Research Design Connection: Gender Differences Reviewed

Meyers-Levy and Loken evaluated peer-reviewed research to identify differences in how men and women process information. They conclude that “Males are more self-oriented, while females are more other-oriented; females are more cautious responders; females are more responsive to negative data; males process data more selectively and females more comprehensively; and females are more sensitive to differentiating conditions and factors.”

Research shared on differences in responses to sounds/names was particularly intriguing: “Front vowel sounds occur when the highest position of the tongue is toward the front of the mouth (i.e., in English, the sounds of i and e ), whereas the tongue is in the back when generating back vowel sounds (i.e., the sounds of o and u ). Research has shown that front, not back vowel sounds connote feminine characteristics like smaller, lighter, milder, weaker, softer, prettier and friendlier…when given pairs of brand names for products that differed only in their front versus back vowel sounds (i.e., Giva vs. Gova), females more frequently selected the names with front vowels, while males chose those with back vowels.”

Joan Meyers-Levy and Barbara Loken. 2015. “Revisiting Gender Differences: What We Know and What Lies Ahead.” Journal of Consumer Psychology, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 129-149.

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.