A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox.

Some studies show that living conditions, such as economy, gender equality, and education, are associated with the magnitude of psychological sex differences. We systematically and quantitatively reviewed 54 articles and conducted new analyses on 27 meta-analyses and large-scale studies to investigate the association between living conditions and psychological sex differences. We found that sex differences in personality, verbal abilities, episodic memory, and negative emotions are more pronounced in countries with higher living conditions. In contrast, sex differences in sexual behavior, partner preferences, and math are smaller in countries with higher living conditions. We also observed that economic indicators of living conditions, such as gross domestic product, are most sensitive in predicting the magnitude of sex differences. Taken together, results indicate that more sex differences are larger, rather than smaller, in countries with higher living conditions. It should therefore be expected that the magnitude of most psychological sex differences will remain unchanged or become more pronounced with improvements in living conditions, such as economy, gender equality, and education.

A Cross-Sectional Investigation of the Impact of Stuttering on Swedish Females and Males in Childhood, Adolescence, and Young Adulthood.

PURPOSE: We aimed to cross-sectionally describe the impact of stuttering on persons who stutter (PWS): children, adolescents, and young adults. Based on previous research on PWS and psychosocial health in the general population, we hypothesized that (a) the adverse impact of stuttering in PWS would be larger among adolescents than children and young adults and that (b) females, especially adolescent females, would report being more adversely impacted by their stuttering than males. METHOD: We pooled samples of Swedish PWS, obtaining 162 individuals (75 females and 87 males), aged 7-30 years. We measured the impact of stuttering using age-relevant versions of the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES). The relationship between OASES score, age, and sex was described using a polynomial model with an interaction term between age and sex to allow for potential differences between females and males' age-related curves. RESULTS: The average trends were that (a) the impact of stuttering was greater for the adolescents than for the children and young adults, and (b) females, especially adolescent females, were on average more impacted by their stuttering than males. Taking self-reported speech fluency into account did not change this pattern. CONCLUSIONS: In line with findings on psychosocial health, communication attitude, and self-esteem in the general population, the impact of stuttering seems to be particularly adverse among adolescents, especially female adolescents. Thus, clinicians need to be aware of the risk that young girls who stutter may develop a negative attitude to speech and communication, and this should also be communicated to caregivers and teachers. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21554877.

The Efficacy of Parent Management Training With or Without Involving the Child in the Treatment Among Children with Clinical Levels of Disruptive Behavior: A Meta-analysis.

A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted where we evaluated the effects of Parent Management Training (PMT), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) and PMT combined with child cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) using data from 25 RCTs on children with clinical levels of disruptive behavior (age range 2-13 years). Results showed that PMT (g = 0.64 [95% CI 0.42, 0.86]) and PCIT (g = 1.22 [95% CI 0.75, 1.69]) were more effective than waiting-list (WL) in reducing parent-rated disruptive behavior, and PMT also in improving parental skills (g = 0.83 [95% CI 0.67, 0.98]) and child social skills (g = 0.49 [95% CI 0.30, 0.68]). PCIT versus WL had larger effects in reducing disruptive behavior than PMT versus WL. In the few studies found, the addition of child CBT to PMT did not yield larger effects than PMT or WL. These results support offering PMT to children with clinical levels of disruptive behavior and highlight the additional benefits of PCIT for younger ages.

Larger reported impact of stuttering in teenage females, compared to males - A comparison of teenagers' result on Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES).

PURPOSE: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore the impact and experience of stuttering, and attitude to communication for female and male teenagers who stutter (TWS) in comparison with teenagers with no stutter (TWNS). METHODS: The Swedish version of the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES-T-S), was administered to 56 TWS, 13-17 years old (26 females, 30 males). An adapted version of OASES, Attitude to Speech and Communication (ASC), was administered to 233 TWNS. The impact scores were analyzed in relation to sex in TWS and TWNS. RESULTS: Female TWS reported that stuttering had a greater impact on their life than it did on male TWS (on average 0.5 higher impact scores; Hedges' g = 0.87). The differences did not seem to be caused by differences in severity of overt stuttering symptoms. Female and male TWS particularly differed on items related to difficulties in day-to-day communication and affective/behavioral reactions to stuttering. Such sex differences were not as pronounced among TWNS, suggesting that teenage women may be more vulnerable to the negative impact of stuttering than men the same age. CONCLUSION: Female teenagers report more negative experiences and a greater tendency to use avoidance strategies than male teenagers.

