Do Women Talk More than Men? Recent Research
The findings from Queendom.com, a testing company, indicate:
- women and older age groups tend to be better listeners
- a fair amount of people continue to practice listening “faux pas” like interrupting, finishing other people’s sentences, and otherwise not giving someone their undivided attention
- women can tell when someone isn’t listening. They recognize that distant, glassy look, the misplaced “Uh huhs,” and fidgeting
“Most people will probably state that they’re pretty good listeners, but that’s because a lot of us think that listening is a passive process – that it just requires us to hear what others are saying,” explains Dr. Ilona Jerabek, president of the company. “Listening is active. We need to be mentally present, which means avoiding distractions, refrain from prematurely judging what the speaker is saying, or focusing on coming up with the perfect comment. We also need to be physically present – this means eye contact and open body language – and no fidgeting!”
Women seem to grasp this active listening concept slightly better than men do. Women are not only a little better at using body language to show that they are listening, they were also more likely to let a conversation flow rather than interrupt a speaker. Age comparisons reveal that older age groups are not only better listeners and good with body language, but also have longer attention span, are more likely to hear a person out, and less likely to get distracted.
Queendom’s data also reveals that while listening to others…
3% admitted that they don’t make eye contact.
12% will finish someone’s sentences.
16% will correct the speaker if they mispronounce a word.
17% have a tendency to interrupt.
19% will purposely divert or end conversations that don’t interest them.
20% admit that they perform other tasks at the same time (e.g. watch TV, cook).
23% fidget (play with hair, look at watch, tap feet, drum fingers).
27% make disapproving faces if they don’t agree with the speaker.
31% are thinking about how they will respond to the speaker.
40% admit that their mind wanders if they find the topic of conversation boring.
“Our study also showed that people with good listening skills had better grades in school and higher performance ratings at work. Listening takes effort, however, and a willingness to give our undivided focused to someone, which isn’t always easy.”
For further information about the study:
Ilona Jerabek, Ph.D., President PsychTests AIM Inc. http://testyourself.psychtests.com/ [email protected] tel: 514-745-3189
Interrupting as a practice is actually a bit more nuanced in its intention and impact. I think if you have never read Deborah Tannen’s books, you would be very interested by them. Tannen is a linguist who is most interested in cultural differences in how people converse. She used the same method to compare males and females in conversation, by looking at the sexes as inhabiting different parallel cultures within the same society. Here’s her web site:
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/
And what I meant to add to that last comment but didn’t is that certain ways of interrupting in some cultures are actually signals that you are engaged with the speaker and empathize with him/her.