Mothers are More Emotionally Content While Talking to Daughters than Sons

Most mothers would not agree that they speak differently with their sons and daughters. According to a new study published 12 November in The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, it has been stated that mothers use more emotional language while talking to their daughters.

Ever wondered why most fathers are uncomfortable talking about feelings with their offspring and mothers are naturally blessed with the quality? Authors Ana Aznar and Harriet Tenenbaum have the key to that question, Time reports. They discovered that women are more emotionally intelligent because of the way their mothers spoke to them while they were growing up and that is the reason they are more emotionally content and use more emotive language while speaking to their own daughters, the Daily Mail reports.

Men lack this ability because their mothers do not use emotional words or language while conversing with them and that is why they are uncomfortable discussing sensitive topics like feelings and relationships with their children as well.

"Our study suggests that parent-child conversations are gendered, with mothers talking more expressively to their daughters than their sons," said Harriet Tenenbaum from the University of Surrey in Britain.

For the study, the researchers asked 65 Spanish mothers and fathers to engage with their four and six-year-old children in a story-telling exercise and also indulge in a conversation about past experiences. The experts observed the language used by the parents and the number of words associated with emotion. It was noticed that daughters related more with emotional words like "happy", "sad" and "worried", and these words came up more often when mothers conversed with their daughters.

Harriet said that due to this, girls are more attuned to emotions than boys and are also more expressive, the Firstpost reports.

Harriet further said: "Having this edge may matter more than ever in the workplace, as more companies are starting to recognise the advantages of high emotional intelligence when it comes to positions such as sales, teams and leadership."

The author said that another point that should be noted is that during the experiment, it was observed that "daughters were more likely than sons to mention emotions with their fathers when reminiscing."