I’ve been supportive of marriage equity for some time. Unlike Obama, this isn’t a position I’ve “evolved into.” But I’ve been supportive in that low-key, slactivist way: I’ve given a bit of money to the Human Rights Campaign, and written letters to editors and to legislators. It has always, to me, been an annoyingly clear case of not providing the same right to everyone. But I will also admit that this comes with a heavy dose of white straight male privilege. Among those I normally interact with, the idea that those who are not white and straight should enjoy the same human rights is beyond legitimate debate–it’s obvious. But it also means that I can agree with this and too easily forget what it has taken to get here. Stonewall was before my time, and not having been in the position of being targeted because of my sexuality means that while I can be deeply empathetic, I will never fully understand that struggle. It is too easy for me to say equality should be the norm, and falls toward the “I don’t see race,” sort of comment.

So, I think there was a lot more to celebrate at Gino and Glen’s wedding than the coming together of two individuals, or of two families. There was more than I could know. That’s probably true of all weddings, but here, I felt like I should have known better, and should have appreciated more what this meant. It wasn’t just making possible what couldn’t have legally happened two years ago. It wasn’t just the state recognizing that they had unjustly excluded some people from a certain certification. It was a step in the lives of two men who had faced a similar set of injustices throughout their lives.

By the time we got to the vows and the exchange of rings, Kai had had enough and Jamie had brought him to the back of the church where he could be a little less disruptive. Jasper, at this point, was sitting on my knee in rapt attention. And more than anything else, seeing the wedding through his eyes made me rethink my own perspective.

Jasper, like me, thinks of Uncle Gino and Uncle Glen as friends–he likes both of them a lot. It was not by design that Jasper’s first wedding was for two men, and I hadn’t really thought much about it, but I am deeply thankful that this, for him, is what a wedding is. Just as I am glad that for Jasper, the president has always been black. I am also aware that this is a very naive version of race and gender equity. I know that these issues are more complex and deserve deeper consideration. But I also enjoy my own naive appreciation, that I share with my son, that two of my favorite people get to be married. And that alone, even outside of the historical context and of the struggle, is something that is worthy of joy and appreciation.

Congratulations Gino and Glen, and may you grow together even more in the years to come.

Now, I am naturally lazy–a trait I am trying to more actively cultivate, but I gather he had figured that because I haven’t been blogging or tweeting or doing any of those other sorts of continual status updates I must be slacking. As usual, my blogging (including micro-blogging) is inversely proportionate to how busy I am, not the other way around. There is a small caveat: sometimes it is an indicator that I am procrastinating, and therefore should be busy. On very rare occasions, when the stars align, it is actually linked to progress on a project, but generally speaking, silence on this front should never be taken as indication that I am actually relaxing a little.

On the other hand, the number of hours I have each week to work on projects is somewhat limited by being the daytime parent (with some help) of Jasper. This remains my priority, and though it sometimes means sacrificing things I would like to do, there is never going to be another time to hang out with my six-month-old, so he wins. As it is, I wish I could spend even more time with him.

In what seems to be a perennial sort of post, here are some of the projects I’m working on right now, besides raising the future benevolent dictator of our solar system:

• Writing Course at Quinnipiac University. I’ve been dragged–somewhat against my will :)–into teaching the “writing for interactive” course this summer. Actually, the content of the course isn’t what puts me off: it’s that (a) it is in the summer, and I would like to reserve summers for research and projects and (b) it’s 5 weeks long. It is hard enough to teach a course in 15 and have students not feel overwhelmed. When you compress that into 5 weeks–and it’s the same number of credits, so I think we should hit the material at the same depth–it is just impossible. So, dealing with that tension, particularly in a writing course, is going to be difficult. I also need to revise my fall seminars. I’m organizing one of my courses around reading and annotating Little Brother, as well as heavily revising my intro (ICM 501) course. (I have also felt a recent disruption in the force in the ICM program, which will probably require even more cycles being put toward re-keeling it.)
• Digital Media & Learning Hub. I haven’t been talking publicly in any organized way about this, but some of you know that I have been working with the DML Hub, a group constituted to improve collaboration among researchers funded by the MacArthur’s Digital Media and Learning initiative. I’m working with a team to create a DML Collaboratory site for researchers, as well as an external site that will seek to gather the current state of the art in one place. I’m also in the early stages of working with a group to establish some norms of sharing data, particularly qualitative data. I’ll actually be blogging a bit about this latter project in the coming week, and probably tweeting a little about the Collaboratory and that process.
• Twittering and Protesting. Happy to have the opportunity to work with Maria Garrido again, this time on a project that tracks the ways in which Twitter is being used to both build identity and coordinate action. This is one of two papers that I’ve promised for the AoIR meeting next year. Will be blogging a bit as it develops. This is also one of two Twitter-related research pieces I’m working on, both at early stages.
• Association of Internet Researchers. In the short term, setting up a registration site, but I am desperately hoping that I can get the Exec behind using this in the long term as well. It would make my life so much easier, and everyone else’s as well! Still doesn’t solve the paper submission and refereeing system issues, but I really hope we are able to move to a different system for that next year. Looking forward to talking to next year’s organizers about how to make that work out a bit better.

