Study: Men Talk As Much As Women
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The stereotype of men as strong and silent and women as talkative and gossipy has been overturned by a detailed study of how many words they utter every day.
The study also shows that women’s conversations are more about people, relationships, and networking, whereas men’s tend to be more about showing off, tools, or cars.
The new research overturns the notion that women talk more than men.
Men and women both use about 16,000 words a day, according to the study by Matthias Mehl of the University of Arizona and reported Friday in the journal Science.
Over eight years, Mr. Mehl’s team recorded the conversations of almost 400 American and Mexican male and female students. They developed an electronically activated recorder that logged their conversations.
The results: Women in the study spoke an average of 16,215 words each day against an average of 15,669 words for men. Although women still win, the margin is not statistically significant.
