Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1236 - Do Men and Women Actually Communicate Differently?

Transcript

#1236 - Do Men and Women Actually Communicate Differently? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: Way back in the day, John Gray released a book
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  Speaker 1: called Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact stats, but I'm pretty sure
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  Speaker 1: he said something along these lines. Men say about two
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  Speaker 1: thousand words a day. Women say about ten thousand words
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  Speaker 1: a day. We are absolutely different species when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to how much we communicate. Is it true? Is it
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  Speaker 1: not true? Is there real research? Because what he said
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  Speaker 1: was pretty flawed. Today we answer that question in a
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  Speaker 1: slightly fun and unusual doctor's desk episode. Gooday, and thanks
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  Speaker 1: so much for being here on the Happy Families podcast
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  Speaker 1: Real Parenting Solutions. Every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast,
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  Speaker 1: we are Justin and Kylie Coulson. If you had to
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  Speaker 1: guess who talks more each day out.
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  Speaker 2: Of you and I, Kylie, I was just thinking that
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  Speaker 2: I think you came from Venus.
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  Speaker 1: As well, which is kind of funny.
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  Speaker 2: Competition in our hours.
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  Speaker 1: I think because just the other day we were talking
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  Speaker 1: about my masculine energy and now you're saying maybe not.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on here, Okay, So there's
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  Speaker 1: this common assumption that women are more talkative than men.
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  Speaker 1: I want to talk today about some research that's just
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  Speaker 1: been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
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  Speaker 1: This is a high fluten really well regarded journal has
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  Speaker 1: been for a long time. But to talk about this,
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  Speaker 1: I have to go back to two thousand and seven.
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  Speaker 1: So if we go back to two thousand and seven,
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  Speaker 1: some researchers found that men and women say about the
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  Speaker 1: same number of words every single day. They came in
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  Speaker 1: at sixteen thousand words, which I reckon is a lot
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  Speaker 1: of talking. You worked that out across. Let's say you're
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  Speaker 1: awake for sixteen hours a day eight hours of sleep.
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  Speaker 1: That's a thousand words an hour. That thousand words an hour.
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  Speaker 1: If I do some quick maths, a thousand divide by
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  Speaker 1: sixty minutes means that we're speaking on average around about
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  Speaker 1: seventeen words a minute, all day, every day. Seventeen words
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  Speaker 1: a minute isn't heaps, but that's every single minute you're
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  Speaker 1: saying something, and there are long periods of our days
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  Speaker 1: where we don't say anything at all. Right, So anyway,
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  Speaker 1: the two thousand and seven study basically said men and
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  Speaker 1: women same amount of words sixteen thousand a day or
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  Speaker 1: seventeen per minute. But these findings have been called into question.
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  Speaker 1: There are all sorts of methodological limitations. It was UNI
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  Speaker 1: students and as a small sample, and they were not
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  Speaker 1: representative of the general population. Shaky study changed the conversation,
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  Speaker 1: but shaky study. So here's where we are. A guy
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  Speaker 1: called Colin Tidwell. He's at the University of Arizona. He
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  Speaker 1: and his colleagues have replicated this study, but on five
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  Speaker 1: times as many participants. We've got twenty two hundred participants
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  Speaker 1: in this study, varying ages from childhood right up to
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  Speaker 1: the age of sixty five. And they found that, oh
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  Speaker 1: and from forty diferent countries as well, and they found
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  Speaker 1: that there are actually some gender differences, but only for
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  Speaker 1: certain age groups.
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  Speaker 2: So I want to preface this with I'm wondering whether
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  Speaker 2: in John Gray's time, we didn't have the Internet, we
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  Speaker 2: didn't have any other form of connection outside of slow
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  Speaker 2: mail and our.
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  Speaker 1: Slow mail's snail.
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  Speaker 2: Male.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean, Okay, yeah, but you
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  Speaker 1: still talk to people at work, you still talk to
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  Speaker 1: your family, Like, I don't think that the Internet has
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  Speaker 1: been a game changer in how many words we're saying,
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  Speaker 1: And certainly I don't have any really, yeah, I don't.
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  Speaker 2: Have any you really don't think that, No, okay.
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  Speaker 1: Because our face to face interactions with the people who
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  Speaker 1: are around us.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but we're having less and less of those well
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  Speaker 2: as a result.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe even so sixteen thousand words, I mean John Gray's
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  Speaker 1: daughter was two thousand for men and ten thousand for women,
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  Speaker 1: So it's.
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  Speaker 2: That low for men.
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  Speaker 1: I used to teach this stuff years ago and argue
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  Speaker 1: against it really strongly. Anyway, let me let me tell
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  Speaker 1: you how they did this, because how do you count
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  Speaker 1: the number of words a person saying in a day?
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  Speaker 1: They did this protocol that was called the EAR protocol.
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  Speaker 1: Ear AR stands for electronically activated recording, So essentially, the
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  Speaker 1: person who's wearing the monitor does not know when the
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  Speaker 1: recorder is recording and when it's not. It just randomly
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  Speaker 1: records short bursts of ambient sound intimately throughout the day,
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  Speaker 1: and then the recordings are transcribed. The team essentially uses
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  Speaker 1: software to count the number of the words that are
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  Speaker 1: uttered in each recording. Then they extrapolate from this figure
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  Speaker 1: to arrive at a daily estimate for each person.