A lot of other things are right on the cusp of needing to be done, but I’m trying to keep my head clear of them for the moment. It really doesn’t seem that bad when it’s spelled out as above. Of course, tthere are the other pending things: three book projects, whipping some old research together into publishable form, a grant proposal sometime later this year, various talks, digitizing my library, etc. But I’m trying to keep those things out fo mind, wherever possible.

The Three Incidents

Outside of Mama Mexico, a young girl (maybe 10 or 11–though I’m terrible with judging age) was telling her younger friend or sib, “No, New York isn’t next to Connecticut, it’s, like, 300 miles away. The only reason anyone would go there is if they went to Yale.”

Further up the street, a little boy (maybe 3 or 4) was walking with a woman who may have been his mother. He was carrying a magnifying glass in one hand. He stopped suddenly, darted to the base of a shop window, picked something up and started looking at it.

Mom: “What are you doing?”
Kid: “Look what I found!”
Mom: “Don’t ever pick things up off the street!”
Kid: “But… it’s a lucky penny.”
Mom: “It doesn’t matter. You never pick anything up off the street. Do you understand?”
She takes the penny out of his hand and tosses it aside. Grabs him by by the hand and drags him down the street while he looks forlornly back at the penny.

At 110th, a boy (maybe 7 or 8) was crossing the street with someone who may have been his father. The dad was carrying a one of those saucer sleds. I don’t know what you call them–a “sliding down a snow-topped hill without directional control apparatus.” He stepped on what looked to be a broken piece of plastic on the ground, and annoyingly kicked it away. The kid picked it up.

Dad: “What are you doing?”
Kid: “Throwing this away.”
Dad: “Well. [Long pause.] You are a very good citizen… Yes, that was the right thing to do. That’s what I should have done.”

Classrooms as Learning Places

Three very little incidents in three different kids lives, all witnessed during a short walk down the street. Our children’s lives are made of such incidents–it’s how they become who they become. Brushed off as unimportant by everyone involved, I bet that if I asked these kids ten years down the road, they might remember these conversations. I bet they would remember very little of what happened in the classroom this year–but this day, and the things that happened on it, would be seared into their minds. It reinforced the awesome responsibility I have with my new son, Jasper, since I realize I don’t get to choose when he is learning.

I’ve spent a lot of time in classrooms, and–to be sure–I’ve learned some things in them. I have to say, I’ve learned more in them as a teacher than I ever did as a student, but nonetheless, when what happens in a classroom is good, it can be very, very good. But many of the things I’ve learned in classrooms were unplanned, or completely irrelevant to what was intended. I spent a lot of time as an undergraduate making elaborate floor plans of homes where I wanted to live someday, and designs for devices I wanted to build. Anything to stop from falling asleep. I would buy the lecture notes afterward, study for an hour before the exam, and sometimes do pretty well, depending on the subject. Did I retain any of that information? Maybe. I might be able to tell you something about cell architecture, infectious diseases, 20th century Japanese literature, the epistles of Paul, or designing microcode. (I spent 7 years as an undergrad, so I took a pretty disparate selection of courses.)

And sometimes I got the “aha!” moments: sitting in the back of a classroom and understanding modus ponendo tollens, or making–for the first time–a connection between the mechanism of the fetish in Durkheim, Marx, and Freud, or biting into jiaozi my group had made for the first time in a cooking class offered by an international exchange group. It would be unfair to suggest that learning cannot or does not happen in classrooms. But for me, at least, it happened there less than it happened while out camping, or at a museum.

