Why do men have trouble thinking?
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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Movies and television shows are full of scenes where a man tries unsuccessfully to interact with a pretty woman. In many cases, the potential suitor ends up acting foolishly despite his best attempts to impress. It seems like his brain isn’t working quite properly and according to new findings, it may not be.
Researchers have begun to explore the cognitive impairment that men experience before and after interacting with women. A 2009 study demonstrated that after a short interaction with an attractive woman, men experienced a decline in mental performance. A more recent study suggests that this cognitive impairment takes hold even w hen men simply anticipate interacting with a woman who they know very little about.
Sanne Nauts and her colleagues at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands ran two experiments using men and women university students as participants. They first collected a baseline measure of cognitive performance by having the students complete a Stroop test. Developed in 1935 by the psychologist John Ridley Stroop, the test is a common way of assessing our ability to process competing information. The test involves showing people a series of words describing different colors that are printed in different colored inks. For example, the word “blue” might be printed in green ink and the word “red” printed in blue ink. Participants are asked to name, as quickly as they can, the color of the ink that the words are written in. The test is cognitively demanding because our brains can’t help but process the meaning of the word along with the color of the ink. When people are mentally tired, they tend to complete the task at a slower rate.
After completing the Stroop Test, participants in Nauts’ study were asked to take part in another supposedly unrelated task. They were asked to read out loud a number of Dutch words while sitting in front of a webcam. The experimenters told them that during this “lip reading task” an observer would watch them over the webcam. The observer was given either a common male or female name. Participants were led to believe that this person would see them over the web cam, but they would not be able to interact with the person. No pictures or other identifying information were provided about the observer—all the participants knew was his or her name. After the lip reading task, the participants took another Stroop test. Women’s performance on the second test did not differ, regardless of the gender of their observer. However men who thought a woman was observing them ended up performing worse on the second Stroop test. This cognitive impairment occurred even though the men had not interacted with the female observer.
In a second study, Nauts and her colleagues again began the experiment by having each participant complete the Stroop test. Then each participant was led to believe they would soon be taking part in the same “lip reading” task similar to the first study. Half were told that a man would observe them and the other half were led to believe that a woman would observe them. In reality, participants never engaged in the task. After being told about it, they completed another Stroop test to measure their current level of cognitive functioning.
Once again, women’s performance on the test did not differ, regardless of whether they were expecting a man or woman to observe them. But men who had been told a woman would observe them ended up doing much worse on the second Stroop task. Thus, simply anticipating the opposite sex interaction was enough to interfere with men’s cognitive functioning.
In today’s society people frequently interact with each other over the phone or online, where the only way to infer somebody’s gender is through their name or voice. Nauts’ research suggests that even with these very limited interactions, men may experience cognitive impairment when faced with the opposite sex. Although the studies on their own don’t offer any concrete explanations, Nauts and her colleagues think that the reason may have something to do with men being more strongly attuned to potential mating opportunities. Since all of their participants were both heterosexual and young, they might have been thinking about whether the woman might be a potential date.
