Women And Men - Conversation Equity

An age old myth goes by the wayside with some potential big word of mouth implications - caught this one via NPR - All Things Considered, July 5, 2007 ·                          An article in this week's issue of Science blasts the popular myth that women are more talkative than men.

                                                 

The researchers found that women speak a little more than 16,000 words a day. Men speak a little less than 16,000 words. The difference is not statistically significant.

                        

Psychologist Matthias Mehl of the University of Arizona says the three top talkers in the study — uttering up to 47,000 words a day — were all men. So was the most taciturn subject, who spoke only 700 words a day, on average.

                        

Mehl says he and his colleagues were surprised at the outcome. They had tentatively bought into the popular stereotype that women are the more talkative sex.

                        

But they were skeptical of the widespread claim that women use three times more words a day then men.

                        

The claim got prominent attention with the publication of a 2006 book called The Female Brain. Its author, Louann Brizendine, has been widely quoted claiming that "a woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000."

                        

Other sources have claimed an even greater disparity.

                        

But until the Science study published this week, its authors say, no one had ever systematically recorded the total daily output, in natural conversations, of a sizable number of people.

                        

Mehl says the supposed talkativeness of women is often mentioned in pop-psychology books.

                        

"The typical scenario is — a man comes home from work at night, has used 6,850 words and with 150 left over just wants to relax and not talk," Mehl says. "And the woman welcomes the husband with about 7,856 words left over. And that's where all the problems start."