London, June 04: Who’s better at giving directions – men or women? Researchers claim to have finally found an accurate answer to the age-old controversial question – it’s the fair sex.
A new study has revealed that women are streets ahead when it comes to telling strangers how to get from one place to another, in spite of the myth that they lack men’s driving skills and are unable to read maps. Though women are more reluctant than men to say how long the journey will take, they are much more likely to get it right, the’Daily Mail’ reported.
The researchers came to the conclusion after observing 30 men and 30 women giving directions at a petrol station. One researcher approached the motorists and asked first if they’re local and then if they knew how to get to a nearby tourist attraction. Most of the motorists wanted to be helpful even if it’s obvious that a handful didn’t have clue.Women were more likely to take their time while giving directions. Twice as many women as men”paused significantly” during the exercise – sometimes talking out loud to themselves as they went over the route, the study found.
The result was that women were more likely to give accurate directions – with a quarter of them spot on, three per cent better than the men, say the researchers.
When it came to saying how many miles there were to go, two-thirds of the men got it wrong, but half of the women got it right, revealed the findings published in the’Journal of Pragmatics’.
Professor Jennifer Ewald, who led the study at St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, was quoted as saying,”Men included significantly more mileage estimates than females, but their estimates contained more errors.”
The study follows previous research that found that while men like to give specific instructions of how far and in which direction to drive, women favour mentioning local landmarks such as shops and restaurants. Some scientists claim this difference first developed in prehistoric times when hunter-gatherer men travelled from their dwellings in search of food and had to rely on the sun and their own orientation skills to get home. Stay-in-the-cave women, meanwhile, used landmarks to ascertain where they were.Prof Ewald explained:”A direction-giving request is far from simple.
The driver’s question and the hearer’s felt obligation to answer it hinges first on his social or moral sense of what it means to be a good citizen, or, at the very least, a nice helpful person.
“Once committed he must draw on highly developed cognitive and linguistic abilities to formulate an adequate response.”
–PTI–