Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist, Wharton’s top-rated professor and a New York Times bestselling author who shares insights every month in GRANTED.

If you’ve read the recent memo by a Silicon Valley engineer about diversity, you probably had a strong emotional reaction.

It’s always precarious to make claims about how one half of the population differs from the other half — especially on something as complicated as technical skills and interests. But I think it’s a travesty when discussions about data devolve into name-calling and threats. As a social scientist, I prefer to look at the evidence.

The gold standard is a meta-analysis: a study of studies, correcting for biases in particular samples and measures. Here’s what meta-analyses tell us about gender differences:

Read more