Answer to Question 1
Answer: Men and women are more similar than they are different on the vast majority of psychological traits. In a meta-compilation of 386 large comparisons of males and females on psychological traits, the average sex difference was d = .21. Even a very large sex difference such as height still produces overlapping bell curves.
Answer to Question 2
Answer: On the Big Five, women score higher in neuroticism and agreeableness and slightly higher in extraversion. On average, women are warmer, more outgoing, more anxious, and more sympathetic than men. The difference in neuroticism also appears in neuroimaging studies, which find that women's brains, on average, react more strongly to negative emotions. Sex differences in openness to experience and conscientiousness vary depending on the sample and measure. One large cross-cultural study found that women scored slightly higher in conscientiousness and slightly lower in openness compared with men. Two others, using a different measure of Big Five traits, found that the sex differences varied by facet. Women scored higher on the aesthetics facet of openness, and men on the ideas facet; that would suggest more female art majors (aesthetics) and more male philosophy majors (ideas), which is indeed the case. Extraversion shows varying sex differences by facet as wellwomen score higher in warmth and gregariousness, and men score higher in assertiveness and excitement-seeking, including sensation-seeking and risk taking.
Differences in reproductive strategies.
Some organisms used as models in genetic research
Research Methods
Sections of a Research Report
Introduction to Behavioral Research Methods, 6/E
Examples of Differences in Mitochondrial Genetic Codes