{
  "id": 2838447,
  "title": "New study: Men and women multitask equally well, but men talk less while doing it",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/23/new-study-men-and-women-multitask-equally-well-but-men-talk-less",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-08-23T18:00:52.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PsyPost",
    "slug": "psypost",
    "url": "https://www.psypost.org/new-study-men-and-women-multitask-equally-well-but-men-talk-less-while-doing-it/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A recent study revealed that men and women perform equally well in multitasking, with the exception of a conversation task. In the experiment, men were found to ignore questions posed to them more than twice as often as women. However, when they did respond, the quality and speed of their answers were not different from those of women. The research, published in Psychological Research, aimed to investigate whether there were sex differences in multitasking abilities. The study involved two groups of participants: 37 women and 41 men, with an average age of 23-24 years, and 80 women and 80 men, with an average age of 34-35 years. Both groups were asked to perform five tasks spread across three tables, including a cooking task and a conversation task. The researchers found that while men and women performed similarly in four of the tasks, women answered more questions in the conversation task, answering 25 out of 28, while men answered 20 out of 28. Despite this difference, both men and women had similar performance and stress levels according to observers. The authors suggest that this difference in conversation task performance could explain the widespread public stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men.",
  "summary": "Do women really multitask better than men? Researchers put both sexes through a rigorous real-world simulation. While they scored the same on most metrics, one difference emerged that explains why men often look like they are struggling.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}