Men talk less than women during multitasking

Abstract

Contrary to the widespread stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men, no consistent sex differences in multitasking abilities between males and females have been found. We developed a novel multitasking paradigm consisting of five tasks designed to simulate real-life scenarios. In Study 1, 41 males and 37 females (the ‘multitaskers’) performed similarly in all tasks except a conversation task, which males ignored more than twice as often as females. To test whether this sex difference is noticeable to others, in Study 2 160 naïve observers watched videos of the multitaskers and rated their appearance. Females were rated as being more in control of the task, performing better, and being less stressed than males. Importantly, these ratings were strongly influenced by the conversation task performance. Therefore, this study not only showed a sex difference in multitasking performance but also that this difference impacts how multitaskers are perceived by others, providing a potential explanation for the development of a stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men.