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Jordan Peterson: The Difference Between Men and Women — Transcript

by Sorting Myself Out · 2,678 words · 389 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00what's the difference between men and
0:01women how do they differ well the first
0:04thing we might observe is that if you
0:06look at personality differences be be
0:08between P prepubescent boys and girls
0:11they're not very large boys and girls
0:13don't differ in terms of their their
0:15trait neuroticism for example what
0:17happens is that when puberty kicks in
0:19women's trait neuroticism Rises and it
0:22stays higher than men for the rest of
0:24their life and this is why you you see
0:26this reflected in the different kinds of
0:27Psychopathology that beset the two sexes
0:29so men are over represented in
0:31alcoholism drug abuse antisocial
0:33personality and a a host of learning
0:35disorders as well as attention deficit
0:37disorder and women are over represented
0:39in depression and anxiety primarily that
0:42seems to be tightly associated with
0:44higher levels of trait neuroticism
0:45because maybe it's if you're at the 95th
0:47percentile or higher let's say in trait
0:50neuroticism there isn't much different
0:52than difference between that and being
0:54somewhat prone to depression and anxiety
0:56and because the curves overlap you know
0:59the the the the curves aren't identical
1:01the normal distributions aren't
1:03identical for men and women you tilt the
1:05one to the to the right to the women's
1:07Curve to to the right towards higher
1:08levels of neuroticism you go out and you
1:10look for the person in 20 who has the
1:13highest levels of negative emotion it's
1:15much more likely to be female than male
1:17okay so let's see if we can figure out
1:19why so I'm going to tell you some things
1:21basic differences between men and women
1:22and you can tell me what you think about
1:24it if you if you agree or disagree okay
1:27first size differential emerges between
1:30men and women at puberty right because
1:32boys and girls are roughly the same size
1:33and roughly the same strength but men
1:35get bigger at puberty when the test oone
1:38kicks in and more importantly not only
1:40do they get taller and heavier but their
1:42upper body strength is much higher and
1:44that's a real issue for for combat
1:47because human beings punch there's other
1:49animals that do that kangaroos do that
1:51too so we're not the we're not the only
1:53people that punch but we have clubs on
1:54the ends of our arms and so that's how
1:57we defend ourselves and so if you have a
1:59lot of upper body strength especially
2:01across the shoulders and you're heavier
2:03then you can step into the punch and
2:04it's a lot more devastating now it is
2:06the case that if you look at the
2:08statistics for physical altercations in
2:11marriage women attack their husbands
2:13more often the husbands attack their
2:14wives well you think why is that well
2:18let's assume that there isn't any reason
2:20other than both people in a relationship
2:22can get upset and the women know that if
2:24they hit their husbands nothing's really
2:26going to happen right because if you're
2:28a Rel you know if you're a woman about
2:30high and your husband is say my height
2:32you're unless you hit me with an object
2:34or something that's sharp the
2:36probability that you're going to do me
2:37any serious damage is pretty low you
2:39might hurt me but if I do the reverse
2:41and hit you and I really hit you and so
2:44the reason at least one of the reasons
2:46why women can be more physically
2:48aggressive in minor ways in a
2:50relationship is because everyone knows
2:52the wife and the husband equally that
2:54the consequence of the physical
2:55aggression is much more limited so men
2:58do more serious damage to to women but
3:00women are more aggressive in
3:02relationships so that's interesting so
3:04okay so there's a there's a body size
3:06difference that's important a strength
3:08differential that's important next thing
3:10I think so let's assume that the reason
3:13that women are higher in sensitivity to
3:15negative emotion is because the world is
3:16actually more dangerous to women right
3:19because that would be the most logical
3:21reason why there would be a sex
3:23difference and a sex difference in
3:25something like fear or sensitivity to
3:26punishment well first there's the danger
3:28of physical alter ation second there's
3:31the sexual danger so women become
3:34sexually vulnerable at puberty and why
3:36do I say vulnerable well it's
3:38straightforward it's because the cost of
3:40sex for women is way higher than it is
3:41for men or and it certainly has been
3:43throughout our evolutionary history
3:45because if a man has an unwanted sexual
3:48encounter well then he walks away and
3:50maybe he's persecuted by the state or
3:52prosecuted by the state for it but if a
3:54woman has an unwanted unwarranted or
3:56incautious sexual encounter and she ends
3:58up pregnant then well in traditional
4:01societies that's you're just done and
4:04even in modern societies that are rich
4:05like ours you're it's it's
4:09a I don't have to go into that it's big
4:11trouble no matter what you do about it
4:13it's big trouble so being being more
4:15nervous about that makes perfect sense
4:18but then here's the last thing and I
4:21think that women's nervous systems are
4:23not adapted to
4:25women I think women's nervous systems
