Men and Women at Promise for Scientific Excellence: Similarity Not Dissimilarity

U.S. math-science graduate students possessing world-class talent (368 males, 346 females) were assessed on psychological attributes and personal experiences in order to examine how their talents emerged and developed. Comparisons were made, using similar assessments, with mathematically talented students (528 males, 228 females) identified around age 13 and tracked into adulthood by the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY). Well before college, both samples were academically distinguished: however, the graduate students could be identified during adolescence as a subset of mathematically talented youths based on their nonintellectual attributes. Their profiles corresponded to what earlier psychological studies found to characterize distinguished (and exclusively male) scientists: exceptional quantitative reasoning abilities, relatively stronger quantitative than verbal reasoning ability, salient scientific interests and values, and finally, persistence in seeking out opportunities to study scientific topics and develop scientific skills. On these attributes, sex differences were minimal for the graduate students (but notfor the SMPY comparison groups). Developing exceptional scientific expertise apparently requires special educational experiences, but these necessary experiences are similar for the two sexes.