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72 Comments
Add CommentSo then "behavior" demonstrated on TV and in the movies is now taken as a snapshot of reality and the basis for this simplistic article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoh yes, being a man i can say that "beautiful women are definitely a distraction". My mind is in tune with her and my heart only! I see nothing else but her. I have ignored even a good friend at a bar to the point where he got very insulting, but i completely forgot he was even there. I should forget them because i am very uninteresting,and a plain guy. She will have nothing to do with me, but I cannot help myself!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe headline includes the word "why," but I only see the researchers' guesses put forward as explanations. Anyone who has seen a romantic comedy in the last 50 years could explain the results of this study, so it seems that the researchers' ruminations are all this paper has to offer. Disappointing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the next time you fly somewhere, check the cockpit, if the copilot is a female, get the heck off the plane. Or so it seems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour logic is as simple and blind as this simplistic article. I sexually pursued my wife when she was by girlfriend (I'm not saying that I actually had sex with her) and I sexually pursued numerous other girls before I found the most beautiful one and asked her to become my wife. So, who are these beautiful women who make men act and look so stupid and how come no man has ever been able to find them? You said in comment #8 "that gay men aren't affected by this phenomenon." Are you saying that these beautiful women who make men look and act stupid are lesbians?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo didn't you read the article? The article is based on a scientific study with a control group, on the research collected, not on TV. The TV/movie reference was just an example of how on some level we already knew about this behavior. As a male I can tell you it's for real.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisclassical fight or flight (i.e. adrenalin)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne more way in which we learn that we are less rational than we would like to think. Studies like this nibble at the image we have of ourselves. It may be a study of the male half of the population, but reflects on man and woman alike. Still, I’m looking out at a morning that is no less lovely than it was ten minutes ago. Some things matter. Being totally rational is not among them. Being totally rational would be far more paralyzing than being struck dumb by the excitement of a potential encounter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis remind me of a skit on an old popular TV show where-in 2 very old men were chasing a pretty young woman. After she stopped and they caught up with her they could not remember why they were chasing her or what to do next. The indignant comments of some of the guys here proves the point of the author about some mens brain functions in the presence of attractive women.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne juvenile commenter even proves the point by making a woman the "co-pilot" instead of captain of an aircraft. I wonder if he even realized what he was doing by his stereotypical comment.
Why hasn't anybody commented about the possible implications this study has on adolescent aged student performance in coed classrooms?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWouldn't this imply that male students perform worse than their potential in a coed class because they know they are being observed by females? Do they? Or is there an acclamation affect, where introduction to the new coed environment causes a decrease in performance, but once the male student becomes used to the girls (and accepting their disinterest) his performace aligns with his potential?
It would be interesting to compare results between societies with varying levels social-sexual repression.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can attest to the truth of this hypotheis just as a mother. When my son was engaged in Little League baseball I loved to go watch his games. When he knew I was there, he was not as relaxed and focused on the game, so wasn't as good a player as he could be; when he didn't know I was there, he was totally different and played very well. I quickly learned to hide my arrival and not to cheer too much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere may be that kind of expectation involved (unconciously) in these interactions.
TV is not the only way men and women interact, thank heavens.
An analogy. While hunting deer, a buck chased a doe in heat about 20' in front of me. Just when I shot my hi-powered rifle, the doe cut hard, the buck followed her and I completely missed him. I don't know where the doe went, but, right after almost being killed, the buck circled behind me and started looking for the doe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe made good sausage.
That testosterone stuff will make the male of many mammals stupid.
The headline is misleading. The research discussed does not mention any interaction between the subject and a woman, just the idea that either a woman is watching or there is a potential interaction. I wonder if there's research on the performance effect (e.g. on the Stroop Test) if the subject meets the man or woman, and whether they consider that person attractive or not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, this does appear to be a well designed study. I don't know quite what to make of it, but I hope the experimenters will come up with further experiments to get an angle on why they got the results they did. This article sure did provoke some revealing responses!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore duh research and another duh article from SA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"this hypothesis remains speculative"
Could/should have been the entire article.
"Overall, it seems clear that whenever we face situations where we're particularly concerned about the impression that we're making"
Duh! I'm sure most people, male or female, lose brain power when interviewing for a job.
Is SA so desperate for readers that they need to publish tabloid articles?
I had the same thought. But the interesting thing to me is that there are some who push to have all-girl's schools because there is the thought that having boys and girls together impacts girls ability in the classroom. There's merit to that, of course, yet this research implies the impact is really on the boys...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article doesn't support the headline. On of the studies research referenced here may be about the impact of an interaction with women, but the article discusses a more recent study and therefore makes the headline misleading. Come on, that's Journalism 101.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously, your next step is to monitor your subjects for testosterone level while these interactions are underway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd, no, I'm not kidding.
what a pile of crap. If some gorgious lady hunkered down beside you and gandered in your eyes. Most guys don't get "cognitive impairments". Maybe some Gay guy maybe, but most guys support wood until such time the urge passes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou guys are spending way too much time blowing smoke up your backsides with your inner city male suppressed hormons.
