Women have this belief that men are less emotional, stone-hearted and rarely feel anything, but science has made me think otherwise.
According to a 2013 study carried out by neurologists at Mindlab, men are actually more sensitive than women when it comes to all sorts of emotional stimuli – they are just better at hiding it.
Scientists asked two groups of volunteers, 15 fathers and 15 mothers, to watch a series of videos while their physiological responses were measured by skin conductance electrodes.
The content was categorized into four topics: blissful, funny, exciting and heart-warming. The results were unexpected and left experts surprised that men displayed marginally stronger reactions on average to all of the first three.
The heart-warming category was even more shocking as experiment showed that men actually responded twice as much to this content than women.
Neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis, the director of Mindlab and a former lecturer at the University of Sussex, said: “Gender stereotypes about men being stoic and women being emotional are reinforced by our day to day consumption of media and our social interactions.
“We tend to oversimplify and exaggerate the perceived differences between men and women and are more likely to focus on evidence that supports our existing gender stereotypes.”
“This study suggests that men feel emotion just as much as women, sometimes more strongly, but are less willing to express these emotions openly due to expectations put on them by society.”
However, after taking part in the research, the women still agreed to being more emotional than men despite all psychological indications leading to the contrary.
So ladies, don’t be deceived by the hardness of men—this study shows that men are emotional.
ViV