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  Speaker 2: Do they count arms?
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  Speaker 1: Ime is not a word? Is not? I mean, it's
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  Speaker 1: a vocalization, but it's not technically a word big limitation
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  Speaker 1: with this study. I mean, they're looking at adults here,
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  Speaker 1: but they could not get ethical approval to have it
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  Speaker 1: record while the people were at work, So we don't
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  Speaker 1: have any sense of how much people are speaking at work. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so I think that's a really big problem anyway, With
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  Speaker 1: that caveat acknowledged, after the break, I'll tell you what
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  Speaker 1: they found and what it means for us as parents.
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  Speaker 1: All Right, your vocalizations are being recorded in short bursts
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  Speaker 1: throughout the day, then extrapolated so that we can work
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  Speaker 1: out how many words a day you're speaking. Here's what
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  Speaker 1: our doctor's desk experiment found in terms of who speaks
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  Speaker 1: more males or females, Kylie. The results showed that people
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  Speaker 1: in our age group that is, early adulthood and middle adulthood.
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  Speaker 1: Just in case you thought that I was taking a
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  Speaker 1: few years off us, that is, if your age between
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  Speaker 1: twenty four and sixty five, men spoke an average of
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  Speaker 1: just under twelve thousand words a day eleven thousand, nine
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty for the average bloke age twenty four
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  Speaker 1: to sixty five, twelve thousand words, the average woman thirteen
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  Speaker 1: and a half thousand, words thirteen thousand, three hundred and
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  Speaker 1: forty nine. So you look like there's something on the
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  Speaker 1: tip of your tongue, and being a female, you do
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  Speaker 1: need to get some words out, So off you go.
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  Speaker 2: I just look at the evolution of relationships in general,
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  Speaker 2: and I think that screens do play a huge part
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  Speaker 2: of it. But I remember an acronym that was really
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  Speaker 2: building traction when I was younger, the snag the sensitive
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  Speaker 2: new age guy.
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  Speaker 1: In touch with this feeling.
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  Speaker 2: He's in touch with this feelings and he's a great communicator. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: previous to that, men didn't in general have those kinds
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  Speaker 2: of conversations.
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  Speaker 1: The strong, silent type, the stoic man. Is that what
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  Speaker 1: you're getting out? Yeah, I think that's a stereotype. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I think about my dad and he was so relational.
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  Speaker 1: He was wonderful to talk to. We would sit in
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  Speaker 1: the car or sit in the truck he drove trucks
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  Speaker 1: for a living, and we would talk for hour after
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  Speaker 1: hour after our play games, engaging conversation. His masculinity was relational.
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  Speaker 1: It was not the stoic, strong silent type. I know
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  Speaker 1: that we call the silent generation, that is grandparents and
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  Speaker 1: great grandparents. We call them that, but it's not because
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  Speaker 1: they didn't speak. I think about Kevin Arnold's father in
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  Speaker 1: the Wonder Years, and he was that dad that you're
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  Speaker 1: referring to. He'd sit there at the dining table with
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  Speaker 1: a frown on his face and eat his meat and
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  Speaker 1: three vege and not say a word. I mean, I
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  Speaker 1: don't have any evidence for it, but certainly, anecdotally my
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  Speaker 1: experience and the experience that I had with all of
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  Speaker 1: the dads of my mates growing up, they were communicative.
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  Speaker 1: They loved an opportunity to get in and mix it
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  Speaker 1: up with the young bucks and play around.
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  Speaker 2: But age again, like I look at my grandparents and they.
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  Speaker 1: Your parents, Your grandparents didn't talk, and they were they
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  Speaker 1: were the silent generation. I'm talking about boomers. So maybe
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  Speaker 1: there's something with a silent generation. Even so, today we've
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  Speaker 1: got thirty and a half thousand words being udded by women,
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  Speaker 1: twelve thousand by men. Here's where it gets interesting. Among
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  Speaker 1: adolescents ten to seventeen, almost exactly the same girls spoke
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  Speaker 1: about five hundred words per day more than boys. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's nothing, nothing, yeah, absolutely not. And for young adults, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's an essay that Hage grew a very very short essay,
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  Speaker 1: but maybe for young adults eighteen to twenty four, So
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about university students here. The results telling pretty
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  Speaker 1: well with the findings from the students in the original
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and seven study. The girls were a bit
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  Speaker 1: higher eight eight hundred and fifty words more per day. Again,
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  Speaker 1: not much in it. Here's one thing that I find
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  Speaker 1: interesting over sixty fives. Over sixty fives, the gender difference
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  Speaker 1: is reversed. The women speak less than the men by
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  Speaker 1: about one thousand words a day.
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  Speaker 2: And I would believe that. I feel like as I'm
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  Speaker 2: getting older, I have less energy for it.