I would say that the phenomenon you describe, of men becoming cognitively impaired in the presence of a woman, or its mental equivalents, thinking in it, or anticipating it, if it's a true and frequent fact, may be a reflect of a fear of castration, i.e., these men having the unconscious fear that the woman may want to take his penis. According to Henry Ey this would be the psychodynamic of common male sexual performance nuisances, as premature ejaculation, and what sometimes is its end stage, impotence. Salut +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, I meant Henri Ey, a french doctor, not Henry
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou didn't read the whole article did you? You do realize that it's two pages long and also discusses an experiment measuring the afore mentioned "behavior."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm curious to see if having a picture of a woman in her eighties or an ugly woman being the observer would make a difference. It seems to me that these men have a problem because they have the image of the 'sexy scientist' (nurse or whatever as long as a lab coat is involved) in mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor me it is just the contrary. I am a man and when a woman is observing me, I have no problem. But with men I am always blocked even if they are not observing me, unless he is a friend or a relative.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmen!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI forgot to say, not only with men that are observing me I am blocked (because I think that he could be a gay) but also when a woman is ugly! (Sorry, it is not my fault, it is my carachter!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDidn't they make any physiological observations? Brain patterns, hormones, breathing, pulse rate, sweat, erectile spasm?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome of the reactions to this article are in some ways as instructive as the article itself . . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother SCIAM headline: "9-Year-Old Boy's Shrinking Brain Disorder Baffles Doctors"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThinking of teenage males, if that said 19 instead of 9 I could probably solve that mystery with a simple link to this article.
If you ever see Jonathan Ross' attempt to interview Angelina Jolie you'll get a good idea of what the article's on about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJolie though doesn't just disapprove of Ross' gibbering inaneness but clearly seems to find it revolting.
Many other women though seem to positively enjoy being the 'cause' of such behaviour.
Nor's this one sided - you take a panel of the most hardcore leading bluestocking scientists earnestly discussing the most pressing issues in science and introduce Brad Pitt (or his likes) to the mix and chaos'll ensue.
Ditto some leading fox or hunk at a gathering of gay or lesbian scientists!
And women become cognitively impaired in the presence of rich guys. It's a two way street, you know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat if the pilot was a deer? Would you let it on the plane? Only after conversion to sausage? Whatever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome of the comments to SciAm articles are written by people who apparently have not read the article or can't think much. Others are interesting and thoughtful. I'd like to see a rating system that allows readers to downgrade the stuff that's not worth reading and grey it out or fold it up. The system should also rate the raters.
Own it guys; we all get a 30 point IQ drop when an attractive woman walks by.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe're just not that deep.
It would be interesting to know whether women use the more or less obvious disturbance they cause to the male in their presence to gauge their influence on him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut they probably don't. That would be too manipulative...
(tongue in cheek)
Apparently the brain struggles when it is doing something new. Then the brain goes into "auto-pilot" once it has learnerd the skill, like driving for instance. I'm sure if you tested guys that always speak to women do not respond in the same way. <a href="http://wonderfoodblog.com">Wonder food</a>.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously you missed the link to the study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisT
Oh yes! Maybe even more so. Quite remarkable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn reality, interacting with a beautiful woman (or women) can certainly enhance the man's *spatial* perception and abilities. I believe that's quite understood, but I must say I even experienced this while writing a mathematical paper requiring this kind of skill!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, the Stroop test involves verbal abilities and recognizing colours. Well, perhaps we have to mobilize our brains a bit before talking to a gorgeous woman. Remember that babies start learning speech mostly from their mothers. Women are also probably slightly better than us sensing colours because this ability is coded in the X chromosomes.
Sure, makes complete sense. Why wouldn't a man prefer thinking about a beautiful woman, wither he knows she is there or not. A better experiment should have actually placed a beautiful woman in the room to observe. Bet this would be even more striking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, if the woman is more poised and beautiful with a fashionable dress and shoes, I expect the woman would also be distracted. Hmmm, wonder by what degree. Does jealousy make you stupid? Or would a handsome doctor have the same impact on woman. Come on, you must level the playing field. Men are more abstract than woman. However, good start.
