Women don't shop, they browse and analyze, they rationalize the complex and daunting task of weighing options and make decisions based on numerous outside factors and come out of this traumatic event with a large bottle of ibuprofen and a box of tissue.
Men use their brains to act and solve problems like how to confront and spear a Wooly Mammoth. Women use theirs for more complex issues and to analyze things. While the standard IQ test is used to measure your strength with skills like math, logic and verbal ability, there is still no test for emotional intelligence.
It is interesting that we have test of all kinds, we can even determine the level of retardation in people, but emotional intelligence has eluded us, is it because emotional intelligence is more about relating to people and being able to interact with them? When men first created the IQ test more then 100 years ago, men designed it, back then few women if any were involved in the science of the mind and brain. Today there are still many things science doesn't know about the brain or which malfunctions cause the most serious problems.
Differences between the male and female brain are the subject of regular press speculation and newspapers published stories all the time. With this brain scan we've discovered this or that, and claim to explain everything from love to memory. Old people are encourage to "train their brain", young people are warned that video games, drugs and sexual activity could "damage their brains". This everyday brain talk has taken up an interesting place in our culture, but little time if any is spent on the emotional brain of women.
It would be unrealistic and unreasonable to think the mind of a women would be identical to a mans. Between the anatomical, physiological and genetic differences the mind body connections are different as well. Cognitive abilities, personality, emotions and behavior are just a few of many other differences. From an evolutionary perspective, the psychological differences between the sexes are probably adaptive; they evolved to solve different problems that men and women were repeatedly confronted with during our evolutionary history.
So back to our term "Lateralization", which basically means, one side of the brain is largely under control , or localization of function or activity on one side of the body in preference to the other. A myth has gone around for years that Women tend to be more right-brain dominant and men tend to be more left-brain dominant, simply not true. The factors determining right brain and left brain dominants are not gender based.
Left brain versus right brain quiz:
Here are some fun questions to help you ascertain whether you are right or left brained.
3 points for a 'yes' answer
1 point for a 'sometimes' answer
0 points for a 'no' answer
Scoring 0 to 10 - Consider yourself a right-brained person
Scoring 10 to 20 - You have displayed a balance between your two brain sides
Scoring 20 to 30 - Consider yourself a left-brained person
With women being better at lateralization simply means they are better at analyzing a complex topic, which has a lot to do with how women shop, not why, and it has nothing to do with their emotions. It has to do with what we inherited for our ancestors as hunter gathers, men hunted, women gathered.Anthropologists estimate that women’s gathering provided around 80-90 percent of groups' food, so when most women shop, they are in more of a 'gathering' mode - browsing from tree to tree (or shop to shop) looking for food or stuff. They spend a lot of time examining the items, checking and analyzing it's edibility or usefulness, and they disregard quite a lot of it. At the end of the trip, they return home laden with a wide variety of stuff or maybe nothing at all.
This analogy can now provide justification for women's shopping habits. You can use the excuse that you can’t help liking (or not liking) shopping because you inherited those instincts from your prehistoric pas t. One thing I will mention however, women in prehistoric times only gathered what they actually needed, nothing more.
I am a man though, how could I possibly know what is need and not?
It is interesting that we have test of all kinds, we can even determine the level of retardation in people, but emotional intelligence has eluded us, is it because emotional intelligence is more about relating to people and being able to interact with them? When men first created the IQ test more then 100 years ago, men designed it, back then few women if any were involved in the science of the mind and brain. Today there are still many things science doesn't know about the brain or which malfunctions cause the most serious problems.
Differences between the male and female brain are the subject of regular press speculation and newspapers published stories all the time. With this brain scan we've discovered this or that, and claim to explain everything from love to memory. Old people are encourage to "train their brain", young people are warned that video games, drugs and sexual activity could "damage their brains". This everyday brain talk has taken up an interesting place in our culture, but little time if any is spent on the emotional brain of women.
It would be unrealistic and unreasonable to think the mind of a women would be identical to a mans. Between the anatomical, physiological and genetic differences the mind body connections are different as well. Cognitive abilities, personality, emotions and behavior are just a few of many other differences. From an evolutionary perspective, the psychological differences between the sexes are probably adaptive; they evolved to solve different problems that men and women were repeatedly confronted with during our evolutionary history.
So back to our term "Lateralization", which basically means, one side of the brain is largely under control , or localization of function or activity on one side of the body in preference to the other. A myth has gone around for years that Women tend to be more right-brain dominant and men tend to be more left-brain dominant, simply not true. The factors determining right brain and left brain dominants are not gender based.
Left brain versus right brain quiz:
Here are some fun questions to help you ascertain whether you are right or left brained.
3 points for a 'yes' answer
1 point for a 'sometimes' answer
0 points for a 'no' answer
- I am organized
- I prefer math and science topics
- I prefer to use logical reasoning over intuition
- I have an accurate sense of time
- I would rather read non-fiction over fiction or poetry
- I can control my feelings and emotions
- I am great with numbers
- I am objective rather then subjective
- I like to plan my activities
- I am not very musical
Scoring 0 to 10 - Consider yourself a right-brained person
Scoring 10 to 20 - You have displayed a balance between your two brain sides
Scoring 20 to 30 - Consider yourself a left-brained person
With women being better at lateralization simply means they are better at analyzing a complex topic, which has a lot to do with how women shop, not why, and it has nothing to do with their emotions. It has to do with what we inherited for our ancestors as hunter gathers, men hunted, women gathered.Anthropologists estimate that women’s gathering provided around 80-90 percent of groups' food, so when most women shop, they are in more of a 'gathering' mode - browsing from tree to tree (or shop to shop) looking for food or stuff. They spend a lot of time examining the items, checking and analyzing it's edibility or usefulness, and they disregard quite a lot of it. At the end of the trip, they return home laden with a wide variety of stuff or maybe nothing at all.
This analogy can now provide justification for women's shopping habits. You can use the excuse that you can’t help liking (or not liking) shopping because you inherited those instincts from your prehistoric pas t. One thing I will mention however, women in prehistoric times only gathered what they actually needed, nothing more.
I am a man though, how could I possibly know what is need and not?
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