The Extreme Male Brain

Simon-Baron Cohen has done some good work at teasing out the specific differences between male and female cognition. His research lead him to the conclusion that autism is actually a form of “extreme male” mindedness. He elsewhere hypothesizes that pathological altruism might be linked to a similar extremity of female mindedness. Baron-Cohen quotes a previous researcher, Hans Asperger in The Essential Difference:

The autistic personality is an extreme variant of male intelligence. Even within the normal variation, we find typical sex differences in intelligence…In the autistic individual, the male pattern is exaggerated to the extreme.

The Essential Difference, 233-234