Hallways as Learning Places

And that’s not to say that universities cannot be or are not excellent places to learn. But the fact of the matter is that most of my learning in such places happened in the hallway, chatting with classmates on break, or in the computer lab, working through a problem on my own or with friends. There were exceptions to this: classes where I consistently learned a lot. There were even lecture courses where I managed to learn quite a bit. In my undergraduate career, I can think of two or three lecturers who were able to impart information in that format. Given how many lecture courses I attended at a large state university, that is a bit of an indictment.

To be fair, in courses where we talked more and sat less, I think I ended up learning more. But one of the reasons I learned anything at all was because I was around people who wanted to learn. I think it’s easy to be idealistic about this, and say everyone wants to learn, but I don’t think this is the case. There are many environments in which being curious is penalized. And, as much as I hate to say it, many schools where this is the case. I don’t just mean the obvious cases, where interesting questions are left aside in favor of preparing for the standardized testing. More generally, a curriculum–a course of instruction–seems to work against natural mechanisms of curiosity.

Teachable Moments?

Which reminds me of a conversation I had in the hallway with two of my peers in graduate school. (Chris and Sean, I think it was). We were talking about the question of the role of teachers. I was trying on the garb of the radical anarchist, and explaining how I thought that many of the structures of the university were stifling and antiquated. Why, Chris asked, was I still working in one?

There are lots of answers to this. First, I get to hang around and talk with people who are interested in ideas and learning more than that occurs in other settings. In recent years, I’ve become more convinced that other organizations hold that draw as well, but in most cases these have modeled themselves on the university setting in some way. Second, it provides a socially accepted place to be a “scholar.” But the answer I gave then–joking, only serious–was that I wanted to undo the institution from within.

When I was a graduate student, there was a new professor who had a sign hanging in his office that read–if I recall correctly–“I want to inspire.” I hated that sign, in some ways. For me, the role of the teacher was to teach–to impart knowledge–not to inspire. The idea of inspiration seemed to me to be too intrusive: if students wanted to learn, I was there for them, but it was not my business to motivate them. But recently it has become less clear to me what teachers should do. The obvious answer–they should teach!–makes this even more difficult, because I’m not sure what teaching is.

I have a decent idea of what learning consists of. Maybe the job of a teacher is to create environments in which students can engage in learning. For me, at least, that is part of what teaching is. Creating spaces in which students can collectively learn from one another and their experiences. I think teaching is also taking students away from familiar circumstances and expectations. Giving them a bit of a metaphorical bop on the head. Putting them in positions where their old way of thinking might not work as well.

Structured Anarchy

This is hard to do in a classroom, precisely because it is so familiar. Students spend most of their lives in an environment that has been built to tell them to structure their thought in particular ways. Much of modern instructional design–learning objectives, rubrics, and outlines in bite-sized chunks–reinforces the idea of a disciplined path of exercise. There is something to be said for imitation and modeling. There is something to be said for tradition, for ritual, and for rote memorization. Twice in my educational career, I’ve been asked to sing hymns in chorus, and perhaps not coincidentally, both were in places where I learned quite a bit. The second was as part of a warm-up exercise that drew on the Grotowski method of actor’s movement training in college. The first at a small private school where we sang “Simple Gifts,” among other songs, at the all-school assembly each morning:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,

‘Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come out right.

Hardly a paean to anarchy, that. But I think more attention needs to be paid to the balance of structure and surprise. That does not mean providing grading rubrics to pander to students’ unreasonable relationship to grades. But some structural rituals can be good; some elements that introduce the unfamiliar in contexts or frames that are familiar.

I guess the prototypical example of this is “show & tell.” At several schools I attended we had a period of show and tell that was consistently scheduled. But you never knew quite what you would get. I think some Montessori schools get this right as well: providing freedom to work independently within a structure that supports that sort of independence. Maybe graduate and undergraduate faculty should be spending time in kindergarten to remember what seems to work well.

As for me, I think my best bet is still to change the university from within. That means making courses strange–surprising students. Administrators don’t like surprises, but I am not an administrator. I am a teacher. And maybe my definition of teacher is “someone who makes the familiar surprising.”

Jasper is coming up on five weeks old now, and is starting to develop a personality. He was very into crown moldings and lights from the day he came home, but now he is starting to recognize voices and look at that person, and looks at different parts of your face, or at your mouth when you are talking, or checks out his look in the mirror. In other words, he gets more human by the day, though he is still 90% spider monkey, and will likely continue to be indefinitely.

