Yes, Women Really Are Nicer Than Men

Yes, Virginia, women really are nicer than men are. How to we know? Because when researchers at Stony Brook University ran a computational analysis of the words used by more than 65,000 Facebook users in 10 million messages, they found that the language used by women is warmer and more agreeable than the language used by men–so much so that algorithms of language use predicted one’s gender on Facebook 90 percent of the time. Science Daily reports on the study, which found that women mentioned friends, family and social life more often, while men swore more, used angrier and argumentative language, and discussed objects more than people. On average, women used language that was characteristic of compassion and politeness while men were more hostile and impersonal.

The visual above shows the relationship between gender-linked language topics and characteristics of warmth and assertiveness. Blue-shaded points are topics most linked with men. Orange-shaded points are topics most linked with women.

Credit: Images courtesy of PLOS ONE

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