Are women really more talkative than men?

One study regarding the talkativeness of males and females has attracted the same news outlets as Brizendine’s book. This study has been highly influential, in both academic and in non-academic spheres. Mehl (2007) paid university students to wear an unobtrusive recording device for several days. The students removed the device only when activities might damage it (during showers, playing sports, etc.). Mehl found no statistically significant difference in the amount of words spoken by men and women. He readily admits that the study is limited because all the participants were university students.

Of all the studies examined in this paper, Mehl’s seems most like the type of measurement that is most likely to answer the question of whether men or women talk more. The study is not without its problems: participants were able to take off the recorder at any time or to erase any speech they did not wish the researchers to hear; also, the researchers apparently used a convenient sample of undergraduates. However, it took samples of speech in the most natural of environments: the participants’ daily lives. This is a great improvement over controlled, laboratory experiments measuring amounts of speech or even observed behavior in homes because the unobtrusiveness of the device is the closest thing we have yet to the proverbial “fly on the wall.”

More studies like Mehl’s are needed to determine if his results are generalizable to the larger population. The recording device he used sampled the actual ambient noise, allowing him to record naturalistic data without a constructed context; the device was also unobtrusive, which removed problems related to the “observer’s paradox” of trying to observe a natural behavior which changes when it is observed. When Mehl’s study is replicated with other, non-undergraduate populations, the amount of talk from each sub-population can be meta-analyzed and we can determine who talks more (while wearing the recording device). Until then, the academic community cannot consider the issue completely resolved.

The results of Mehl’s 2007 study were published in various popular news sources, like Reuters, ABC News, Associated Content, and National Public Radio. Particularly interesting are the comments at the end of the stories, which can erupt into heated arguments. At the end of Scientific American’s online summary of Mehl’s findings, Kenji1960 (2009) wrote: “’There are lies, Damn lies, and then there are statistics.’ Smart people can make statistics say anything they want. I know how long my wife talks on the phone to her friends.”

Kenji1960’s comment shows that the cultural myth bears more weight than empirical studies, which he obviously does not trust. Despite empirical evidence to the contrary, judging form other comments posted on other popular news sites, the cultural myth that women speak more than men appears to be alive and well. In order to combat the stereotype and this persistent cultural myth, we’ll need more than just solid methodology and publication in Scientific American. I don’t know what exactly Kenji1960 will find convincing, but if the academic community wants to do work which benefits society by dispelling stereotypes, we must reach out to people distrustful of us.