Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan Read Free Book Online Page B

Suspected
    T HERE’S an old joke that the brain is the largest sex organ in the body. Since the brain is the organ that drives behavior, this joke is rooted in truth. 1 In the last several years, researchers have found mounting evidence that the brain works differently in men and women and that these differences impact how each gender sees the world. 2 Gender differences come into play in just about every mammal that’s been studied. These differences influence how we learn, how we play, how we fight, how we process emotions and information—and, ultimately, how we respond to business messages.
    The brain is the most complex organ in the human body, and medically speaking, it’s still poorly understood. All that gray matter between our ears is shaped by our genetics, biology,and culture. Arguably, women’s brains are even more poorly understood than men’s. For most of history, women were excluded from all manner of medical research because their hormone fluctuations, menstrual cycles, and pregnancies “interfered” with testing standards. Subsequently, the “generic” patients in medical studies of all kinds—including those of the brain—were usually male. Generally speaking, outside of the reproductive organs, women were considered smaller versions of men. It’s only relatively recently—within the last three decades or so—that awareness of gender has begun to change the way medical research is conducted on a broad scale.
    Back in sex education class, between all those giggles, many of us learned about hormones like testosterone and estrogen, which play a major role in driving the behaviors of each sex. But how about the biology of the brain itself? Is it different between men and women? Are we wired differently from birth? Where does nature end and nurture begin? Why do men like Rush and women like Sarah McLachlan? And what are the implications for business?
    Researchers are increasingly finding that male and female brains are indeed different and that there is no such thing as a unisex brain. Imaging technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) scans are demonstrating that brains in human beings have sexually dimorphic regions, or areas that are different between the genders. These include:
    • Amygdala—Our center for emotions, fear, and aggression
    • Hippocampus—The principal hub of emotion and memory formation
    • Hypothalamus—Our control center for body organs and systems
    • Limbic system—The part of the brain that produces emotions
    • Visual cortex—The part of the brain that processes visual information
    • Corpus callosum—Our transmitter of brain signals, which connects the left and right sides of the brain
    Consumer research is a vital part of any business, but sometimes it merely shows us the tip of the iceberg. To truly understand what drives the behaviors and motivations of women consumers, it’s important to go deep into the biological differences that impact how they view the world. The full extent of our brain differences is still uncharted territory, but here’s what scientists have determined so far:
• Emotion . The limbic system, or emotional bonding center of the brain, tends to be larger in women, which may explain why women are the primary caretakers for children and the elderly in almost every society in the world. 3
• Memory . The hippocampus (the hub of emotion and memory formation) is larger in the female brain, which is likely the reason that women are better at expressing emotions and remembering the details of emotional events than men are. 4 This is why women can recall every word of a major argument or special event, even years later, often to the chagrin of their partners.
• Speech . Women use both sides of their brains for speech, while men use one. Women also have more nerve cells in the left half of the brain, the seat of our ability toprocess language. This may be why women find verbal communication easier than men do, and tend to have