Communication, Focus, and the Science of the Continuum
By Jamie Bussin
Dr. Stephen Furlich PhD has taught gender communications for the past seven years. He noticed consistent differences between males and females in the way that they communicate, the way that they understand, and the way that they perceive emotional differences.
Much modern social science research postulates that communication is based on social learning. However, Dr. Furlich notes that social learning is very different across cultures and demographics. And despite those social learning differences the data nevertheless shows consistent results in communication differences between the sexes. He turns to biology to explain that incongruity. We discussed his findings in Episode #372 of The Tonic Talk Show/Podcast. This is a digest of that conversation.
Dr. Furlich explored psychology, psychiatry, biology, neuroscience, our brain structures and our sex hormones, to learn how biological sex differences influence the way that we communicate and understand other people.
At conception we all start out as biologically female. After approximately four months, the sex hormones kick in and males and females are differentiated. Those hormones influence or bring structural changes to our bodies. There are structural differences between biological male and female brains.
With 90% accuracy one can tell whether a brain is female or male by looking at the structure. And with the same level of accuracy one could view brain activations and determine whether the brain is female or male.
In addition to having different brain structure and activation, biological males have 20 times more testosterone and females have 20 times more estrogen. Those differences culminate in very different behaviours, such as the way we perceive and understand emotions and the way we communicate.
These differences play out in many different ways. For example, nonverbal communication. Says Dr. Furlich, “From an early age females tend to be superior when it comes to nonverbal communication, understanding other people, empathizing with other people, communicating their ideas nonverbally. And they also make better lie detectors. They detect deception in other people better as well.”
There are biological reasons why biological females are superior when it comes to nonverbal understanding. They tend to have higher levels of oxytocin during social interactions. Oxytocin is considered a bonding chemical; so females feel more of a connection with other people. If you understand the other person and feel a bond with them, then you’re more likely to empathize with them.
Females have more mirror neurons that are activated during social interactions. These are the neurons in the brain where you see someone else’s nonverbal behaviours and then you prepare your body to display those same types of nonverbal behaviours. When you do this, you’re activating the similar areas of the brain, so you have similar types of emotional experiences.
What flows from these physiological differences? Dr. Furlich gives an example of a conversation between a male and a female, during which exactly the same things are going to be heard. The female is going to look into more of the nonverbal cues that were brought up. The male is going to have a more literal understanding. So she needs to understand that he is not going to pick up on those subtleties, those subtle hints, and he needs to understand to look beyond the words themselves.
It isn’t just that males and females communicate differently, females are actually better at it. Girls outperform boys early on with language ability; the way they read, write and their verbal skills. Part of that’s due to not only the brain structure, such as having a larger and more active hippocampus, but they also have 20% larger areas in the brain for verbal fluency and verbal memory known as the Brauderman’s areas 44 and 45.
Another reason for females’ generally superior communication skills is hormonal. Testosterone hinders verbal ability and estrogen improves it. Dr. Furlich gives another example as to why that is relevant. “It’s much easier for a female to talk about the current topic, past emotions and details. We need to understand when she ties all those things together, that she’s not unfocused. That makes sense to her. Females need to understand when males just answer the question and don’t tie in past experiences, emotion and fewer details, it’s because we’re not equipped to do so. It’s not that we’re emotionally removed.”
That isn’t to say that all females are good communicators and all males are poor communicators. As Dr. Furlich notes, “We shouldn’t look at everything as absolute, independent categories. Everything’s on a continuum.”
