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Study - Women are better mind readers

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ASPartOfMe
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13 Feb 2021, 6:26 am

Women better at mind-reading than men, research finds

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Women are much better than men at reading what others are really thinking, according to a study.

Psychologists at the universities of Bath, Cardiff and London designed a mind-reading test using data from more than 4,000 autistic and non-autistic people in the UK and US.

Results from the simple, four-step questionnaire were scored from four to 16 – with four indicating poor mind-reading abilities and 16 the highest level.

A total of 2,900 people completed the questionnaire, with the average score between 12 and 13.

But women consistently reported better scores than men – on average, men scored 12.1 while women scored 12.6.

The findings, as well as the test, have been published in the journal Psychological Assessment.

To understand this psychological process, we needed to separate mind-reading from empathy.

“Mind-reading refers to understanding what other people are thinking, whereas empathy is all about understanding what others are feeling.

The difference might seem subtle but is critically important and involves very different brain networks.“

The researchers say people all have different mind-reading abilities, with some inherently better than others.

This can cause challenges, in particular for people with autism where it can lead to social struggles in building or maintaining relationships.

The claim about autistic lack of mind reading is not backed up by by any study results. It was just thrown out there.


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13 Feb 2021, 6:47 am

No one can tell what another person is thinking. It is not possible to tell that.

What one can do is look at the situation and remember what you yourself was thinking when you yourself was in that situation, but that is not the same as knowing what another person is thinking because other people can be thinking something entirely different if they face the situation than if one onself was in the same situation if that makes sense.
We can't read minds. We are humans, not God.


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NaturalEntity
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13 Feb 2021, 1:20 pm

We can infer what people are thinking. We cannot tell with 100% accuracy. We cannot read minds in that sense.


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13 Feb 2021, 4:27 pm

A success score that is only 3.97% better means that 21.25% of the time, they were still completely wrong.



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13 Feb 2021, 10:50 pm

Nobody can read the minds of other people.


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14 Feb 2021, 2:44 am

Let's not take the mind reading -thing too literally. I'm pretty sure this is referring to what people can read from someone else's facial expressions, body language and the situation at hand. It's not meant to be taken literally.

Now, what interests me is why are women better at it. Is it a biological difference or a cultural one? As in, are women better at it than men on average naturally, or are they better at it since most cultures raise and treat men and women differently, expecting women to be more emphatic and understanding?



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14 Feb 2021, 3:05 pm

Fireblossom wrote:
Let's not take the mind reading -thing too literally. I'm pretty sure this is referring to what people can read from someone else's facial expressions, body language and the situation at hand. It's not meant to be taken literally.

Now, what interests me is why are women better at it. Is it a biological difference or a cultural one? As in, are women better at it than men on average naturally, or are they better at it since most cultures raise and treat men and women differently, expecting women to be more emphatic and understanding?

Could be both biological and cultural. My biology teacher told me women evolved to be more likely to be empathetic as they were closer to babies etc in ancient times. But it could also be cultural.


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