Why Your Man Never Remembers Anything You Tell Him, According To Science
Men are literally hardwired not to remember things.
MAYA LAB | Shutterstock Do you feel like your man is somehow immune to feelings? Does he noticeably not get emotional while watching a moving movie? Are you also the one who is better at remembering things? Turns out there's science behind why your guy never seems to remember anything you tell him.
Sure, forgetfulness is stereotypically associated with men. Plenty of sitcoms show the clueless husband who forgets an anniversary only to have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off to find his wife a last-minute present. It's funny on television, but in real life, you're pretty bummed when you spend days finding the perfect gift only to get something in return that was obviously picked up on his way from work.
Men have a harder time remembering things that have strong emotional ties.
Men aren't emotionally reacting or remembering due to how their brains are wired. A research team at the University of Basel used brain scans (fMRI) to look at the brain activity of 696 people and found that women assess negative emotional images more strongly than men. When women assess these images, there is an increase in brain activity in motor regions of the brain.
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What this all comes down to is that women find emotional images more stimulating than men do. This also causes them to be more likely to remember them since people generally remember things that have emotional ties to them.
According to the study, women had a particular advantage over men when recalling positive images. Using fMRI data from 696 test subjects, the researchers were able to show that a stronger appraisal of negative emotional image content by the female participants is linked to increased brain activity in motor regions.
However, when the scientists tried getting both sexes to look at emotionally neutral images, there was no significant difference found between them.
This isn't the first study that looked at gender differences when it comes to memory.
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology conducted a 2014 study where they asked more than 48,000 people nine questions about how well they can remember things, whether they had certain problems with remembering names and dates, whether they could remember what they did one year ago, and whether they were able to remember details from conversations.
Men reported having the most problems for eight out of the nine questions. "It was surprising to see that men forget more than women," said Professor Jostein Holmen, a researcher at the university. "It was also surprising to see that men are just as forgetful whether they are 30 or 60 years old. The results were unambiguous."
Constantly forgetting things can hurt your relationships.
You become known as "the forgetful one," and other people are forced into the position of having to remember things and remind you of them. Though this may give more freedom to occupy your mind with other things, it can quickly become a burden on those around you. You might be seen as lazy or careless, and your partner might even grow to resent you.
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Since the responsibility of remembering things tends to fall on women, their memory skills often get stronger. Dr. Liana Palermo, a Marie Curie Research Fellow in the School of Life and Health Sciences, said, "In addition to work responsibilities, women have generally had more responsibilities at home too. As a consequence of this social role, in daily life, women might perform tasks involving prospective memory and planning skills more than men, thus enhancing their performance in remembering to remember."
Science may say that men are more prone to forget things, but there are actions they can take to help them remember more. Most people, regardless of gender, have the cognitive abilities to remember things, so, put them to use. Take the extra step to write things down or set a reminder on your phone. Your partner will see it as a sign that you're making the effort and not relying on them to act like your parent.
Nicole Weaver is a senior writer for Showbiz Cheat Sheet whose work has been featured in New York Magazine, Teen Vogue, and more.
