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Biological sex, by-products, and other continuous variables
1Department of Psychology, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH 44001, USA jneuhoff@wooster.eduhttp://jneuhoff.com.
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Sex/gender is a continuous variable that researchers frequently treat as dichotomous. This practice can mask continuous underlying adaptive traits and yield spurious dichotomous "sex differences." As such, many sex differences in self-protection may be evolutionary by-products of underlying adaptations rather than adaptations themselves. Binary analysis of continuous sex/gender is ill-considered science that can contribute to inequality and counterproductive public policy.
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