Men more talkative than women overall: study

New York, Nov 13 (UNI) Women will no longer bear the tag of 'chatterbox' as a new research now shows that men are more talkative than women , barring few circumstances.

The research is a collection of all of the available evidence from decades of scientific study and systematic combinination of the findings into an overall picture of the differences between men and women regarding talkativeness.

The authors of the study Campbell Leaper and Melanie Ayres after conducting the meta-analyses found a small but statistically reliable tendency for men to be more talkative than women overall -- especially in certain contexts, such as when they were conversing with their wives or with strangers.

The research also showed that women talked more to their children and to their college classmates, 'Science Daily' reported today.

The researchers also explored the verbal behaviour and discovered that, with strangers, women were generally more talkative when it came to using speech to affirm her connection to the listener, while men's speech focused more on an attempt to influence the listener. With close friends and family, however, there was very little difference between genders in the amount of speech.

''These findings compellingly debunk simplistic stereotypes about gender differences in language use,'' the authors of the study Leaper and Ayres said.

''The notion that the female brain is built to systematically out-talk men is hard to square with the finding that gender differences appear and disappear, depending on the interaction context.

The results of the meta-analyses bolster arguments for social rather than strong biological influences of gender differences in language use ,'' they added.

UNI