A recent study at Edinburgh University proves that men have a harder time reading other people’s emotions than women do. Well, this explains a lot.
During the study, a group of both men and women were shown pictures of faces and asked numerous questions about them while their brains were scanned. When asked how approachable the people in a photograph seemed, the men took longer to respond. Though they eventually came up with the same results as the ladies, it took them longer to get there. The brain scans proved that there was a rush of blood to the men’s brains when making judgments about emotions, which showed they were working harder than the women to find the answers.
The results of this experiment could be used to help find new treatments for people with autism, as they have difficulty reading faces and depicting different emotions.
“Our findings suggest that men have developed strategies to cope with their lesser natural empathy by over-activating the parts of the brain that understand social cues,” explained Professor Stephen Lawrie, who led the study. “As this pattern is also seen in people with autism-linked conditions, it suggests we could devise new tools to help patients learn social rules and enhance their skills for engaging with other people.”
Until then, this study could find a more immediate use in your everyday interactions. From now on, when some annoying dude tells you to smile or a creep starts making a move on you, feel free to really lay it on him, because apparently, he’ll need a little extra help getting the hint.
Photos via thedailydomestic.com and the frisky.com
