Catherine Griffin, "Why Women Talk More Than Men: Language Protein Uncovered", Science World Report 2/20/2013.
You know
all the times that men complain about women talking too much? Apparently
there's a biological explanation for the reason why women are chattier
than men. Scientists have discovered that women possess higher levels of
a "language protein" in their brains, which could explain why females
are so talkative.
Previous
research has shown that women talk almost three times as much as men.
In fact, an average woman notches up 20,000 words in a day, which is
about 13,000 more than the average man.
In addition, women
generally speak more quickly and devote more brainpower to speaking. Yet
before now, researchers haven't been able to biologically explain why
this is the case.
Women have a gift for gab, and now they can silence their critics with science.
New
research indicates there’s a biological reason why women talk so much
more than men: 20,000 words a day spoken by the average woman, according
to one study, versus about 7,000 words a day for the average man.
Women’s
brains have higher levels of a “language protein” called FOXP2,
according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of
Maryland School of Medicine.
Summarizing:
- There has never
been any "study" showing that "women talk almost three times as much as
men", although this non-existent "research" has been cited by dozens of
science writers, relationship counselors, celebrity preachers, and other
people in the habit of claiming non-existent authoritative support for
their personal impressions;
- Many real-world studies of gender differences in language use indicate that men and women are about equally talkative. One large, relatively recent study (M.R. Mehl et al., "Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?", Science, 317(5834) p. 82 July 5, 2007) found essentially equal counts of about 16,000 words per day in six samples of university students in the U.S. and Mexico.
- The University of Maryland study did not perform any word counts whatever, but rather looked at the effects of FOXP2 gene expression on the vocalizations of baby rats, and measured Foxp2 protein levels in the brains of a few dead human children.