The study referenced suggests that men appear to experience some measure of discomfort or dis-ease at the thought of interacting with women. It has, however left me with a few questions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, I am informed as to what a “Stroop” test is but not why it was chosen for this particular study rather than some other cognitive test such as, let’s say a regular I.Q test. Second, again I am told that participants were given a number of Dutch words, which lead me to ask again what were these "words"? And third, why was a “webcam” used? Why not, for example why not tell the male he is being watched through a two-way glass panel?
I am asking these questions in order to ascertain if something in the instruments used in the study, (the test, the words or the webcam) could have been more “loaded” or suggestive for a male than a female. I want to be clear in my mind that this study was not rigged in favour of the notion that males lose their marbles over the mere suggestion of a female’s watching from the other side of a camera, all because of the theory that “men are more strongly attuned to potential mating opportunities”.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this may be true, but does this study?
Unless the pilot is also female. And if the pilot is male (& the copilot not there yet), DO NOT tell him that his copilot will be a female.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisha ha ha I hadn't thought of that but you're right!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow bout those heart surgeons and nurses eh?
Let's draw up a list of jobs to ban good looking women from.
I Really think this could be put in a broader context of being invested in the outcome of a situation. We are all distracted and less effective if we are stressed and attached to the outcome of an event (test, job interview, potential date, etc...). Detachment may be the lesson here. It's all a game anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSimplistic? Maybe. True? Definitely. As the Flamingos once put it, "Mine must be a kind... of blind love. I can't see anyone.. but you."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd be interested in knowing how cognitively impaired a man becomes after interacting with the same woman for years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2 thoughts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. women make men stupid(er) - well DUH!
2. bet the mechanisms are similar to those in play when black test takers (SAT) are reminded they are taking a test and their scores will be compared to the scores of non black (white) students.
"Sanne Nauts and her colleagues at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands ran two experiments using men and women university students as participants. They first collected a baseline measure of cognitive performance by having the students complete a Stroop test."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading comprehension isn't exactly a cognitive ability - but maybe it should be added the test.
It is a pleasure to continue this little test provided by the article - whether it measures cognition or anything else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have already noticed that focusing on anticipation is nothing wrong; and that the word 'even' is misleading in the phrase 'even when men simply anticipate interacting with a woman whom they know very little about'. But also, the interaction between men and women, children and old people, and so on, is usually intended for using complementary skills together rather than exactly parallel skills in isolation.
It is interesting to observe how female and male competitive single skaters tend to make more mistakes than pairs. Women might be more used to being watched, but when models on the catwalk keep looking straight ahead, isn't it partly for avoiding distraction?
All over the world some societies (the less modern ones) used to organize, or still do, festivals of fighting between men, with a whole village watching. If such traditions continued for millennia, it probably meant that nobody was distracted, just showing their eagerness, concentration, agility, shedding unnecessary inhibitions (and not being fooled or frightened by his opponent's face painted red and yellow!) To this day some sportsmen like being cheered by women sometimes (no news to many of us...)
What does all that prove? Maybe the fact that whenever an interaction with women narrows perception, it expands imagination.
