Are women more talkative than men? An analysis of gender differences in daily word use.

What is it about?

Women are widely assumed to be more talkative than men. This study aimed to replicate a highly visible earlier study that found only trivial differences in men's and women's daily spoken word use (Mehl et al., 2007, Science). The present study addressed concerns that the original study’s sample consisted only of college students. Across 2,197 new participants (10-92 years old), men spoke on average 11,950 and women 13,349 words per day, with very large individual differences (the least talkative participant spoke fewer than 100, the most talkative more than 120,000 words per day). Small gender differences emerged among adolescent (women speaking 513 words more), emerging adult (women speaking 841 words more), and older adult (men speaking 788 words more) participants, but a larger difference emerged for participants in early and middle adulthood (women speaking 3,275 words more). Due to the very large between-person variability and resulting statistical uncertainty, the study leaves open some questions around whether the two genders differ in a practically meaningful way in how many words they speak on a daily basis.

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Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The notion that women and men differ in their daily lexical budget has been around, largely empirically untested, for quite a long time, and it has become a pervasive fixture in gender difference arguments. The ubiquity and often negative connotation of this stereotype makes evaluating its accuracy particularly important.