In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: What's the difference between male and female brains? If you're up for a deep dive into this complex subject, it may be worth picking up a copy of Diane F. Halpern's acclaimed academic text "Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities," now in its fourth edition. These Are the Words That Make You Say "Um" This Vintage Quiz Can Tell You How Much Self Esteem You Have Not thrilled with your score? Check out "Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem" by Matthew McKay, Ph.D. Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/male-and-female-brain-differences-a-self-esteem-quiz-and-words-that-make-you-say-um
CODY GOUGH: Hi, we've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about a vintage quiz that can tell you how much self esteem you have, the difference between male and female brains, and the words that make you say, um.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some, um, curiosity. See what I did there?
ASHLEY HAMER: I see.
CODY GOUGH: Ashley, what's your favorite filler word?
ASHLEY HAMER: I do say um a lot.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Yeah, of course, I do. You're the editor here, man.
CODY GOUGH: When we are recording, yeah, I don't-- I haven't noticed it too much.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, well, that's good.
CODY GOUGH: Actually-- oh, I didn't mean to do that. First up today is a new study that found which words make you say um, or, uh, mm, eh, err, or whatever weird guttural filler words that you say. So this is the a weird thing to find, right?
But researchers looked at speech from native speakers of a broad range of languages to see what speech patterns they might have in common. And they found that little words, like um, et cetera, tended to happen the most before references to concrete objects and concepts. And if you remember at grammar school, that means nouns.
The researchers think it's because when you use a noun, it's usually because you're introducing a new concept into the conversation. And you can also delay it naming a noun by using a pronoun. It's like, let's say, you say the sentence, my dog went outside and played fetch.
Well, if you haven't already mentioned your dog, then you might have to slow down the flow of the conversation to redirect the topic when you're using that noun. So you'd slow down before you say dog. Anyway, it's clear that the way we use a word changes depending on what type of word it is. But there's also MRI evidence that the brain processes different parts of speech differently.
In a study from 2010, researchers from Spain and Germany found that when they used unfamiliar nouns, it caused activity in parts of the brain most associated with visual and object processing, while strange verbs sparked something in the semantic, conceptual, and grammar oriented parts of the brain. And this all just goes to show that there isn't one single language region of the brain. Language is such a big deal. You've got a special place for every part of it.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK, Cody, what's the difference between my brain and your brain?
CODY GOUGH: You wake up earlier.
ASHLEY HAMER: That is true. Well, there are a lot of differences a lot of people would say. But then, a lot of people would say that there's absolutely no difference at all. And every difference between you and me as a man and a woman are just due to culture. So what's the answer?
CODY GOUGH: This is like a hot debate, right?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it's a hot debate.
CODY GOUGH: There's a nature versus nurture thing.
ASHLEY HAMER: Absolutely.
CODY GOUGH: And then there's the whole gender identity and fluidity.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's a can of worms.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, we're not going to like debate any of that today, are we?
ASHLEY HAMER: I hope not. Well, last month, UK researchers published the largest study ever of structural differences in the brains of men and women. This is pretty exciting. They looked at more than 5,000 brains and found real differences in structure and function. But how that translates to behavior is still an open question.
Talking about the difference in men and women is a super hot debate, like we said. A lot of studies have found differences, like in memory, spatial relationships, and even how men and women navigate. But this study didn't find any of that because, as I said, this study looked at structure and function and not behavior.
The point was to characterize, but not necessarily explain differences between male and female brains. So what did the researchers find? Well, men's brains are bigger than women's, just as men's hands and livers are bigger than women's, on average. But the results were adjusted for overall brain volume and, still, a few key differences showed up.
The authors wrote, quote, "The higher male volume in our study appeared largest in some regions involved in emotion and decision-making," unquote. Female brains, meanwhile, tended to have a thicker cerebral cortex, which has associations with general intelligence. Now, it's possible that differences in people's brains cause differences in their behavior, but it's also just as possible that differences in life experience caused differences in people's brains.
