Characteristics of male and female drawing

The paper discusses theoretical and applied aspects of graphic psycho-diagnostics on the material of a study which aimed to discover gender differences between test drawings. Over 4 thousand male and female subjects took part in the study. Graphic diagnostics is viewed as a manifestation of inversion in the hierarchy of motor levels (according to N.A. Berstein's conception of the hierarchic system of levels of the motor organization). 59 features were specially selected to assess their manifestations in a test drawing and correlation of some features with others. Four correlation matrixes were created with 1711 slots in each. It turned out that frequency of close correlation links in a female drawing was 1,5 to 2,5 times higher than in a male one. Higher frequency of correlations is a sign of a tendency towards motor stereotypes in drawing. The study demonstrated that female drawings are characterized by graphic stereotypes while male ones by greater motor diversity. The data obtained corresponds to the evolutionary theory of sex and points to significant gender differences in manifestations of activity, which, in their turn, confirm V.A. Geodaldan's evolutionary theory of sex. According to that theory the male sex is more characterized by extreme meanings of psychometric features while medium meanings are more typical of the female sex. It is important to point out that characteristics discovered in the study have nothing in common with societal sex stereotypes. They reflect in-depth sex differences of drawing styles, independent of social learning. Thus the findings of the study transcend the boundaries of graphic psycho-diagnostics to raise fundamental issues of psychology of gender.