Consensus Parameter: Research Methodologies to Evaluate Neurodevelopmental Effects of Pubertal Suppression in Transgender Youth.

Purpose: Pubertal suppression is standard of care for early pubertal transgender youth to prevent the development of undesired and distressing secondary sex characteristics incongruent with gender identity. Preliminary evidence suggests pubertal suppression improves mental health functioning. Given the widespread changes in brain and cognition that occur during puberty, a critical question is whether this treatment impacts neurodevelopment. Methods: A Delphi consensus procedure engaged 24 international experts in neurodevelopment, gender development, puberty/adolescence, neuroendocrinology, and statistics/psychometrics to identify priority research methodologies to address the empirical question: is pubertal suppression treatment associated with real-world neurocognitive sequelae? Recommended study approaches reaching 80% consensus were included in the consensus parameter. Results: The Delphi procedure identified 160 initial expert recommendations, 44 of which ultimately achieved consensus. Consensus study design elements include the following: a minimum of three measurement time points, pubertal staging at baseline, statistical modeling of sex in analyses, use of analytic approaches that account for heterogeneity, and use of multiple comparison groups to minimize the limitations of any one group. Consensus study comparison groups include untreated transgender youth matched on pubertal stage, cisgender (i.e., gender congruent) youth matched on pubertal stage, and an independent sample from a large-scale youth development database. The consensus domains for assessment includes: mental health, executive function/cognitive control, and social awareness/functioning. Conclusion: An international interdisciplinary team of experts achieved consensus around primary methods and domains for assessing neurodevelopmental effects (i.e., benefits and/or difficulties) of pubertal suppression treatment in transgender youth.

Biological and environmental predictors of heterogeneity in neurocognitive ageing: Evidence from Betula and other longitudinal studies.

Individual differences in cognitive performance increase with advancing age, reflecting marked cognitive changes in some individuals along with little or no change in others. Genetic and lifestyle factors are assumed to influence cognitive performance in ageing by affecting the magnitude and extent of age-related brain changes (i.e., brain maintenance or atrophy), as well as the ability to recruit compensatory processes. The purpose of this review is to present findings from the Betula study and other longitudinal studies, with a focus on clarifying the role of key biological and environmental factors assumed to underlie individual differences in brain and cognitive ageing. We discuss the vital importance of sampling, analytic methods, consideration of non-ignorable dropout, and related issues for valid conclusions on factors that influence healthy neurocognitive ageing.

Sex Differences in Episodic Memory Variance.

Men as a group have been shown to have larger variances than women in several areas pertaining to both biological and psychological traits, but no investigation has been performed in regard to episodic memory. We conducted an analysis on sex differences in episodic memory variance on 535 studies, representing 962,946 individuals, conducted between 1973 and 2013. Results showed that men had larger variances than women in verbal episodic memory tasks as well as episodic memory tasks having to do with spatial locations. Women, on the other hand, had larger variance than men for tasks involving remembering routes. These effects were for the most part small, and exploratory analyses suggest that they might come about, at least in part, because of measures not sufficiently controlled for ceiling effects. This means that the effects should be interpreted with caution and that further research on sex differences in episodic memory variance is needed.

Occupational Attributes and Occupational Gender Segregation in Sweden: Does It Change Over Time?

Sweden consistently ranks at the top of international assessments of gender equality, but paradoxically exhibits marked horizontal gender segregation in the labor market. By combining administrative and respondent-collected data, this study investigates whether occupational attributes are associated with sex distribution in Swedish occupations over a 10-year period between 2002 and 2011. Results show that the proportion of women was higher, on average, in occupations high in people orientation and verbal demands and lower in occupations high in things orientation and numerical demands. Mixed linear models showed a trend for desegregation during this period, as the proportion of women in people-oriented occupations has declined and a trend for an increase in the proportion of women in numerically demanding occupations was observed. Occupational attributes aid the understanding of gender segregation but patterns of segregation seem to change over time.

