Sex differences on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices within Saudi Arabia and across the Arab world: Females' advantage decreases from childhood to adolescence

Sex differences in intelligence are of great importance with regard to understanding intelligence's underlying evolutionary forces. Previous research in this area has had a strong focus on Western countries and data across developmental stages are fragmented. Here, we present new data on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices from three samples in Saudi Arabia, and combine these with nine previously published studies from other Arab countries, which also provide data for each year of age. We specifically consider Lynn's developmental theory of sex differences in intelligence, whereby a female advantage becomes pronounced due to earlier average puberty and then decreases as males enter puberty. The estimates for each age do not differ significantly from zero, and very few from each other, apparently due to large heterogeneity across studies. Nevertheless, the age trend is largely consistent with Lynn's model. Moreover, its specific predictions are seemingly borne out in many individual countries. Plausible explanations for incongruities in Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are also examined.