We have found, however, we enjoy many of the same things:
* architectural details
* eating
* staying up late
* lounging at home
* boobies
* friendly dogs
* walks in the park
* snuggling with Jamie
* The Rolling Stones and Bob Marley
* sleeping on our bellies (and not on our backs)
* having our toes free to wiggle rather than crammed into socks and booties

In all, I think we got the best Christmas gift ever this year. Hope yours was filled with magnificence as well.

Our seven-year-old guest was literally on the edge of his seat, watching The Princess Bride for the first time, and seeing Inigo Montoya fulfill his lifelong pursuit to avenge the death of his father at the hyperdactyl hand of Count Rugen.

“This is an excellent scene,” our young guest said precociously.

When we considered movies we had on hand that were PG-rated–his requirement–we came up with two, this one and Flushed Away. Afterward, he said both were good, but he much preferred Princess Bride; why? “Obviously, more chaos.” Was a bit puzzled by this, but his mom let us know that “obviously” and “chaos” were two of his favorite words lately.

Watching Princess Bride with a kid makes you recognize that it has some messages that were common in films of the period that were intended for younger audiences, but not so common today. While the arch villain is left by the hero to live with his own infamy, Montoya seems in many ways to be more heroic in his quest and in its completion. The theme–call it Count of Monte Cristo light–seems largely absent from youth literature today, and perhaps even to my own surprise, I find that unfortunate.

There is something in Montoya’s righteous indignation, his passion for justice, his sense of honor, that is comforting and wholesome. The idea that vengeance is always wrong, an idea that runs through much of modern Christianity, seems misplaced to me, just as misplaced as assuming that revenge is always just. French moralist Joseph Joubert wrote, “Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.” (He also wrote “Children have more need of models than of critics.”) The standard escape these days–played so often as to be a cliché–is that the hero captures the villain and allows him to live, only dispatching him when the villain makes a last effort to kill the hero when his back is turned. This is present somewhat in Princess Bride I suppose; If Montoya was not seemingly mortally wounded early in the scene, I’m not sure it would play as just.

I realize that there is something in my core personality that sympathizes with Montoya, and I suspect this was installed in me at about my guest’s age. Seven is traditionally referred to as the “age of reason” among Catholics, when people start becoming responsible for the morality of their actions. Seven is also a pivotal age for many developmental psychologists; Piaget marks this as the onset of “concrete operational thinking” and the close of egocentric thought.

It seems somehow retrograde and old-testament, these ideas of vengeance and honor. But I’ve always liked those imperfect characters who nonetheless were honorable in their own way. I’ll take Montoya over Wesley, Solo over Skywalker, Batman over Superman. I am pleased, therefore, that a pervading sense of the avenger is present in the first book I am reading to my unborn son, Cory Doctorow’s new Little Brother. We are going through it slowly, a few chapters a week, and of course I like the way it introduces a hackerish ethics to issues of surveillance, but I also like its revival of the vow of retribution. No spoilers please–I hope Doctorow does not cave to more recent sensibilities, and dampen the release (or noble tragedy) of retribution.

Jamie: Good morning, Darling Husband!

Alex: Grumble… mrf. Why are we up?

Jamie: What day is it?

Alex: Monday?

Jamie: Yes, but what Monday?

Alex: Too-early-in-the-morning Monday?

Jamie: Today’s the 21st, your birthday!

Alex: It is? Cool! What am I getting this year?

Jamie: [Dramatically indicates her own personage.]

Alex: Um. didn’t I get that last year?

Jamie: Notice anything… different.

Alex: Well, I’ve been meaning to say, you’ve been really packing on the pounds lately…

Jamie: How old are you again?

[A subtly cruel question, since she knows he hasn’t been able to keep track for about a decade.]

Alex: I’m gonna be 40.

[A graceful allusion to pop culture that nonetheless dates him.]

Jamie: Well, we’re off to the hospital for pictures.

Alex: What, have you been listening to the Vapors?

[A less graceful, overly obscure, yet still out-of-date pop culture reference.]

Jamie: I’m sure you’ll figure everything out eventually…

Our first child is due on December 8 of this year. I’m furiously reading various parenting books and trying to figure out who I’ll need to knock off to get him into a decent pre-school on the Upper West Side.

Don’t worry, this blog will remain unfocused, intermittent, and boring. But soon, with more baby!

