Here's Another study for the books. According to experts, there isn't much difference between the sexes when it comes to talking. A team led by Matthias R. Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, came up with the finding, which is published in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The researchers placed microphones on 396 college students for periods ranging from two to 10 days, sampled their conversations and calculated how many words they used in the course of a day.
The score: Women, 16,215. Men, 15,669. The difference: 546 words: "Not statistically significant," say the researchers. They were surprised when a magazine article asserted that women use an average of 20,000 words per day compared with 7,000 for men. If there had been that big a difference, he thought, they should have noticed it. They found that the 20,000-7,000 figures have been used in popular books and magazines for years. But they couldn't find any research supporting them.
"Although many people believe the stereotypes of females as talkative and males as reticent, there is no large-scale study that systematically has recorded the natural conversations of large groups of people for extended periods of time," Pennebaker said.
In a surprising result in one study they found, done in workplaces, showed men talking more. But how important is this study if they don't answer the one question that has been pondered for years. Who gets the last word in any conversation? The answer, hands down...Women! Of course, that's just my opinion and I'm getting the last word in on this one!
