It is a truth universally acknowledged that men can’t do more than one thing at a time — but a new study has challenged this long held belief, proving men are actually better at multitasking than women.
The controversial research — which will be published in prestigious US journal Psychological Science — claims that hormones linked to the menstruation cycle left women less able to juggle tasks at certain times of the month, while men’s performance was unaffected.
Psychologists at Stockholm University asked 160 men and women aged 20 to 43 to keep track of the time on three digital clocks that displayed different times at different speeds.
They also had to watch a scrolling ticker listing common Swedish names and press a button when one of the names was repeated.
Lead researcher Timo Maentylae found that men performed consistently, but women’s performance was linked to their menstrual cycle.
Those who were menstruating performed the tasks well, while those who were ovulating struggled.
“Previous studies have shown that women’s spatial skills vary across the menstrual cycle with high capacity around menstruation and much lower around ovulation, when oestrogen levels are high,” Maentylae said.
“The results showed a clear difference in multitasking between men and women in the ovulation phase, while this effect was eliminated for women in the menstrual phase.”
