Recently a Google engineer was fired for writing a very long memo about gender differences and its implications for company diversity policy. There was an uproar and he got fired. This post addresses a single word in that memo: neuroticism.

The author wrote, among other things, that females suffered from more "neuroticism”.  Kara Swisher, Recode

Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being "neurotic.” Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai

“Neurotic” is a pejorative descriptor often aimed at women. It connotes over-emotional and under-rational. “Neuroticism” is something else altogether:

Neuroticism is one of the Big Five higher-order personality traits in the study of psychology. Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism

The author of the Google memo used "neuroticism", not neurotic. Here is the exact wording, from the memo itself:

Women, on average, have more:

...Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

Note that the memo's author said "on average", meaning group averages, as in:  men, on average, are taller than women, or are better at golf or are worse at reading facial expressions.  The author also points out that many gender "differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.” 

So is it true that, on average, women are more prone to neuroticism* than men?  There's a robust scientific literature that suggests so. And there is some evidence that biology plays a role. This is not fringe science. Nor is it settled science. The biology of gender differences continues to be a subject of much contention and ongoing research.

Why should it bother people that biology plays a role in sex differences? What may be true for women and men in general says nothing about individual women and men. I can't imagine Serena Williams losing sleep over the fact that men, in general, are better at playing tennis than women. She just knows how good she is.

If I were to take a personality test, I would probably score high on Neuroticism. Knowing that I share this trait with lots of other women is interesting. Also interesting are the biological and evolutionary explanations for the prevalence of neuroticism in human females. But biology is not destiny in the realm of personality. It is one variable that interacts with other variables. Emotional predispositions can be appreciated, used, channeled constructively, or tamed. What seems a weakness can be a source of advantage and strength. Outcomes are not inevitable. 

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* I really wanted to say "neurotic" in this sentence: much less awkward than "prone to neuroticism". But, you know, connotations. Even in the scientific literature on the Big Five personality traits, "neurotic" is avoided (while other adjectival forms of traits like "agreeable" and "extroverted" do not appear to be).

Next: What about those other gender differences mentioned in the Google memo?

References:

Costa, P. T., Jr., Terracciano, A., & McCrae, R. R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(2), 322-331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.2.322

Feingold, A. (1994). Gender differences in personality: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 116(3), 429-456.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.116.3.429

Hyde, J. S. (2014). "Gender Similarities and Differences." Annual Review of Psychology 65(1): 373-398.

Lynn, R. and T. Martin (1997). "Gender Differences in Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism in 37 Nations." The Journal of Social Psychology 137(3): 369-373.

Schmitt, D. P., Realo, A., Voracek, M., & Allik, J. (2008). Why can’t a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,94, 168–182.

Tian L, WangJ, YanC,  He,Y. (2011) Hemisphere- and gender-related differences in small-world brain networks: a resting-state functional MRI study, Neuroimage,  vol. 54: 191-202.