Girls Rule, Boys Drool

Photo Courtesy Orin Optiglot via Flickr

This article in Time Magazine summarizing how males and females react differently to words in pictures is fascinating – but I’ll fess up that I can’t draw any clear environmental communication advice from it.

The gist of the story is that market researchers set up a group of teenage boys and girls with pictures of other teens and a description of a social situation. While the teens contemplated the pictures and scenario, the researchers scanned their brain activity using a “functional magnetic resonance imaging” device. The result: boys’ and girls’ brain activity patterns were quite different, leading one of the researchers to conclude:

… girls are hardwired to care about one-on-one relationships, while the brains of boys are more attuned to group dynamics and competition with other boys.

According to the article, that particular conclusion is controversial even among the researchers — but here’s the message I took away: People’s subconscious plays a huge role in determining how they react to words and pictures — including the words and pictures that appear in your brochures, web pages, advertisements, emails, and other environmental communication pieces.

Beneath the rational facade we humans present to the world, the Darwinian impulse to pass genes down across generations is ever present — and influencing how your audience reacts to your message.

Maybe someday I’ll get to hook some people up to a “functional magnetic resonance imaging” device and analyze their brain patterns while showing them foolproof photos and telling them words that work. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Click here to read the Time Magazine article.

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