4:27are adapted to the mother infant diet
4:30and because you are not the same
4:32creature when you have an infant not at
4:34all you're way more vulnerable and it's
4:36partly because you have to express the
4:38vulnerability of the infant and you also
4:40have to care for it right so you think
4:43about an infant especially under nine
4:45months so let's say how are you going to
4:47be wired up if you're going to optimally
4:49care for an infant under nine months and
4:51I'm saying under nine months because
4:53women generally do the bulk of child
4:55care for infants who are under 9 months
4:56old and part of the reason for that
4:58there's a whole host of reason but part
5:00of the reasons for that obviously is
5:01that they breastfeed but imagine what
5:03you need to be wired up biologically in
5:05order to care for an infant first of all
5:08they're very demanding right because
5:11they're completely helpless and they're
5:12demanding 24 hours a day and it's quite
5:16it's quite uh it's quite a emotional
5:19load and an infant under 9 months is
5:21never wrong right what you do to an
5:24infant under nine months is when they're
5:25in distress you always respond you never
5:29tell the infant get your act together
5:31and stop whining right which you can do
5:34say to an to a child that's 18 months
5:36old you can start having that sort of
5:37conversation but under nine months it's
5:39like nothing is the infant's
5:41fault it's surrounded in an
5:43extraordinarily threatening world and
5:46you have to be responsive to what it
5:47needs regardless of what you want and
5:49you have to be very sensitive to the
5:51threats that emerge in the environment
5:53and so I think the price that women pay
5:55for that ability to have an intimate
5:57relationship with infants in the very
5:58earliest stages of development is that
6:01their nervous systems are actually wired
6:03so that they can perform that role
6:05optimally and the disadvantage to that
6:08is that having a temperament like that
6:10doesn't work that well when you're
6:11dealing with adult men especially when
6:14you're dealing with them in in a
6:15business environment because it's not
6:17the same thing not at all it's a
6:18competitive environment so okay so
6:21agreeable people are compassionate and
6:22polite what are disagreeable people like
6:25they're tough-minded they're blunt
6:27they're competitive and they won't do
6:29damn thing they don't want to do so it
6:31isn't exactly that they're aggressive
6:33although they will push you the hell out
6:34of their way if you're in the way
6:36they're not they're not like volatile
6:39like you are if you're high in in in
6:41neuroticism it isn't defensive
6:42aggression it's more like predatory
6:44aggression it's dominance behavior and
6:47so for someone who's High who's High
6:49highly disagreeable they look at the
6:51world as a place in which they can
6:53compete and win and I'll tell you a
6:56story I have a friend I gave him my
6:58personality test the big five aspect
7:00scale that Colin D young developed in my
7:03lab and uh I knew he was a disagreeable
7:07guy and by interacting with him um I
7:10mean he's even rude to people sort of
7:11spontaneously on the street I actually
7:13like him quite a bit he's very very
7:15funny he's also very conscientious so
7:16you can trust him but he's disagreeable
7:18as hell and uh so I gave him this test
7:21because I thought it would be funny and
7:22he came out as the most disagreeable
7:25person in
7:2610,000 so reasonably reasonable in
7:29compassion about 30th percentile but
7:31like 0.001 in politeness so he's
7:35extraordinarily blunt and he'll just say
7:37absolutely anything no matter how
7:39horrible it is and he was often brought
7:41into corporations to sort of clean them
7:43up so if a corporation was tilting and
7:45not doing well they'd bring him in to
7:47find out who the useless people were and
7:49fire them and I talk to him about that
7:51because I've had the Miss opportunity to
7:53have to not have graduate students in my
7:55lab for example that weren't performing
7:57well and I find it very very difficult
7:58to you know dress someone down and
8:00certainly difficult to fire them I just
8:02hate it because I'm actually quite an
8:03agreeable person much to my chagrin and
8:06I asked him about that and I said well
8:08what do you do you have to fire people
8:09all the time how do you handle that he
8:11says handle it I enjoy it and I thought
8:14wow that's so interesting that someone
8:16would have that response I said well
8:17what what do you mean you enjoy it he
8:19said look I go into these companies and
8:21I analyze the performance of groups of
8:23people right and there's in those groups
8:25there are people who are really striving
8:26really trying hard and working
8:28themselves really hard and being
8:30productive and then there's these people
8:32that are just doing nothing they're
8:33completely in the way they don't carry
8:34their weight at all they take advantage
8:36every chance they get and they're always
8:38whining about why they can't work it's
8:39like I find out who they are I call them
8:41into my office and I tell them exactly
8:43what they've been doing it's like hit
8:44the road buddy you've had your you've
8:46had your run of it and I thought oh yeah
8:50okay fair enough you know well I I can
8:52tell you you know I I've had situations
8:53in my lab where I had underperforming
8:55graduate students and one of the things
