Men and women performed similarly on most multitasking measures, but a difference in conversational engagement may shape how their overall ability is perceived.
A person can keep cooking, search for information, and track a visual task without appearing overwhelmed. But if they stop responding during a conversation, others may quickly assume they are losing control.
That social signal may help explain a familiar stereotype about multitasking. In a study designed to resemble the competing demands of everyday life, men and women performed similarly on most tasks. The clearest difference was that men were more likely to let the conversation drop.
Multitasking is not a single mental skill. It can involve dividing attention, switching rapidly between activities, remembering unfinished goals, and deciding which demand deserves priority. Because different experiments test different combinations of these abilities, previous research has produced mixed results when comparing men and women.
Although women are often described as naturally better multitaskers, studies have generally found only small or inconsistent sex differences. André and Diana Szameitat (from Brunel University of London and City St George’s, University of London, UK, respectively) set out to examine whether a more realistic test might reveal a clearer pattern.
A More Realistic Multitasking Test
In the study published in Psychological Research, the researchers describe an experiment built around five simultaneous demands. Instead of relying on a single laboratory task, they created a setting intended to capture the interruptions, competing priorities, and social pressure that often accompany multitasking outside the lab.
The first study involved 41 men and 37 women. Participants followed a recipe in a kitchen setting, searched for a phone number, matched numbers and letters, monitored words in a slideshow, and took part in a conversation.
Every 20 seconds, they were expected to answer a question. One example was (e.g., “Would you rather lose all of your money and valuables or all of the pictures you have ever taken, and why?”).
The Difference Was Not Overall Ability
Men and women achieved similar results on the recipe, search, matching, and word monitoring tasks. The conversation task was the exception.
Men failed to respond more than twice as often as women. However, when they did answer, their response speed and answer quality were comparable to those of the female participants.
The study did not show that men were generally worse at multitasking or less capable of forming good responses. It showed that, when several demands competed for attention, men were more likely to deprioritize the social task.
Why Conversation Can Shape the Entire Impression
Conversation is unusually visible. A missed visual cue or a brief delay in a search task may go unnoticed, but silence during an interaction is immediately apparent. In real life, that can make conversational disengagement seem like evidence that someone is distracted, overloaded, or not coping well, even when their performance remains strong elsewhere.
To test whether outside observers would form that kind of impression, the researchers conducted a second study involving 160 people who had not been told what differences to expect. The observers watched videos of the participants and rated how well they appeared to be managing the situation.
Male participants were judged more negatively. Observers saw them as less in control, less effective, less attentive, less happy, and less willing to make an effort. They also appeared to be enjoying the task less than the women.
These ratings suggest that people may use social responsiveness as a shortcut when evaluating complex performance. Someone who continues talking may look composed and capable, while someone who becomes quiet may appear overwhelmed, even if both are handling the other demands equally well.
A Possible Explanation, but Not a Proven One
The authors suggest that women may, on average, be more likely to maintain communication in social situations. The experiment did not directly test why this pattern occurred, so the explanation remains tentative.
The findings are also consistent with evolutionary accounts that propose stronger average tendencies toward conversational behavior among women. However, the results do not establish whether the difference arose from social expectations, learned behavior, personal priorities, evolutionary influences, or another factor.
The study also cannot show that every man or woman behaves in the same way. It identifies an average difference within the groups tested, not a universal rule about either sex.
How a Stereotype May Take Hold
The findings do not suggest that women are generally better at multitasking. Rather, a single visible behavior may strongly shape how others judge overall performance.
If women are more likely to keep a conversation going while managing other tasks, they may appear calmer, more engaged, and more capable. Over time, that visible difference could contribute to the widespread belief that women are better multitaskers, even when objective performance on most tasks is similar.
“Taken together, our data confirm that there are no substantial sex differences in cognitive visual-manual tasks, but that significant sex differences do exist in the ability to hold a conversation while multitasking,” explains André Szameitat. This is “an ability highly salient in everyday life and, thus, could explain the development of the widespread public stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men,” the researcher concludes.
Reference: “Men talk less than women during multitasking” by André J. Szameitat and Diana P. Szameitat, 15 May 2026, Psychological Research.
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-026-02279-5
The work was supported by the Bial Foundation.
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.
Follow us on Google and Google News.