Are women more emotional than men?
updated the 14 July 2015 à 18:32This gender-related study might just reconfirm that women are from Venus and men are from Mars. Science says both our emotions and brains are on different orbits – here are the findings.
A new study by the University of Basel shows that women are more stimulated by emotional images than the gents. Over 3,000 participants were tested at the Swiss university to understand the mechanisms of human memory and aid in innovating necessary treatments for possible related illnesses.
While it’s no surprise that ladies are also more likely to remember negative images, we continue to outperform men in positive ones. In fact, there are no gender-dependent differences only when it comes to neutral images. The finding then begs to answer another question: as compared to men, does the female memory excel because of the way we process emotions? If you are wondering why women can bring up an argument from months ago, this is what study leader, Dr Annette Milnik has to say: “This would suggest that gender-dependent differences in emotional processing and memory are due to different mechanism.”
Our brains are wired differently
Based on the fMRI data from 696 test subjects, stronger reaction to negative images in women correlates with the increase in brain activity along the motoric regions. This explains why ladies are more emotionally expressive than the male counterparts.
In the picture above, brain parts coloured in red and yellow become more active when images are highly stimulating. Meanwhile, areas in green are particularly more active in women.
Ehm.. so now that we have scientific proof, let’s be a little more understanding when our main man doesn’t really relate to the heartfelt emotions of sappy romantic comedies come Valentine’s Day.
Photo: MCN, University of Basel
Natasha Gan
