Men really are better with directions than women, research shows… and the reason may surprise you

Men are said to be better at taking cues than women, and a new study claims to have uncovered the source of their skills.

While theories have suggested that this ability comes from evolution, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have determined that it comes down to the way different sexes are raised.

The team found that boys are more encouraged to play outside than girls, exposing them to the outdoor environment and improving their navigation skills.

Researchers previously thought evolution played a major role because men would historically travel further from home than women to care for their families.

However, the researchers noted that if that were the case, the genetic trait would have been passed on to female children.

“…It’s pretty clear to me that the human sex difference is the result of culture, not evolution,” Justin Rhodes, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and co-author of the study, told Dailymail. com

He continued: ‘The trend of males showing slightly better performance than females in animals, independent of sex differences in home range size, is most likely a side effect of sex hormones (such as male pattern baldness and acne during adolescence). .

“These are caused by testosterone,” he said, “but have no function, they are side effects.”

The study, published in The Royal Society Journallooked at 21 species, including humans, to identify the source of the wayfinding ability.

The sample also included crayfish, chimpanzees, the dyeing poison frog, pandas and horses.

Rhodes and his team first looked at the species’ home range measurements to see how far each genus traveled from its base, mainly through observation, radio tracking or trapping.

The researchers monitored the species’ habits for a year to compare how species navigated “with and without a pronounced breeding season.”

They collected data from people using virtual or real-world wayfinding tests that were divided into categories, including reading maps, navigating with only verbal instructions and using a map to walk around a city.

Rhodes conducted a similar study more than a decade ago, but the results were limited by the number of species – which was only 11 – and the lack of human participation.

The species studied in the newly published study nearly doubled that of the 2012 study, allowing researchers to gain a better understanding of how and why men are better navigators.

“Over the past half century, significant resources have been devoted to testing sex-specific adaptation … as an explanation for sex differences in navigation skills,” the authors wrote in the study.

“In a previous meta-analysis we found the evidence to be weak, and in this paper with an expanded data set we again find little evidence supporting the … hypothesis,” she added.

Researchers found that although the female species, including humans, tended to travel further from their homes, the males still navigated more effectively.

“Sex differences in behavior or performance may arise from biological or cultural processes that have little to do with evolution,” the study said.

Future research should focus on how socialization and culture influence navigational roles, rather than looking at it from the focal point of evolution, the study said.

It added that spatial navigation disappears in cultures where women and men exhibit “similar reaching behavior,” in other words they grew up without gender differences.

More research needs to be done to focus on how brain function is shaped to make men superior in navigation.

“The fact that the trait in people boils down to how you were raised answers the question of how women can bridge this gap,” Rhodes said.

He added: ‘It’s just a matter of experience.’