A new study maintains that women can multitask better than men. Although this was already thought of before, no concrete scientific evidence has been drafted to support this concept. Until now.
The age-old concept of mothers doing multiple tasks simultaneously is the picture perfect epitome of this new research. More often than not, many would claim that women, who do multitasking are very career-minded people, who do so much in the short span of time in order to juggle their household tasks with their job responsibilities. These mothers are often seen cleaning the house while carrying their babies in one hand, and sometimes even doing other chores using their feet. But does this make them better multitaskers already?
A group of researchers decided to investigate whether there is a truism behind this idea, and discovered that women rather have this slight advantage when it comes to certain tasks than men do. The study mentioned that women do well in creating strategies when it comes to retrieving lost items and that women are more likely to succeed in completing long to-do lists than men do.
"Using two very different experimental set ups, we found that women have an advantage over men in specific aspects of multitasking situations," Gijsbert Stoet, the author of the research said in the study's press release.
According to the paper, two experimental set-ups were used to test the multitasking skill of both men and women. The first one focused on testing which gender are most likely to slow down when faced with multiple tasks. It was found out that both women and men slowed down in the experiment. Nonetheless, women were found to slow down less than men.
The second set-up required both men and women to complete three timed tasks. Pitted against each other, they were given only eight minutes to accomplish everything. Once they have completed all three, a phone will ring and each participant is asked to answer general knowledge questions. In this round, both sexes scored equally in the first two: solving math problems and locating restaurants and landmarks on a map. Meanwhile, in the third task which required them to locate a lost key, women remarkably did a whole lot better.
Although Stoet's findings maintained that women can multitask better than men do, another researcher, Timo Mantyla from Stockholm University, opined that it's the other way around. In a study he conducted earlier, Mantyla concluded that men are the better multitaskers. But now other scientist claim that there is no real basis on this one since Mantyla's study tested other cognitive functions aside from the ones Stoet did.
Interestingly, experts pointed out that Mantyla's study was affected by other factors. According to them, women's ability to multitask is dependent on their menstrual cycle. Women tend to fall behind when they are in the luteal phase of the cycle. Contrariwise, they can catch up or even outperform men during their period. Prompting us to question that if women do not undergo the luteal phase, does that mean that they really are better in multitasking?
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