Researchers at the University of Sydney studied more than 50,000 participants determining that men tend to make more extreme decisions and choices than women.
The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study also determined that extreme choices or decisions men make could be both positive and negative, with them acting either very selfishly or very altruistically.
The variability of the behavioral spectrum is rooted in evolutionary perspectives.
“This evolutionary theorising suggests that men had to deviate from the average to stand out and be attractive to women to reproduce, while women were able to attract sexual partners without deviating from the average,” according to the study’s authors.
“Another explanation could be norms and expectations of acceptable gendered behaviour and that men’s extreme behaviours are socially constructed and reinforced. This alternative theory suggests that the socially constructed patriarchy in many societies has managed to constrain women and the opportunity for them to display the same level of variability as men.”
