Abstract des Autors

One of the axiomatic claims of both academic and folk psychology is that women have greater manual dexterity than men. On the basis of the performance of right-handed men (N = 47) and women (N = 57) on 6 different motor tasks, this general claim is shown not to be valid. On a peg-moving task with thick pegs that can easily be picked up by large hands and that required a large movement trajectory, men performed better than women, whereas on a peg-moving task with very thin pegs, women performed better than men. When the same thin pegs were picked up and placed with tweezers, eliminating finger size as a factor, sex differences disappeared. A tapping and a sequencing task favored men. The results show that a variety of factors other than dexterity determine magnitude and direction of sex differences on fine motor tasks. Verf.-Referat