• Question: Is it true about different genders using different sides of the brain more, if so please could you explain why?

    Asked by jessyp623 to Martin on 24 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Martin Coath

      Martin Coath answered on 24 Mar 2010:

      WOW! That is a seriously deep question!

      The short answer is “No”. This is a scientific “No” which means that the idea (the hypothesis as we like to call it) is not strongly supported by the evidence.

      Brace yourself guys – here comes PART of the long answer. You don’t have to read any of this if you don’t want to 🙂

      You see, if I said Yes to your question it would mean that men think one way and that women think a different way. This would make a great headline in a newspaper, or story on a news bulletin but it just isn’t true.

      The evidence is clear that there are minor differences between people in the performance of certain tasks and the patterns of activity measured in the brain. TRUE

      That some of these differences can be classed as left-brain/right-brain differences – although many are debatable. TRUE

      In a few cases there is some limited evidence that one is more common in men than women and the other way round. TRUE

      This tells you nothing about a particular woman or man. It is just a statistical result about the likelyhood of measuring a particular thing.

      I know this is dull but I am trying to be completely honest and that is difficult in science!

      Oh Crikey! I think I have just given the longest and most boring answer of the whole competition. I am DOOMED 😀

Comments

  • Photo: Chris

    Chris commented on :

    yeah – but you saved me a lot of work writing the same stuff. I am starting to work on left-right brain differences in extreme exercise and I am SCARED by the literature. Fortunately I have a tame psychologist on the project who puts me right (no pun intended). A good example of how you need more than one person from different disciplines on a project.

  • Moderator - Sophia commented on :

    One way to think of it is this – it’s a bit like men’s and women’s heights.

    On average men are taller than women. If you took an average of the heights of all the men in the UK, vs all the women in the UK, the average of the men would be a bit taller.

    BUT, the difference between men and women is pretty small – about 4 inches, compared to the big range you get within each group anyway (well over 2 feet). If you plotted all the heights on a graph, for most of the graph is there is overlap between men and women.

    So, for example, this means that:-
    I’m quite tall (5’8″) so there are lots of men shorter than me.
    My friend Ian is quite short (5’2″) so there are lots of women taller than him.

    And you can’t predict how tall or short someone is just by knowing if they are male or female!

    When people talk about men and women’s brains being different, they usually mean it’s a lot like heights – there are slight differences between the averages, but the individual variation is much bigger!

    Does that help? I’m sure the scientists can correct me if I have got anything wrong:-)

    • Photo: Martin

      Martin commented on :

      Absolutely – it is more or less the same as the height example you give.

      There is a small difference – ie there is no agreed measurement for left- or right-braininess so it is not a single variable with a bi-modal distribution. This makes the argument more complicated – but still related.

  • Photo: jessyp623

    jessyp623 commented on :

    Thanks so much, I really appreciate the depth of your answer, it wasnt boring i found it very intresting to read. Thanks
    JessyP623