Do Women Really Talk More Than Men Do?

The traditional wisdom says that women talk all day long while men, like the real wise a*ses they are, will share a bit of their precious knowledge when the right moment comes... But a new study made on 400 Mexican and American university students, aged 19 to 25, strongly disagrees on this idea, revealing that men and women speak about the same number of words daily: 16,215 words/day/woman compared to 15,669 words/day/man. That's practically no difference.

"So, counter to stereotypes, there doesn't seem to be evidence that males and females talk at different rates, at least among college students," said lead author James Pennebaker, the psychology department chairman at the University of Texas at Austin.

"Well-worn clichés about women being chatterboxes all stem from the same cultural notion -- that they love talking much more than men. But there has never been any scientific proof to back up that stereotype. In a professional context, men actually outspeak women by a long shot. What's novel here isn't the findings but rather the methodology," said Marianne LaFrance, a professor of psychology and women's gender and sexuality studies at Yale University, not involved in the research.

The research team employed cell phone-sized recording devices that the subjects could carry in a pocket while their daily conversations were recorded by a microphone clipped to their lapel. "The participants quickly forgot they were wearing the recorder, and after the first couple of hours, people rarely made mention of the device." said Pennebaker.

Unlike previous devices, that could have been turned on/off by the subjects, the new one automatically clicked on every 12 minutes to record all that it was said (or not) for the next 30 seconds for several days. After seeing the results, Pennebaker said that maybe the sex related differences appear in older ages. "The study's focus on college students might also ignore behavioral differences between men and women based on social class."

Others say the differences are not real and that they are based rather on a sexist tradition. "There's this prevailing idea that women are engaged in trivia, in minutia, silly patter. On the other hand, stereotypical men are thought to hang back, silent, until they have something really important to say. But study after study refutes these pat assumptions. For example, there's ample evidence that gossip is just as popular a topic of conversation (if not more so) among men as it is among women. However, it is true that women and men tend to favor distinct subject matter when they talk. The data shows that women do tend to talk about relationships more," LaFrance said.

Women are more prone to talk about interpersonal issues, and indeed, in a relationship they can talk more, triggering certain stereotypes. "There have been some studies to suggest that during emotional conflict, guys get quiet and women talk more. Even though the tendency of males to "clam up" in these private disputes doesn't carry over to other social contexts, people may generalize that men are withdrawn by nature", Pennebaker said.

Experts agree that given the right topics of discussion, men can prove to be very talkative. "The data shows that it depends what they're talking about. If she wants to talk about something that he cares about, then he will respond. Just get guys talking about sports or finance or lawnmowers -- then you've got another category of chatterboxes," said LaFrance.