(The sonograms are in order: April 22, May 6, May 22, July 21, and many more are over at flickr.)

* Finishing up my new book, Search Engine Society. I’m putting the finishing touches on the index. All of it was desperately out of date the moment I wrote it, but that was inevitable. Luckily, Polity has been very good about turn-around timing on this. It’s due out in October, if the gods of printing allow. Indexing is more annoying than I thought. Can’t we just Google it?

* Research for a paper about Digg, and ratings. I had originally planned on writing this up in the form of a Dr. Suess book, but I think I’m headed for something a bit more traditional at this point. This actually follows a line of research from my dissertation, lo, so many years ago.

* Research for a paper about the use of hyperlinking in the rhetoric of extremism (and particularly racism) on the web. Again, this is a project that I’ve been thinking about for about a decade, but I’m only now getting things together for it.

* Early stages of planning to take the initial ideas I presented in a paper at NCA last year, about collaborative filtering, netroots, and the public agenda, and apply them to the presidential election. I want to finish this up sometime in, say, November.

* Organizing materials for my next book. Will be working on it over the next year or so. There are a three separate ideas I’ve been working on, but I think I’m going to look at the nexus of networked communication, learning, creativity, and government.

* I’m revising my “Intro Interactive” course. No, really. This will be the first time I have revised a course rather than starting pretty much from a clean slate. Very exciting. Hoping to outsource some of it, and interview some friends and former students to get a look at the interactive industry.

* I’m rewriting “Communication, Media, and Society” from scratch, trying to provide the means for doing my “students design the class” thing and still having it work for an online version.

* Early stages of planning for my spring courses: “Web Programming” and “Something Else.” There are several possibilities for my special topics, including: Search Engine Society (duh!), Surveillance, Virtual Worlds,

* I’ve been doing some prep on a major project, which will be my top priority when it launches later this year. Laying the foundation and doing some planning over the next few months. I’ll announce it formally on my birthday later this month.

But I haven’t been blogging. I’ll try to do better. Oh, and if I owe you something (refereeing, emails, invoices, money, the head of your sworn enemy), I’ll get to it. Just a bit bogged down right now.

So, has this brought on any deep introspection? Well, for a moment I was reminded of an old Steve Martin number, the I’m me song, during which he stops and says “But wait. What if I’m a girl?” I just don’t happen to fit well on their scales. I’ve got very manly spatio-visual awareness, but also, apparently, a colossal corpus callosum, which may or may not, be more prevalent among the ladies.

At any rate, I’m not going to take much stock in it. My hairline suggests that whatever testosterone I may have missed in the womb was more than made up for later on.

Part 1

Angles

This task tested your ability to identify the angle of a line by matching it with its twin. This is a spatial task, which looks at how you picture space.
Your score: 15 out of 20
Average score for men: 15.1 out of 20
Average score for women: 13.3 out of 20

What does your result suggest?

If you scored 13 – 17: You found this test neither hard nor easy. This suggests your brain has male and female traits when it comes to spatial ability.

Interestingly, men’s testosterone levels fluctuate through the seasons and studies have shown that men’s scores are lower in the spring, when their testosterone levels are at their lowest.

Do our cave dwelling ancestors offer us any clues about why men and women score differently on this task? Find out more.

Spot the difference

This task tested your ability to identify which objects changed position. You lost points, if you incorrectly identified objects.
Your score: 93%
Average score for men: 39%
Average score for women: 46%

What does your score suggest?

If you scored between 67 – 100%: Those with a female-type brain generally score in this range. Your ability to remember where objects are may serve as an advantage to you when you’re trying to find your way around places. You’re more capable of recalling landmarks to get from one place to another.

Find out more about our spatial abilities.

Part 2

Hands

You said your left thumb was on top when you clasped your hands together.

Left thumb on top: This suggests the right half of your brain is dominant. Some studies theorise that as a right brain dominant person, you may excel in visual, spatial and intuitive processes.

However, these theories are debatable and leave much to be said about the small percentage of people who are ambidextrous. Find out why right-brained people may be better fighters and artists.

Part 3

Emotions and Systems

This task looked at whether you prefer to empathise or systemise.

Empathising

Your empathy score is: 8 out of 20
Average score for men: 7.9 out of 20
Average score for women: 10.6 out of 20

What does your result suggest?

Empathisers are better at accurately judging other people’s emotions and responding appropriately. If you scored 15 and above, you are very empathic and would be an ideal person to comfort people in a time of crisis. Women in general are better at empathising.