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  Speaker 1: Right, But then again, you caught up with a girlfriend
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  Speaker 1: that you haven't seen for a while about a month ago,
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  Speaker 1: and I think that you said that you spoke for
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  Speaker 1: five hours NonStop. Didn't even realize that. So you've got
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  Speaker 1: it in you. The words are there.
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  Speaker 2: I can't believe you brought that up.
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  Speaker 1: Happy to have a Maybe we should call you that
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  Speaker 1: have a chat. That's what they used to call me
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  Speaker 1: when I worked in radio all those years ago. That
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  Speaker 1: was my nickname Hachat. So essentially what we've got here
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  Speaker 1: is that there is a reasonable conclusion that can be
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  Speaker 1: drawn that in general, women do speak a bit more
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  Speaker 1: than men, but probably not that much. There's a couple
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  Speaker 1: of hypotheses around it. I'm just not buying it. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: about a month month and a half ago, we had
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  Speaker 1: a new fence, a new boundary fence put along our
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  Speaker 1: property with our neighbors next door. And the three blokes,
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  Speaker 1: four blokes that were in charge of looking after that fence,
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  Speaker 1: My goodness, they spoke more than the stereotypical old women
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  Speaker 1: that used to stand and the fence. And I'm cautious
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  Speaker 1: using that phrase, but the stereotype exists for a reason. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Those guys natted away all day and they were talking
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  Speaker 1: completely rubbish. They weren't talking about anything important. They had
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  Speaker 1: a couple of arguments about Donald Trumpy. But it was
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  Speaker 1: just fascinating to hear these guys, these men, if they
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  Speaker 1: had this ear transpond to working on their heads, they
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  Speaker 1: would have just talked. Well, they talked to each other's
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  Speaker 1: is off? What does it mean in terms of our parenting?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about real parenting solutions every day
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  Speaker 1: on our podcast. I've only got one take home message
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  Speaker 1: and that is communication to be human is to communicate.
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  Speaker 1: To be human is to communicate. And it's good for
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  Speaker 1: our children to see us being relational, to see us
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  Speaker 1: being communicative. It's what we do, it's how we relate.
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  Speaker 1: It's important and I think that we can. We can
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  Speaker 1: dump the men from Mars, women are from Venus trope
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  Speaker 1: from the way we talk. Let's just make sure that
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  Speaker 1: we're talking.
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  Speaker 2: So, just to put a spanner in the works, there
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  Speaker 2: are plenty of parents who are dealing with the teenage
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  Speaker 2: boy specifically who grunts.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we've got a we've got a teenage girl who
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  Speaker 1: does that affair, but as well, I honestly, can can
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  Speaker 1: you just acknowledge that I said something to you? Please?
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  Speaker 2: So for the parent who's dealing with the teenage grunter
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  Speaker 2: in their living room lound room.
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  Speaker 1: We have like table right now, male or female?
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  Speaker 2: How do we encourage positive communication with a child like that?
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  Speaker 1: So there are two things here related to the study.
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  Speaker 1: One of them is that your child is speaking. It's
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  Speaker 1: just that they're not really speaking at home, not really
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  Speaker 1: speaking to you. Which brings me to the practical element
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  Speaker 1: that is, we've got to teach our children consideration, empathy, kindness.
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  Speaker 1: That means that we might sit down with our child
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  Speaker 1: and say, we consistently are trying to talk with you,
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  Speaker 1: and we're getting grants, so we're getting non responses. That
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  Speaker 1: is not considerate. That's not how we do things in
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  Speaker 1: our family. We'd like to work with you on finding
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  Speaker 1: a way that if you don't have anything to say,
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  Speaker 1: that you can communicate that really simply, or if you
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  Speaker 1: if you are going to ignore us, let us know
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  Speaker 1: that you just want to have a bit of space
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  Speaker 1: just now. So we want to improve the quality of
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  Speaker 1: the communication through being considerate of the people who are
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  Speaker 1: around us. That's pretty much the conversation that I'd be
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  Speaker 1: having with a teenager if they're not communicating with you.
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  Speaker 1: The second thing I'd be doing, practically is I'd be
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  Speaker 1: finding ways to invite them back into my world or
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  Speaker 1: trying to fight a way to inject myself into theirs.
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  Speaker 1: And so it might mean that we go for a
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  Speaker 1: bike ride, or we go down to the park and
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  Speaker 1: we buy some gelato and sit there and have some
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  Speaker 1: ice cream. We don't even have to chat, there's no agenda.
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  Speaker 1: We're just spending time together. Or we invite them to
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  Speaker 1: play a board game at the table with the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the family. It's about having zero agenda conversations with
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  Speaker 1: the kids that help them feel inclined to share their
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  Speaker 1: lives when it feels good for them. Anyway, I've used
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  Speaker 1: up all of my words. I have nothing left to say.
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  Speaker 2: I believe you.
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  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rouland from
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  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. We will link to the study in the
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  Speaker 1: show notes. Hope you enjoyed that one. If you'd like
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  Speaker 1: more information and more resources about helping your kids to communicate,
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  Speaker 1: please let us know by visiting us at happyfamilies dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot a u