What did you do yesterday? A meta-analysis of sex differences in episodic memory.

To remember what one did yesterday is an example of an everyday episodic memory task, in which a female advantage has sometimes been reported. Here, we quantify the impact of sex on episodic memory performance and investigate whether the magnitude of the sex difference is modified by study-, task-, and sample-specific moderators. Analyses were based on 617 studies conducted between 1973 and 2013 with 1,233,921 participants. A 5-level random-effects meta-analysis showed an overall female advantage in episodic memory (g = 0.19, 95% CI [0.17, 0.21]). The material to be remembered affected the magnitude of this advantage, with a female advantage for more verbal tasks, such as words, sentences, and prose (g = 0.28, 95% CI [0.25, 0.30]), nameable images (g = 0.16, 95% CI [0.11, 0.22]), and locations (g = 0.16, 95% CI [0.11, 0.21]), and a male advantage in more spatial tasks, such as abstract images (g = -0.20, 95% CI [-0.35, -0.05]) and routes (g = -0.24, 95% CI [-0.35, -0.12]). Furthermore, there was a female advantage for materials that cannot easily be placed along the verbal-spatial continuum, such as faces (g = 0.26, 95% CI [0.20, 0.33]), and odor, taste, and color (g = 0.37, 95% CI [0.18, 0.55]). These differences have remained stable since 1973. For verbal episodic memory tasks, differences were larger in Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America than in Asia, and smaller in childhood and old age than for other ages. Taken together, results suggest that men may use their spatial advantage in spatially demanding episodic memory tasks, whereas women do well in episodic memory tasks that are verbalizable and tasks that are neither verbal nor spatial, such as remembering faces and odors/tastes/colors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The magnitude of sex differences in verbal episodic memory increases with social progress: Data from 54 countries across 40 years.

Sex differences in episodic memory have been reported. We investigate (1) the existence of sex differences in verbal and other episodic memory tasks in 54 countries, and (2) the association between the time- and country-specific social progress indicators (a) female to male ratio in education and labor force participation, (b) population education and employment, and (c) GDP per capita, and magnitude of sex differences in verbal episodic memory tasks. Data were retrieved from 612 studies, published 1973-2013. Results showed that females outperformed (Cohen's d > 0) males in verbal (42 out of 45 countries) and other (28 out of 45 countries) episodic memory tasks. Although all three social progress indicators were, separately, positively associated with the female advantage in verbal episodic memory performance, only population education and employment remained significant when considering the social indicators together. Results suggest that women's verbal episodic memory performance benefits more than men's from education and employment.

No difference in cognitive performance or gender role behavior between men with and without hypospadias.

BACKGROUND: Hypospadias is a common malformation of the male external genitalia that results in urethral displacement with different levels of severity. Male genital development during the fetal period is dependent on androgen function, while the etiology of hypospadias differs and can be multifactorial. The psychosocial outcome is sometimes affected, but according to several studies acceptable. The question of whether hypospadias is associated with differences in psychosexual development has been investigated previously, with mixed results. There are no previous investigations of cognitive abilities in men with hypospadias. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate whether hypospadias is associated with differences in performance on cognitive tests and/or gender role behavior. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-six men with hypospadias were compared to male and female controls from the general population. PROCEDURE: Cognitive tasks, previously shown to yield group level sex differences and questions regarding self-reported childhood gender role behavior, were administered either at an outpatient clinic visit or via online participation. RESULTS: The cognitive performance of men and women in the control groups differed significantly in the expected directions. Men and women also differed on self-reported childhood gender role behavior questions. There were no significant differences between men with and without hypospadias on any of the measures. Men with proximal hypospadias performed slightly lower on many of the cognitive tasks in comparison to men with distal hypospadias and controls. CONCLUSION: In general, hypospadias is not associated with differences in performance on cognitive tests that typically yield sex differences or with altered gender role behavior in childhood. Further studies on cognitive abilities in boys and men with proximal hypospadias are warranted.

Attention during Visual Preference Tasks: Relation to Caregiving and Face Recognition.