Systemising

Your systemising score is: 19 out of 20
Average score for men: 12.5 out of 20
Average score for women: 8.0 out of 20

What does your result suggest?

Systemisers prefer to investigate how systems work. A system can be a road map, flat pack furniture, or a mathematical equation – anything that follows a set of rules. A score of 15 and above suggests you’re good at analysing or building systems. Men in general are better at systemising.

Scientists are keen to learn more about people who score high or low on both tests. They want to find out whether or not empathising and systemising are linked. Is a possible to make yourself more empathic?

Some scientists claim that our empathy and systemising abilities can be traced all the way back to prehistoric times. Find out more.

Eyes

This task tested your ability to judge people’s emotions.
Your score: 7 out of 10
Average score for men: 6.6 out of 10
Average score for women: 6.6 out of 10

What does your result suggest?

If you scored 7 – 10: Your result suggests you are a good empathiser, sensitive to other people’s emotions. Women generally fall into this category.

Professor Baron-Cohen at the University of Cambridge says that people usually perform better than they expect to on this test.

Men often think a person’s eyes are sending signals of desire when that’s not the case at all. Find out more.

Part 4

Fingers

We asked you to measure your ring and index fingers. Your ratios came to:
Right Hand: 1
Left Hand: 1

Average ratio for men: 0.982
Average ratio for women: 0.991

It’s thought that your ratio is governed by the amount of testosterone you were exposed to in your mother’s womb. The ratio of the length of your index finger to the length of your ring finger is set for life by as early as three months after conception. Even during puberty, when we experience intensive hormonal changes, the ratio stays the same.

Men generally have a ring finger that is longer than their index finger, which gives them a lower ratio than women, whose ring and index fingers are usually of equal length.

Studies have found that men and women with lots of brothers generally have more masculine finger ratios. Find out what other things scientists think our ratios may tell us.

Part 5

Faces

This task looked at how you rate the attractiveness of a series of faces. The images you looked at were digitally altered to create slight differences in masculinity.

Your choices suggest you prefer more feminine faces.

Highly masculinised male faces possess more extreme testosterone markers such as a long, broad and lower jaw, as well as more pronounced brow ridges and cheekbones.

Interestingly, women’s preferences are said to vary across the menstrual phase. A more masculine face is preferred during the 9 days prior to ovulation, when conception is most likely.

A typical ‘attractive’ female face possesses features such as a shorter, narrower, lower jaw, fuller lips and larger eyes than an average face.

Are you surprised at what researchers think they can learn from your answers? Find out more.

Part 6

3D shapes

This task tested your ability to mentally rotate 3D shapes.

Your score: 12 out of 12
Average score for men: 8.2 out of 12
Average score for women: 7.1 out of 12

What does your result suggest?

If you scored 10 – 12: Are you an engineer or do you have a science background? People with these skills tend to score in this range. Past studies have concluded that people in this range have a more male brain.

Nearly a third of men who took this test got full marks, whereas less than 10 per cent of women managed the same. Find out why.

Words

This task looked at your verbal fluency.

Your score: you associated 17 word(s) with grey and you named 12 word(s) that mean happy. We are assuming that all the words you entered are correct.
Average score for men: 11.4 words total
Average score for women: 12.4 words total

What does your result suggest?

If you produced 6 – 10 words: Most people in this range have a female-type brain.

Women are said to use both sides of the brain when doing verbal tasks while men mainly use their left side. Studies have shown that girls develop vocabulary faster than boys. This difference in brain power is caused by levels of pre-natal testosterone. Find out more.

Ultimatum

This task asked you how you would divide money.

If you had to split £50 with someone, you said you would demand £29

So far on the Sex ID test, men have demanded 51.6% (£25.80) of the pot and women have demanded 51.0% (£25.50), on average.

What does your response suggest?

Sex differences are small in this task. Demanding less than 60% of the pot (ie £30) is more typically female. Demanding more than 65% of the pot (ie £32.50) is more typically male.

Scientists believe that people with lower testosterone levels tend to take fewer risks so they are probably more willing to keep less for themselves. Those with higher testosterone levels tend to drive a harder bargain and are less compromising.

Men’s testosterone levels fluctuate over the seasons and are at their lowest levels during the springtime. This is said to influence their bargaining power. Find out more about the role of testosterone.