Abstract
This chapter examines specific methodological limitations associated with the study of behavioral sex differences in social contexts, identifies potential social or environmental sources of influence that might affect the development of sex differences, and gives suggestions for evaluating biological and/or social mechanisms involved in the production of sex differences in social groups. In addition, the initial section of the chapter addresses criticism advanced against current studies of sex differences. A rather extensive and growing set of papers has raised serious objections not only to aspects of methodology, but also to the more basic issues of sexual bias, to improper generalization of results, and essentially to much of the conduct and interpretation of the research in which sex differences are measured or explored.
This chapter, publication 24-018 of the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, was supported in part by grants from NIH (RR-00167) and NIMH (MH-21312)
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Goldfoot, D.A., Neff, D.A. (1985). On Measuring Behavioral Sex Differences in Social Contexts. In: Adler, N., Pfaff, D., Goy, R.W. (eds) Reproduction. Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4832-0_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4832-0_16
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