, where creative thinking is of prime importance. In a previous study on handedness and gender differences in intelligence, evidence was collected from the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) that revealed two intriguing results that require additional research and confirmation: first, there was a preponderance of left handers among those who attained the highest percentage scores on the verbal reasoning subtest of the MCAT -a fact that led to a disproportionately high percentage of left handers admitted to medical school; second, the abovementioned first result was modified by the finding that a higher percentage of right handers were found among the highestscoring group on the writing sample 24 . These results suggest that for the most intellectually gifted individuals, Journal of Psychiatry • January 2014 different patterns of cerebral organization are optimal for different types of cognitive tasks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Handedness in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder in an afrikaner founder population

Mataboge¹

2014

Afr J Psychiatry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective: An association between the Leucine-rich repeat trans membrane neuronal 1 gene (LRRTM1), schizophrenia/ schizoaffective disorder and handedness was recently claimed to be established. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that Afrikaner patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder are more non-right handed than their non-affected firstdegree relatives and that of two separate control groups. The association between handedness, gender and age at onset of illness in the patients group was also determined. Method: Two cross-sectional studies were carried out, which compared the handedness of a group of 100 (30 females and 70 males) Afrikaner patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder, their non-affected first-degree relatives, and two separate control groups. Handedness was determined by the Edinburg Handedness Inventory (EHI). Results: Patients were found to be more right-handed than expected with only 17 out of 100 being non-right-handed compared to 11 out of 100 non-affected relatives; 36 out of 100 students and 75 out of 500 nonaffected Afrikaner participants. The students were significantly more non-right handed than the patient and family groups but no difference in handedness was found when comparing the patients, family members and 500 participant control group. There was no significant difference between age at onset of illness and handedness. A significant association between female gender and non-right handedness in the patient group was found but no gender difference in the family and student groups. A highly significant association was found between the male gender of the patients and student control group regarding handedness. A significant difference was found between the median EHI raw scores of the patients and the family members. The median EHI raw scores of the patients were significantly lower than their paired family members. Conclusion: The study failed to prove a leftward shift of handedness in the patients with Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective disorder in the Afrikaner Founder population. Whether or not LRRTM1 is indeed the genetic basis of handedness, remains unclear.

show abstract

Handedness and Sex Differences in Intelligence: Evidence from the Medical College Admission Test

Cited by 63 publications

References 29 publications

Personality assessments and outcomes in medical education and the practice of medicine: AMEE Guide No. 79

Personality assessments and outcomes in medical education and the practice of medicine: AMEE Guide No. 79

The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation

Handedness in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder in an afrikaner founder population

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About