No sex difference in an everyday multitasking paradigm

Abstract

According to popular beliefs and anecdotes, females best males when handling multiple tasks at the same time. However, there is relatively little empirical evidence as to whether there truly is a sex difference in multitasking and the few available studies yield inconsistent findings. We present data from a paradigm that was specifically designed to test multitasking abilities in an everyday scenario, the computerized meeting preparation task (CMPT), which requires participants to prepare a room for a meeting and handling various tasks and distractors in the process. Eighty-two males and 66 females with a wide age range (18-60 years) and a wide educational background completed the CMPT. Results revealed that none of the multitasking measures (accuracy, total time, total distance covered by the avatar, a prospective memory score, and a distractor management score) showed any sex differences. All effect sizes were d ≤ 0.18 and thus not even considered "small" by conventional standards. The findings are in line with other studies that found no or only small gender differences in everyday multitasking abilities. However, there is still too little data available to conclude if, and in which multitasking paradigms, gender differences arise.

Parent–Child Activities, Paid Work Interference, and Child Mental Health

“…In other words, it may be easier for women than men to divide their attention while still signaling psychological availability. Although the body of literature on gender differences with regard to multitasking is mixed (e.g., see Hirnstein et al, ), these studies typically entail memory recall, spatial abilities, and other experimental designs in a laboratory; we are unaware of any studies that have examined multitasking proficiency differences by gender in the context of childcare or psychosocial interactions. That said, Greenhaus and Beutell (), as well as others, have argued that more salient roles will tend to interfere with less salient roles more often than the reverse.…”

“…Some scholars have argued that women are better multitaskers than men (e.g., Stoet, O'Connor, Conner, & Laws, ), but empirical evidence in support of this claim is limited. Other studies have found that men are better at multitasking or that there are no meaningful gender differences (e.g., Buser & Peter, ; Hirnstein, Larøi, & Laloyaux, ; Mäntylä, ). In any case, it is more plausible that gender differences are linked to differences in mothers' and fathers' involvement with children.…”

Putting a stereotype to the test: The case of gender differences in multitasking costs in task-switching and dual-task situations

“…Studies systematically exploring gender differences in task-switching and dual-task situations are rare and their findings are heterogeneous [12]. On the one hand, some studies reported neither gender differences in sequential nor in concurrent multitasking performance [12–14].…”

“…Studies systematically exploring gender differences in task-switching and dual-task situations are rare and their findings are heterogeneous [12]. On the one hand, some studies reported neither gender differences in sequential nor in concurrent multitasking performance [12–14]. For instance, Paridon and Kaufmann (2010) conducted a dual-task study where subjects performed a driving simulation task (i.e., lane-change-task with lane deviation as the dependent variable) either in isolation or in temporal overlap with another task, such as, for example, dialing a number on a mobile phone, taking a tissue out of its packet, or reading directions [15].…”

“…Hence, some studies report no gender differences [12–15], while others report women to be better at multitasking than men [16, 17] or vice versa [18, 19]. Moreover, existing findings are difficult to compare and interpret because they either exclusively focused on sequential (e.g., task-switching, such as [17]) or concurrent multitasking (e.g., dual-tasking, such as [15]), or because they were based on very small sample sizes (e.g., gender differences in the PRP effect assessed with 10 subjects per gender group in [18] or relied on post-hoc exploratory analyses [21]).…”