This research examined how caregiver experience (female primary caregiver or distributed caregiving with mom and dad) influenced 10-, 14-, and 16-month-olds' visual preferences and attention toward internal facial features of female-male face pairs, and how these behaviors related to novelty preferences in a face recognition task and speed and accuracy on a visual search task. In the visual preference task, infants visually preferred male faces, regardless of caregiver experience. Despite similarities in visual preferences, infants' attention toward females and males' internal facial features was related for infants with distributed caregiving only. Infants' performance across face processing tasks most often correlated for those with female primary caregivers. Results further our understanding of how infants with female primary caregivers display specialized processing of female faces, and how infants with distributed caregiving show similarities in their attention to female and male facial features.

Cognitive abilities in women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome and women with gonadal dysgenesis.

BACKGROUND: Many questions regarding the mechanisms behind sex differences in cognitive abilities are still unanswered. On a group level, men typically outperform women on certain spatial tasks, whereas women perform better on certain tests of memory and verbal ability. The prevailing theories concerning the biological predispositions for these and other differences in behaviour and brain function focus on early and prolonged exposure to sex hormones. There is, however, evidence of direct effects of sex chromosomes on sex-typical behaviour in other species. OBJECTIVES: To study the influence of sex hormones and sex chromosomes on cognition in women with Complete androgen insensitivity (CAIS) and Gonadal dysgenesis (GD). METHODS: Eighteen women with CAIS, 6 women with 46,XYGD, and 7 women with 46,XXGD were compared with age-matched male and female controls on tests of spatial and verbal abilities, memory functions, and emotion recognition. RESULTS: Women with CAIS, XYGD, and XXGD performed similar to female controls on cognitive tasks. However, on a test of emotion recognition, women with XXGD outperformed the other groups, whereas women with CAIS and XYGD performed similar to male controls. CONCLUSION: Our results support theories of androgen effects on cognitive abilities and suggest that factors related to sex chromosomes may influence emotion recognition. Implications of an atypical sex hormone situation and sex chromosome variation are discussed.

Structural whole-brain covariance of the anterior and posterior hippocampus: Associations with age and memory.

The hippocampus (HC) interacts with distributed brain regions to support memory and shows significant volume reductions in aging, but little is known about age effects on hippocampal whole-brain structural covariance. It is also unclear whether the anterior and posterior HC show similar or distinct patterns of whole-brain covariance and to what extent these are related to memory functions organized along the hippocampal longitudinal axis. Using the multivariate approach partial least squares, we assessed structural whole-brain covariance of the HC in addition to regional volume, in young, middle-aged and older adults (n = 221), and assessed associations with episodic and spatial memory. Based on findings of sex differences in both memory and brain aging, we further considered sex as a potential modulating factor of age effects. There were two main covariance patterns: one capturing common anterior and posterior covariance, and one differentiating the two regions by capturing anterior-specific covariance only. These patterns were differentially related to associative memory while unrelated to measures of single-item memory and spatial memory. Although patterns were qualitatively comparable across age groups, participants' expression of both patterns decreased with age, independently of sex. The results suggest that the organization of hippocampal structural whole-brain covariance remains stable across age, but that the integrity of these networks decreases as the brain undergoes age-related alterations.

Caregiving experience and its relation to perceptual narrowing of face gender.

This research examined whether infants tested longitudinally at 10, 14, and 16 months of age (N = 58) showed evidence of perceptual narrowing based on face gender (better discrimination of female than male faces) and whether changes in caregiving experience longitudinally predicted changes in infants' discrimination of male faces. To test face discrimination, infants participated in familiarization/novelty preference tasks and visual search tasks including female and male faces. At each age of participation, they were coded as having a female primary caregiver only or distributed caregiving experience (alternating experience with a female and male primary caregiver). Perceptual narrowing was evident for infants with a female primary caregiver, but only within the visual search task, which required location of a familiarized face among 3 novel distractor faces (exemplar-based discrimination); it was not evident within the familiarity/novelty preference task, which required discrimination between a familiarized and novel face (individual-based discrimination). Caregiving experience significantly explained individual changes in infants' ability to locate male faces during the visual search task after 10 months. These data are the first to demonstrate flexibility of the face processing system in relation to gender discrimination when there is a change in caregiver within the infants' natural environment after perceptual narrowing normally manifests. (PsycINFO Database Record

Overlapping effects of age on associative memory and the anterior hippocampus from middle to older age.

