Every noticed how women tend to mature faster than men. Often times girls will hit puberty before boys. We all know this to be true, but the real question is why girls mature faster.
Science Mic says that A 2013 study published in Cerebral Cortex offers a scientific explanation behind the common notion that men take longer to “act their age” than women do. According to the study, it’s rooted in the fact that the female brain establishes connections and “prunes” itself faster than the male brain.
Researchers found about 120 people between the ages of 4 and 40 to help their experiment. They used these people to how different regions of the brain communicates, they were trying to find fiber cells that connect brain cells to one another. When a baby is born, girl and boy have just amount the same amount of fiber. The fiber creates a chain that helps us learn and develop. As we get older, the brain finds a faster way to communicate messages from one region to another.
The experiment was very incomplete and didn’t come forth we a specific answer. The 120 people that were picked for the experiment could not be random because in certain cases some boys do mature faster. So in order for the experiment to work, the older people had to be hand selected. Choosing some that matured rather quickly and some that took longer to mature.
There is no hard core evidence that women mature faster then men aside from the fact the women’s brains get pruned faster. But truthfully there really is no science in this. Men have the ability to be mature they just choose not to, it’s really as simple as that.
Great article! I think that this is very interesting and have never heard of pruning in regards to the brain until today. I like your conclusion; that boys just choose to not mature at the same rate as girls. I also agree with Hope’s response above, puberty does have a large impact on when females and males mature, respectively. Your article made me think if female and male frontal lobes developed at the same time too. http://www.shockmd.com/2010/05/25/gender-differences-in-frontal-lobes/ Thanks for sharing!
I’m inclined to agree with you in your original statement, but I especially liked the conclusion you came to here. I think it also has to do with the fact that guys are believed to take more risks, and thus more bad decisions are seen as immaturity. But this study I found says instead that women take more risks.
I love your blog. I like that you say women choose to mature faster, which I partially agree with. Women’s bodies develop faster then men’s, along with their brains. One explanation to this could be that women were built to carry and raise babies at an early age, so they were forced to mature faster then men. There are so many possibilities to why women develop faster than men, and it is a great subject to research, although it is not likely that we will ever find a definitive answer. Thanks for sharing!
I feel like this has a very obvious answer. Puberty. Girls go through puberty at a younger age than boys, thus maturing earlier than boys do. After both sexes have completed puberty, I think they have been very affected by society at that point so they just want to stick to the “boys will be boys and be immature” attitude that society taught them while they were going through maturity. The same goes for girls. Girls are taught to be the classy and polite one and so by the time they exit puberty, this is what they do. This site talks about male puberty more.
http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/men-s-health-issues/biology-of-the-male-reproductive-system/puberty-in-boys