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You may have heard that women are better at multi-tasking than men. You may aspire to become better at it yourself. Psychological Science tells us though that no one is "good" at multitasking, and in fact, attempting to do so can have deadly consequences. Whether studying for an exam or driving your car, if you want to do well and be safe follow your brain's natural energy flow and do just one thing at a time.
Exhibit A
Exhibit A
The myth that women are better at multi-tasking is based on the sex-based discrimination of the division of labor.
Multitasking is affected by context and environment, and not chromosomal differences.
Multitasking is energy costly, task switching decreases the quality and efficiency of performing tasks, when compared to completing the tasks one at a time.
Hirsch et al. (2019) found no gendered differences in multitasking.
Exhibit B
Exhibit B
TASK SWITCHING ≠MULTITASKING
TRY: waiting until you are finished with a task before starting another!
36.4% of 33 straw poll participants believed this myth
Exhibit C
Exhibit C
According to Napier (2014), there is actually a start/stop process that has to occur in the brain every time we shift our attention from one task to another
It takes effort and time to switch our attention on two things at the same time
Laloyaux et al. (2018) showed that there is very little difference, if any at all, between men and women when it comes to task-switching ability
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