Table of contents:
- Men and women have different brain structures
- The structure of the male brain
- Structure of the female brain
- Then, who is smarter: male or female?
A man should have to start thinking a thousand times before doubting a woman's intelligence in the home or office. The reason is that even though the brain size of men is bigger than that of women, it does not make Adam smarter and smarter. In fact, there may even be more of the population of intelligent women than men. This is because there is actually no strong relationship between brain size and human IQ. Then, what determines human intelligence? And, who is actually smarter: woman or man?
Men and women have different brain structures
The structure of the male brain
The average volume of the male brain is about 10% larger than that of the female brain. This difference in brain structure appears to be responsible for cognitive performance. Broadly speaking, men have been shown to be superior to women in completing visual-spatial tasks. One example is math skills.
The male brain also has more front-to-back connections, which can improve reasoning; so as to make them more "familiar" and accustomed to what is happening around them. This is what makes men more alert to take action.
Men have much stronger motor skills than women. This ability can be used for activities that require good hand-eye coordination, such as throwing a ball or hammering nails.
However, a bigger brain does not mean that men are smarter than women's brains.
Structure of the female brain
Although the size of the male brain is larger than the size of the female brain, in fact the hippocampus in women is larger than that of men. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that stores memories, one of the reasons women can see a problem from various perspectives and process a lot of information more quickly. Women's brains are designed to absorb information five times faster than men's.
If more male brain connections were connected from front to back, women had more connections from left to right across the two halves of the brain. This is the reason women are quicker to conclude something than men. The left side of the brain is concerned with logical thinking, and intuition. Women also have more "servings" gray matter in the hippocampus. Gray matter affects women's ability to absorb vocabulary, read and write better.
In the female brain, there are more neural connections in areas associated with memory and social cognition. Thus, it is not surprising that women tend to be better at remembering, understanding how other people feel, aka being empathetic, and knowing how to respond correctly in all social situations.
In addition, women's brains also produce more serotonin and oxytocin, which may make them calmer, more interested in emotional connections, and able to maintain focus for longer periods of time. This is also what makes women better at multitasking than men.
Then, who is smarter: male or female?
Before knowing the answer, first know the definition of intelligence is not only about ability in academics, but is broader than that. The best way to know whether a man or woman is intelligent is to measure a person's abilities based on how he acquired and manifested the knowledge he acquired, apart from the knowledge he had.
In general, a person's intelligence can be measured through an IQ test to determine how well they are performing in the following four areas: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning (visual-spatial and auditory), working memory (including short-term memory), and information / question processing speed.
However, Daniel Amen, MD, author of the book Unleash the Power of the Female Brain mentioned that no major differences were found in the IQ test results of men and women, regardless of differences in brain size. The reason is how smart someone is sometimes not because that person is taught to be smart. Intelligence is acquired by teaching them to use what they have efficiently.
So, while there may be more intelligent women than men in population, no one camp is truly superior and smart. Both of them have intelligence at different things. However, in particular there are differences in brain development and competence on certain cognitive tasks between women and men.