Date of Award

1-1-2011

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Psychology

Program

Behavioral Neuroscience

Content Description

1 online resource (iii, 88 pages) : PDF file, illustrations

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Gordon G. Gallup, Jr.

Committee Members

Drew Anderson, Christine Wagner

Keywords

Anxiety, Disordered Eating, Empathizing, Morphology, Systemizing, Theory of Mind, Brain, Anxiety disorders, Eating disorders, Eating disorders in women

Subject Categories

Psychology

Abstract

Baron-Cohen proposed an inclusive theory of individual differences in cognitive style by creating a taxonomy of brain types that is based on the distinction between empathizing and systemizing. More males, than females, use a `systemizing' cognitive style whereas more females than males use an empathetic cognitive style. Further, he posited that a small percentage of individuals will manifest the pathological "extremes" of sexually differentiated brain-types. In support this theory, people with autism have superior systemizing skills with deficits in empathizing. While Baron-Cohen (2003) also proposed the existence of an `extreme female brain', he did not specify the form it would take. Using batteries of psychological, sexually dimorphic anthropometric markers of endocrine status, and behavioral measures, a set of four studies provides preliminary evidence that a combination of disordered eating and negative evaluation anxiety provides a candidate model for the extreme female brain type.

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