Men, Women And Apologies

ApologiesBy Georgianna Donadio, PhD – For most of us it comes as no surprise that men and women really do think, behave and offer apologies in many ways fundamentally different from one another. We also know that hormones play a large role in these differences. Now science is beginning to unravel the specifics on how hormones influence the crafting of brain development in male and female brains and affect the orientation of behavior.

Two new studies that look at brain function offer some interesting observations. Research at the University of California in collaboration with the University of New Mexico shows that generally men have 6.5 times the more gray matter relating to general intelligence than women possess. Women, on the other hand, have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.

“These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior,” says researcher Haier, a psychology professor at the University of California.

But apparently these types of intelligent behaviors manifest differently.

Gap Between Apologies

Women offer apologies more often than men do, according to a new study led by researcher Karina Schumann, a doctoral student in social psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. And while it appears that men are not reluctant to admit wrongdoing, they simply have different perceptions about what they feel rises to the level of requiring an apology.

“Men aren’t actively resisting apologizing because they think it will make them appear weak or because they don’t want to take responsibility for their actions,” says Schumann. “It seems to be that when they think they’ve done something wrong they [men] do apologize just as frequently as when women think they’ve done something wrong. It’s just that they think they’ve done fewer things wrong.”

This is interesting research, but I doubt that many women feel that we really needed research to confirm this.

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