Are Women Quiet?

Since I was born I have felt that women are more talkative than men. I used to be said by girls that I was a silent boy. And I've thought that I am less talkative. But it seems to be a groundless sight. The following two researches are interesting to hear. The first analysis researches the total number of words that men and women utter:


Stereotypes of Quiet Men, Chatty Women Not Sound Science

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 6, 2007; Page A02

Across time and culture, the female predilection for chattiness and the male penchant for taciturnity have approached the status of unarguable facts. Now, two studies appear to bury these age-old stereotypes.

...."Wherever this really persistent stereotype comes from, we do not find evidence to support it," said Matthias R. Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona.

Women spoke an average of 16,215 words and men 15,669 words during an average of 17 waking hours a day. The difference -- just under 550 words -- was not statistically significant.

…What was striking, Mehl said, was the great range of word use. The most was 47,000 words in a day; the least was 700. Because the talkers were all college students on roughly similar schedules, their word use may not be the same as that of people in other age groups. But the consistency of the results suggests that there is no innate difference in verbosity between the sexes -- at any age.


The second analysis found that men didn't talk more than women for total number of words (as in the Mehl study) but for other measures of garrulousness, such as total number of statements, duration of speaking and "mean utterance length."

…an analysis of 63 studies of gender differences in talkativeness, found that men actually yakked slightly more than women, especially when interacting with spouses or strangers, and when the topic of conversation was non-personal.
Although, overall, "the magnitude of the difference was negligible," said Campbell Leaper, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the findings suggest that " some men may be using talkativeness to dominate the conversation."

The situations in which men talked more than women were conversations between spouses or partners; conversations that included people of both sexes and when researchers were present; and situations in which the topic involved disagreement or was of a non-personal nature.

The situations in which women talked more than men were those among classmates, and between parents and children; those when the activity was child-oriented; and those when the topic of conversation required disclosure of feelings.

"This underscores how many gender differences can be situation-specific," Leaper said. However, an analysis of 73 studies of children's conversation found the opposite result -- girls are more talkative than boys.

Girls were especially more talkative than boys when interacting with adults. They also talked more during activities of their own choosing. That may reflect a preference for games such as playing house, which requires more communication, rather than construction projects and sports, which boys tend to prefer, Leaper said. Assigned to the same task, boys and girls are equally talkative.

What is interesting in the second research says that girls are more talkative than boys. Oh, now I know why I was so often said to be silent by girls and I thought girls verbose in my childhood. I was just less silent than girls around me.

If you were a girl or a woman, I would like you not to feel worse about my thought; I do not want to say that girls should be more quiet. I am just surprised at the above these two researches.... However I wonder how useful these findings are such as in the public policy. I don't know how I use these findings to make our society better. But I feel that these are worth paying good attention to.