Are women better at reading moods? According to a new study coming out of Cambridge University’s Autism Research Centre, that may well be the case.
Women are said to be better at distinguishing between the fleeting expressions that cross our faces every day.
Pretty amazing, considering that, according to researchers, there are 412 different human emotions.
The reason for this: they are hard-wired for empathy, whereas men’s brains focus on understanding how things work.
Part of the Centre’s Sex ID test focused on participant’s enjoyment for such things as talking politics, caring for others, reading maps, and honesty with their friends.
Those who identified with emotional or touchy-feely activities (being around friends, discussing their feelings) were labeled empathizers, whereas those who were more concerned with how things ticked (computers, say, or cars) were called systemizers.
Wouldn’t you know it: the majority of empathsizers were women, while the same was true about men when it came to systemizers.
In the Sex ID survey, participants were also tested for verbal fluency. For example, the study’s director, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, points out that they were asked to list as many words as possible that related to the terms ‘grey’ and ‘happy. “Women have regularly scored higher than men in scientific studies using similar tasks.”
And although there is no evidence of vocabulary sizes differing between men and women, the female participants demonstrated the ability to recall more related words under a time constraint.
Many studies show that women’s verbal skills appear to begin early in life. Says Baron-Cohen: “Studies of children’s behavior have found that girls consistently speak earlier, have larger vocabularies and are better at spelling and reading.”
Interestingly enough, the study found that about 17% of men have an “empathizing brain,” while 17% of women have a male “systemizing brain.”
The good news: a significant number of people have a ‘balanced brain”: that is, one which is equally good (or bad) at both empathizing and systemizing.
Okay, now talk (or tawk) amongst yourselves.
Want to take the test yourself? You’ll find a version of it here, on the BBC.
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