Table 1.

Framework for Sex Differences in Human Behavior

Sex Differences Classification	Description	Example
Qualitative	Sexual dimorphisms related to reproduction (143)	During spatial navigation performance tasks, men tended to rely more on geometric knowledge while women relied on rote learning (144).
Quantitative	Average sex differences, occurring on a continuum with a different mean for males and females or where male and female traits differ in the size of their response (145)	In acute and chronic pain response, men show greater sensitivity than women on average (145).
Latent	Hidden sex differences that are less well understood, but where the end point traits in males and females are the same, but there are underlying mechanistic differences that may only appear during environmental challenges such as stress, injury, or disease (146)	During eye-blink conditioning, male and female rats do not demonstrate sexual dimorphism in performance. However, performance in male rats is significantly improved upon response to stress, whereas the same stress response impairs performance in females (147).
Population-Level	Reflects differences in the distribution of individual traits (46)	In autism, representative behavioral traits are the same in males and females, but there is a skewed male-to-female prevalence of autistic traits (46).