Quotable Quotes
"The average guy-brain can remember who won the 1960 World Series, but not necessarily the names of all his children." Dave Barry quote from The Complete Guide to Guys
"It's very hard to have a really bad hair day, but a good day otherwise. Because for some crazy reason that scientists have yet to explain, the hairdo is directly linked to the she-babe soul." Barbara Graham from Women Who Run with the Poodles
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Men and Women-Do They Think Differently?
Dear Colleague,
What is the most profound difference between us? The Gender Thing. As the very first way that we are distinguished at birth "It's a Boy! It's a Girl!" there are already pre-wired brain differences. But do the differences mean that men and women process information and emotions differently? According to science, research, and sheer observation, yes we do.
Women have a slightly expanded corpus callosum, the structure that separates the right and left brain. In women, it has extra blood vessels, making it easier to be more simultaneous and multi-tasking. Women simply have more highways and by-ways connecting the right and left-brain.
Men have a more compact corpus callosum. With fewer highways to travel back and forth between the two hemispheres, men find it easier to stay on one side of the brain and develop mastery and expertise in a particular area. Men often delve into an area of preferred interest and maintain that interest for long periods of time.
Think of a Swiss army knife versus a bayonet. Both are valuable and highly useful, but one may function better than the other, depending on the circumstances.
So what about emotional differences? We have all observed how men and women respond differently to emotionally intense situations at work and at home.
New studies on emotional memory help explain why husbands or male partners may not remember a quarrel and wives or female partners never forget. Women's brains are wired to feel and to recall emotions more keenly than the brains of men.
"The wiring of the emotional experience and the coding of that experience into memory is much more tightly integrated in women than in men," says Turhan Canli, lead author of the study that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Emotions generally have more meaning for women and they spend more time processing them."
Women also have a higher rumination factor, which means they have the ability to visit a memory over and over again, bringing it to life each time.
While there are psychological and physiological differences between men and women, this doesn't mean that all men think only in one hemisphere or that all women are good multi-taskers. Nor that men can't be emotional and relationship oriented, while women remain calm, logical and detached.
Because our brains are highly adaptive, we can be smarter tomorrow than we are today. If smarter means responding differently to a situation than our natural preference, then both men and women can re-map, re-train and think differently, regardless of gender.
Real change in our natural thinking preferences requires recognition, intention and consistent work. However, whether our thinking preferences are gender related or not, we won't re-map unless we can foresee a much better outcome or the alterative is just too painful to continue to live with.
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