8:58that was really awful about that was
8:59that it was really hard on the high
9:01performing graduate students you know
9:03because they felt that even being in the
9:05same category as the people who weren't
9:07working hard and pulling their weight
9:09devalued what they were doing you know
9:11and that's exactly right and so this is
9:13also why there's there's a
9:15conscientiousness trait and an
9:17agreeableness trait because
9:19conscientious people judge you on your
9:21accomplishments right they don't give a
9:23damn about your feelings not a bit it's
9:25like are you doing the work or not
9:27whereas agreeable people think well you
9:29know your mother's sick and you know
9:31you've you've got a bunch of family
9:32problems and and we all have to take
9:34care of each other and it's no wonder
9:36that you're having a rough time and like
9:38you can't say that one of those
9:39attitudes is correct and the other isn't
9:41correct you can't say that there
9:43wouldn't be those two Dimensions if
9:45there wasn't something correct about
9:46both of them but you can certainly point
9:48out that often they conflict you know
9:51and so the demand for for inclusiveness
9:53and unity and care and the demand for
9:55high level performance in a hierarchical
9:58structure they're very different
9:59orientations in the world and so it's
10:03complicated for people who are agreeable
10:05and conscientious and actually I think
10:08often that large corporations and large
10:11large institutions of any sort run on
10:14the unheralded labor of people who are
10:17high in agreeableness and high in
10:18conscientiousness and they're
10:20disproportionately women and my
10:21experience in large institutions has
10:23been that if you want to hire someone to
10:26exploit appropriately no not
10:28appropriately if you you want to hire
10:30someone to exploit productively you hire
10:32middle-aged women who are hyper
10:34conscientious and who are agreeable
10:36because they'll do everything they won't
10:38take credit for it and they won't
10:39complain and that's nasty and I think
10:42that happens all the time and so one of
10:43the things you have to be careful of if
10:45you're agreeable is not to be exploited
10:48because you'll line up to be exploited
10:50and I think the reason for that is
10:51because you're wired to be exploited by
10:54infants and so that just doesn't work so
10:57well in that actual world and one of the
10:59things one of the things that happens
11:00very often in Psychotherapy you know
11:02people come to psychotherapy for
11:03multiple reasons but one of them is they
11:05often come because they're too agreeable
11:07and so what they get is so-called
11:09assertiveness training although it's not
11:11exactly assertiveness that's being
11:12trained what it is is the ability to
11:14learn how to negotiate on your own
11:16behalf and one of the things I tell
11:18agreeable people especially if they're
11:19conscientious
11:21is say what you think tell the truth
11:24about what you think there's going to be
11:25things you think that you think are
11:27nasty and harsh and they probably are
11:29nasty and harsh but they're also
11:31probably true and you need to bring
11:33those up to the Forefront and deliver
11:35the message and it's not straightforward
11:37at all because agreeable people do not
11:39like conflict not at all they smooth the
11:42water you know and you can see you can
11:44see why that is in accordance with the
11:47hypothesis that I've been putting
11:48forward you don't want conflict around
11:50infants it's too damn dangerous you
11:52don't want fights to break out you don't
11:54want anything to disturb the the
11:56relative peace you know and if you're
11:58also more prone to being hurt physically
12:01and perhaps emotionally you also may be
12:03loathed to engage in the kind of
12:05high-intensity conflict that will solve
12:07problems in the short term because a lot
12:09of conflict it takes a lot of conflict
12:11to solve problems in the short term and
12:13you know if that can spiral up to where
12:15it's dangerous which it can if it gets
12:17uncontrolled it might be safer in the
12:20short term to keep the water smooth and
12:22to not delve into those situations where
12:24conflict emerges the problem with that
12:26is it's not a very good medium to
12:27long-term strategy right because lot
12:30lots of times there are things you have
12:31to talk about because they're not going
12:33to go away and so partly what you do
12:36with agreable people is you get them to
12:38figure out and they have a hard time
12:39with this too if you ask a disagreeable
12:41person what what he wants say or she
12:44wants they'll tell you right away they
12:45they know it's like this is what I want
12:46and this is how I'm going to get it but
12:48agreeable people especially if they're
12:50really agreeable are so agreeable that
12:51they often don't even know what they
12:53want because they're so accustomed to
12:55living for other people and to finding
12:57out what other people want and trying to
12:59make them comfortable and so forth that
13:01it's harder for them to find a sense of
13:03their own desires as they move through
13:05life and that's not look there's
13:09situations where that's advantageous but
13:10it's certainly not advantageous if
13:12you're going to try to uh Forge yourself
13:15a career that just doesn't work at all
13:18so

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