There's a famous 2011 study of London taxi drivers that found that the hippocampus grew after the drivers gained experience navigating city streets, and the hippocampus is where you find long term memory and spatial navigation. So compare that to this study looking at adult brains. Well, the experience of living as a man is a bit different from the experience of living as a woman, and that makes it really hard to try to relate brain structure with behavior differences because you can't really do controlled experiments.
You'd have to find a group of men and a group of women with pretty much the exact same life experience, and we just don't have that. This study just goes to show that there's still a lot we don't know. And we don't know exactly how much we can know.
CODY GOUGH: This makes it really hard to draw a line between nature and nurture because nurture is nature, right?
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
CODY GOUGH: If our experiences are shaping our brain, the nature of our brain is to adapt to how we are nurtured as we grow up.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: That's deep.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it's very complex. And I think an important takeaway of this, though, that you can see in the article on curiosity.com, there are diagrams of the overlap between men's and women's brains in the sizes of things, and there is tons of overlap. If you take any two brains, there's probably going to be more of a difference between those two random ones, whether they're men's or women's brains than there will be between men's brains and women's brains overall.
CODY GOUGH: Like, as a category.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. We're all a lot more alike than we are different, basically.
CODY GOUGH: All right, Ashley, what is your score on the Rosenburg Self-Esteem Scale?
ASHLEY HAMER: What's your score? You want to say on three?
CODY GOUGH: All right.
BOTH: 1, 2, 3.
CODY GOUGH: 27.
ASHLEY HAMER: 18. Wow.
CODY GOUGH: It's actually 27. How is yours that low?
ASHLEY HAMER: How is-- I mean, not how is yours that high. That's a horrible thing to say.
CODY GOUGH: It's accurate.
ASHLEY HAMER: No. Yeah, I've got a healthy dose of low self-esteem. It's just right there in the middle.
CODY GOUGH: You should get better at that.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK.
CODY GOUGH: That sounds really mean, but, I mean, in the most positive way possible.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'lll put it on the list of things I have to get better at.
CODY GOUGH: I esteem you much more highly than that--
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, thank you.
CODY GOUGH: --is what I'm trying to say. So for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about, we're talking about the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.
ASHLEY HAMER: Which has a maximum score of 30, and Cody has a 27.
CODY GOUGH: I mean, that might not be the best thing in the world, actually. So feeling good about yourself is a key ingredient in leading a happy, healthy, productive life. And today, we posted a short questionnaire. You can fill out to see how you're doing in the self-esteem department, and it's called the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, or RSES.
It was developed in 1965 and was used on more than 5,000 high school juniors and seniors in New York State. And today, it's been translated into several languages, and it's still widely used to measure self-esteem. There have been studies conducted on this self-esteem , scale and the studies conclude that it's a pretty good measure of self-esteem. But take your results with a grain of salt, like you should with any psychology questionnaire.
ASHLEY HAMER: It ask questions, like, I feel that I have a number of good qualities, or I certainly feel useless at times.
CODY GOUGH: Or I wish I could have more respect for myself. Or, all in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure. With the questions you just answer, strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. And then, you just add up your answers.
CODY GOUGH: Scores between 15 and 25 are considered average, so you're in the average.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm average.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. And scores below 15 are considered below average, and 26 to 30 indicate higher self-esteem. Or in my case, that you're way so full of yourself. But you can find the full article with all the questions in the podcast show notes or you can find it by reading about it today on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. All right, Ashley, what can we learn about this weekend?
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, I'm going to muster all my self-esteem and tell you. This weekend, you'll learn about the top 10 professions for psychopaths, a matchmaking app for zoo animals, the real life couple that inspired "Beauty and the Beast," fossils that inspired mythical creatures, and more.
CODY GOUGH: We'll be back Sunday for another super fun Sunday edition of the podcast. If there's something you're curious about, then email us your question at podcast@curiosity.com, and Ashley might answer your question on our Sunday show.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: We already have received questions from Victoria, Stephen, and Dorothy, and we'll be answering at least one of those this Sunday. So thank you so much for sending those in and keep them coming. We're excited about this.
ASHLEY HAMER: I really am. One more time, our email address is podcast@curiosity.com. Join us again, Sunday, to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.