Very interesting. In your study was there any correlation between age difference of the male to the female ? ie were the older males less affected by older(younger) beautiful females ? Does the martial status of the males have any effect your results ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do you say that reading comprehension isn't a cognitive ability? It involves several levels of cognitive processing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it may well be true that most men get flustered when an attractive woman is present. My question, however, is how the study defines "attractive". It's not like there's one single definition of it. For example, take a tanned, blonde, thin woman. Such women are generally considered attractive, yet they don't do anything for me, so I wouldn't care whether one was observing me or talking to me or whatever. Does that mean there's something weird about me?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy, jbairddo? Are you going to spill your drink in your lap in anticipation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry to hear you're out murdering animals. Work on developing a conscience so you can have more respect for life from now on. Go vegan as well while you're at it, both for your health, and for the planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis phenomenon is known as "The Flirt or Flight Syndrome".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe conclusion is quite right indeed. I personally was really stressed last time as I saw pretty woman and my cognitive impairment was realized due to my attempt to demonstrate my best knowledge, skills etc. According to studies, if men are more sensitive to sex difference in observers, all events where they are assessed should be qualified as cases with "sex difference coefficient"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say it's a well designed study, but you don't know what to make of it? Uh, WHAT?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat did the article say, anyway?? I couldn't read it for looking at the picture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonally an attractive woman has never distracted me, other than my wife. Well all except for the time I walked headlong into a 6 inch steel post in the parking lot of a supermarket when this woman, who was 2o yrs to young for me and 4 inches to tall walked toward me draped in a silk outfit that seemed to have been molded to the natural curves of her well-sculptured body. My 20 something daughter, who was with me at the time, has promised never to reveal what happened, until she needs something really important to her.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat does that say about me that as a woman, I've noticed that when I'm in the presence of a man I'm sexually attracted to, my brain turns to oatmeal? And that the hypnotic, druggy effect of gorgeous men even led me to once get engaged to a terrible, womanizing, alcoholic, abuser who resembled Christopher Reeve? I steer clear of pretty boys now, since I know my judgment becomes impaired.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisManifestly true. Men fear failure with women.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think we must not generalized this story.Everyman and woman is unique so how they responded with each other in their interacting is depend on their psyche.For some man it is possible beautiful woman may leave cognitive impaired.Those man didn't get sufficient love from mother or their relation with mother are confused they may suffered from this syndrome
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince men have a lengthy history of not being able to
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdo much of anything correctly, in the eyes of women,
how else would you suppose men would act?
male pilots should stay away from women while working.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think this was most amusingly illustrated in Woody Allen's movie "Play It Again, Sam," where the Woody Allen character makes an utter fool of himself when he first meets the Diane Keaton character.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like experimenter Sanne Nauts to add another variable to the situation: Compare a man's reaction when he is introduced in person to an actractive large-breasted woman vs. his reaction to meeting a woman with an "average" bust. My hypothesis is that, in the former type of encounters, the men would demonstrate more uneasiness than in the latter type of encounters. This might be measured by a difference (more or less) in the amount of eye contact initiated by the men in each of the two types of encounters. After that, other variables, such as the woman's hair color, her height, etc. could be introduced. One could also look for different reactions by men who grew up having one or more sisters rather than only a brother or who had no siblings at all. This last distinction may add an environmental vs. genetic element to the different reactions, rather than drawing the conclusion that, in general, women are more poised or mature than men or (my betting favorite) that "all men are pigs."
During WWII I served with the 232nd General Hospital on Iwo Jima from April '45 to March '46. We had no female personnel until the war's end in August '45, when we acquired female nurses and Red Cross attendants. They were good people, but following their arrival the incidence of fights rose dramatically among the enlisted men. Apparently the mere proximity of the women triggered the tension, since only the commissioned officers were allowed to socialize with them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo can it be deduced from this scientific study that schooling works better when the sexes are separated as in a non-coed learning environment?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan it further be deduced that combat troops work more effectively when the sexes are kept in separate units?
What does this study infer to feminists?
All interesting questions. Should I wear my flameproof suit for asking such questions or will reasonable people reach mutually satisfactory answers?
Absolutely true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see no statistics or percentages with this study. Did all men score worse on the second Stroop test or just a percentage of them? Very vague article so I have to question the validity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sure that this only works on straight men. I wonder if they were asked if they were straight or gay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUsually I am not blocked when a beautiful woman is observing me, but it depends of what kind of beauty she is: I am not blocked when the woman has a gentle beauty, that one can think she likes to be a mother. But I am blocked when the beauty is aggressive, very sexy, very attractive. But I must also say that I am blocked when a woman is not nice at all, at least not nice under my personal view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this