Who’s Brainy Now?
When you’re writing a regular blog, you’re always looking for interesting ideas and stories you can share with your readers. Tell them something they don’t know. Add to their knowledge of something they do know. Or put something out there that is irresistibly intriguing. Like the headline I saw last week that announced, Men using just half a brain. Where does one begin…?
My grandfather, a very successful businessman, always told me I thought like a man.
I took that to mean I was analytical, decisive, goal oriented, and tended to see the humor in things.
Just like him.
I didn’t realize it meant half of my brain cells weren’t firing.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found striking differences in how men's and women's brains are wired.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released their study’s findings (which included some 1,000 young people aged eight to 22) to show that the women’s brains were wired to better integrate emotion and reason, while the men’s brains had stronger links between coordinated action and perception.
Male brains appeared to be wired front to back, to parts within a hemisphere, but there are few connections bridging the two hemispheres.
In females, the pathways criss-crossed between left and right, with more powerful communications links between hemispheres.
Meaning what, exactly?
Well, it means that at any given moment, a woman is likely to be using her whole brain while a man is using only half of his, according to Ruben Gur, a neuropsychologist who was one of the study’s authors. (I just report the news…).
Generally speaking, these differences might explain why men, in general, tend to be better at learning and performing a single task (they used the examples of cycling or navigating) while women are more equipped for multitasking (I don’t know any man who would argue with that).
And because the female connections link the left hemisphere (associated with logical thinking) with the right (linked with intuition – “thinking without thinking”), this might explain why women tend to do better than men at intuitive tasks.
When it comes to marketing your products and services, you’d do well to recognize that all men (and women) are not created equal. There are definite gender differences.
Think of it as a head game.
Several studies have shown that men and women see things differently because their brains' visual centers work differently.
Women are better at distinguishing colors (men can’t even pronounce “mauve”).
Men are more sensitive to fine detail and rapidly moving stimuli.
Women tend to score better in memory tests (such as remembering words, faces, and special occasions), and in social cognition tests (that measure empathy and “emotional intelligence”).
Men tend to outperform women involving spatial tasks and motor skills, such as map reading (to this day I can’t read a map and I don’t know North from South).
All you have to do is watch beer commercials to know how different the sexes really are. Maybe that’s why they’re my favorite ads. They are so foreign.
And so funny.
Yet ad company Leo Burnett Worldwide says that one survey found 79 percent of men don’t even recognize themselves in advertisements today. They feel they are made out to be absolutely clueless (half-brained?).
Maybe advertisers do that to cozy up to a female audience. Women, after all, are the most powerful brand ambassadors out there.
They account for 85% of all consumer purchases.
They try new things based on a friends’ suggestion (80%).
And they will encourage their own friends to try new products (74%).
It’s nice to know women are finally appreciated for their (100%) brain power.