The anterior hippocampus has been implicated in associative memory, and along with hippocampal volume, this type of memory declines with age. However, few cross-sectional studies include middle-aged samples, making it unclear at what point these age-related changes occur. In addition, although men and women have been shown to differ in associative memory and rates of age-related hippocampal atrophy, sex-differences in aging are rarely studied. To address these issues, we assessed memory for word-pairs, hippocampal volume and activation during encoding and retrieval, across middle-aged (n=39) and older (n=44) participants, specifically in relation to sex. Older adults showed significantly poorer associative memory compared to middle-aged adults, paralleled by smaller anterior hippocampi and less activation during successful retrieval. The age-by-sex interaction observed in memory performance was also mirrored in the volume and activation of the hippocampus, indicating more pronounced age-effects in men as compared to women. These results indicate a specific role of the anterior hippocampus in verbal associative memory and suggest they both decline between middle-age and older age.

Childhood school performance, education and occupational complexity: a life-course study of dementia in the Kungsholmen Project.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive reserve hypothesis predicts that intellectually demanding activities over the life course protect against dementia. We investigate if childhood school performance remains associated with dementia once education and occupational complexity are taken into account. METHODS: A cohort of 440 individuals aged 75+ from the Kungsholmen Project was followed up for 9 years to detect dementia. To measure early-life contributors to reserve, we used grades at age 9-10 extracted from the school archives. Data on formal education and occupational complexity were collected at baseline and first follow-up. Dementia was ascertained through comprehensive clinical examination. Cox models estimated the relationship between life-course cognitive reserve measures and dementia. RESULTS: Dementia risk was elevated [hazard ratio (HR): 1.54, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.03 to 2.29] in individuals with low early-life school grades after adjustment for formal educational attainment and occupational complexity. Secondary education was associated with a lower risk of dementia (HR: 0.72, 95% CI: 0.50 to 1.03), although the effects of post-secondary and university degrees were indistinguishable from baseline. Occupational complexity with data and things was not related to dementia. However, an association was found between high occupational complexity with people and dementia, albeit only in women (HR: 0.39, 95% CI: 0.14 to 0.99). The pattern of results remained unchanged after adjustment for genetic susceptibility, comorbidities and depressive symptoms. CONCLUSION: Low early-life school performance is associated with an elevated risk of dementia, independent of subsequent educational and occupational attainment.

A Life-Course Study of Cognitive Reserve in Dementia--From Childhood to Old Age.

OBJECTIVE: To test a life-course model of cognitive reserve in dementia and examine if school grades around age 10 years, formal educational attainment, and lifetime occupational complexity affect the risk of dementia in old age. METHODS: 7,574 men and women from the Uppsala Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study were followed for 21 years. Information on school performance, formal education, and occupational attainment was collected prospectively from elementary school archives and population censuses. Dementia diagnosis was extracted from the two Swedish registers. Discrete-time Cox proportional hazard models were estimated. RESULTS: Dementia was diagnosed in 950 individuals (12.5%). Dementia risk was lower among individuals with higher childhood school grades (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.68 to 0.93) and was lower among individuals in data-complex occupations (HR: 0.77; 95% CI: 0.64 to 0.92). Professional/university education predicted lower risk of dementia in minimally adjusted models (HR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.60 to 0.91), although the effect faded with adjustment for occupational complexity. Lowest risk was found in the group with both higher childhood school performance and high occupational complexity with data (HR: 0.61; 95% CI: 0.50 to 0.75). Importantly, high occupational complexity could not compensate for the effect of low childhood grades. In contrast, dementia risk was reduced in those with higher school grades, irrespective of occupational complexity. CONCLUSION: Higher childhood school performance is protective of dementia risk, particularly when preserved through complex work environments in adulthood, although it will remain protective even in the absence of later-life educational or occupational stimulation.