Anyone who believes men aren't much good at doing more than one thing at once now has scientific evidence to prove it. Read on to find out more.
Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire have published the results of a study they say proves women are better multitaskers than men. The team, led by Professor Keith Laws of the school of psychology, took 50 female and 50 male undergraduates and gave them three tasks to complete in eight minutes. The tasks involved a simple maths problem, map-reading and devising a strategy to find lost keys. The participants also received a telephone call which – if they chose to answer it – asked a series of general knowledge questions to think about at the same time.
Although men and women scored equally when it came to maths, map-reading and the quiz, 70% of women outperformed men at coming up with an efficient way to find the keys. Professor Laws said that this was particularly surprising ‘given the arguments that men have better spatial skills than women. It shows women are better at standing back to reflect for a moment while they are juggling other things.’
One theory is that the reason women have evolved better multitasking skills is because they often have to look after children at the same time as doing other work. But, Professor Laws claims, although this belief has been around for a long time, this was the first proper scientific study into the subject. ‘We have all heard stories that men either can’t multitask or women are exceptionally good at multitasking. But there didn’t seem to be any empirical evidence for this. It was all based on folklore and hearsay when I looked through the scientific literature.’
Do you agree with the results of this research? Can you think of any other differences between men and women that you'd like to investigate? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Comments
Well I am female and I am excellent at multi-tasking. Not sure whether it is gender specific or not.
This is quite an intriguing study. Although the results show women can perform multiple tasks at once effectively - women only outshine men on just one task (finding keys) so it is not really showing a massive deal. Another replication of this study?
26-07-10
I don't think women are better than men at multi-tasking I think it totally depends on the person and whether they prefer doing one thing at a time or prefer to multi-task.
25-07-10
Any comments?