Sex and intelligence research investigates differences in the distributions of cognitive skills between men and women. This research employs experimental tests of cognitive ability, which take a variety of forms. Research focuses on differences in individual skills as well as overall differences in general cognitive ability, which is often called g.

IQ tests, specially designed to measure cognitive ability, usually test a variety of skills, and IQ scores are often used as a measure of g. The current scientific consensus is that IQ differences between the sexes are insignificant. According to Jackson and Rushton, a scientific consensus existed during the early 20th century that there are no sex differences in overall intelligence.

They attribute this consensus in part to early work by Cyril Burt and Lewis Terman, who found no sex differences in the first IQ tests. In 1995, Hedges and Nowell demonstrated only statistically insignificant differences in average IQ between men and women using data published in several large representative studies published up until that year. A 1995 study performed by the American Psychological Association in response to the book The Bell Curve (which investigated intelligence differences between different social classes) shows no difference in average IQ between sexes.

Other studies done in the mid-1990s have concluded that the IQ performances of men and women differ little. Analyzing data from 2,404 individuals, the "California Verbal Learning Test" concluded that "When mediating variables were controlled, gender differences tended to disappear on tests for which there was a male advantage and to magnify on tests for which there was a female advantage." In his book, Developmental Influences on Adult Intelligence: The Seattle Longitudinal Study, K. Warner Schaie concludes that there are few gender differences in spatial competencies.

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