What Gender Differences?

Do the people who identify as men and women respond differently to the Spirit Map items? Of the 768 people who have completed Spirit Map*, 466 identified as female and 220 identified as male. Nine people responded with a different gender identity, which does not give us enough data to say anything definitive about their responses. The rest did not respond. 
We notice two patterns in the responses of women and men:

1. Women give higher ratings than men, in both their self-assessment and importance ratings of the Spirit Map items.
2. Even though women tend to rate the items higher, women and men tend to have the same take on what’s more and less true of them and on what’s more and less important to them. 

You can see women’s higher self-assessment and importance ratings in the two graphs below. A teal-colored bar on the right indicates a higher average score from women on the item, a green-colored bar to the left a higher average score from men. Women gave higher average self-assessment ratings on almost all Spirit Map items and higher average importance ratings on most Spirit Map items.​

Here are the nine items with a statistically significant difference (at the 90% level) between women’s and men’s self-assessment ratings:

• I appreciate the beauty and power of religious symbols and rituals other than my own.
• My spiritual growth is important to me.
• I see something universal in all human struggle.
• I perceive and respond to truth that is expressed in myth or poetry.
• I can be in the presence of my own or another’s pain without needing to flee or fix it.
• I am mindful of my emotions.
• I delight in experiences both great and small.
• I experience awe.
• I have the ability to repent, forgive myself, and change.

Here are the seven items with a statistically significant difference (at the 90% level) between women’s and men’s importance ratings:

• My spiritual growth is important to me.
• I actively practice my spiritual or religious faith.
• I can be in the presence of my own or another’s pain without needing to flee or fix it.
• I see something universal in all human struggle.
• I feel part of something larger than myself.
• I believe my life has meaning and purpose.
• I care deeply about the welfare of others.

We can see how men and women have a similar take on what's more and less true of them and what's more and less important to them by plotting each item according to women's average rating and men's average rating. As you can see from the graphs below, the correlation (R) between men's ratings and women's ratings is very high, which means that women and men tend to rate the same items relatively higher and lower. 

​What's most true of you and most important to you in your spiritual life? Take the Spirit Map inventory yourself and see! You can purchase a Spirit Map report, which gives you full access to the inventory, or you can try a sample inventory. Or, explore our website to learn more about us.
 
*We have four sources for this data. Three data sets come from three Unitarian Universalist congregations, one in Minnesota (n=248), one in Colorado (n=302), and one in Massachusetts (n=133). The third data source is from individuals who have independently taken the Spirit Map survey (n=85).