Let’s call the whole thing off: evaluating gender and sex differences in executive function

Abstract

The executive functions allow for purposeful, deliberate, and intentional interactions with the world-attention and focus, impulse control, decision making, and working memory. These measures have been correlated with academic outcomes and quality of life, and are impacted by deleterious environmental events throughout the life span, including gestational and early life insults. This review will address the topic of sex differences in executive function including a discussion of differences arising in response to developmental programming. Work on gender differences in human studies and sex differences in animal research will be reviewed. Overall, we find little support for significant gender or sex differences in executive function. An important variable that factors into the interpretation of potential sex differences include differing developmental trajectories. We conclude by discussing future directions for the field and a brief discussion of biological mechanisms.

Do executive functions mediate the link between socioeconomic status and numeracy skills? A cross-site comparison of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom

“…Indeed, a meta-analysis of TIMMS and PISA data from 69 countries by Else-Quest and colleagues (2010) found that while gender differences in numeracy skills in mid-adolescence were typically either small or negligible in magnitude, effect sizes differed by country. Reports of gender differences in EF skills are rare, which may well reflect the lack of major gender differences in cognition evident in several meta-analyses (e.g., Grissom & Reyes, 2019;Hyde, 2016).…”

Divergent strategies for learning in males and females

“…Conversely, male strategies changed frequently and were more influenced by the 28 stochastic rewards. Individual strategies were related to sex-gated changes in neuronal activation Introduction 32 33 Sex differences have been identified in many studies of reward-guided decision-making, seen 34 across multiple mammalian species, and gender differences have been reported in humans (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). 35 In some tasks males acquire more total rewards than females, a result that is sometimes 36 interpreted as a male advantage in learning (6, 7).…”

“…(43,45,46). Conversely, energy-conserving and habitual 382 behaviors are more prevalent in female animals, including during foraging (1,2,47). Gonadal 383 hormones, such as ovarian hormone estradiol (E2), are thought to exert modulatory control over 384 cost/benefit decision-making that increased E2 resulted in reduction of high-effort choices (5, 48, 385 49).…”

“…52) at the cost of greater risk to an individual male. Indeed, it is possible that these differences in 406 the match between sex-specific strategies and the environment may be a major contributing 407 factor in the inconsistent gender and sex differences across tasks with different levels of 408 volatility (1,2). An intriguing possibility is that the unified, consistent, and systematic strategy 409 we observed in female mice, as well as the volatile and diverse strategy we observed in male 410 mice in the same task, may emerge from evolved sex-biased strategies for foraging in the wild 411 that were critical to survival for the species as a whole, by dividing risk and reward across the 412 population.…”

Sex-dependent effects of chronic intermittent voluntary alcohol consumption on attentional, not motivational, measures during probabilistic learning and reversal

“…latencies) (75). Relevant to this, Grissom et al (2019) conducted an extensive 735 review of sex differences in several aspects of executive function, including attention, and did not 736 find evidence to support robust sex differences in this domain. Prior studies have reported that 737 male rodents show higher levels of novelty-seeking (76), with higher novelty-seeking related to 738 higher levels of impulsivity in males relative to females (77).…”