BBC Secret of the Sexes s01e01 Episode Script
Brainsex
Men will stop at nothing.
I'd rather die than lose I think.
You can't trust women.
Women can get away with everything I think in life, just by smiling.
Men and women can't get along.
I don't feel Craig understands me hardly at all.
Are we different species? Five men, five women.
I found it really, really difficult.
Men have no empathy.
The world's biggest sex survey Secret experiments And in a world first, brain changing drugs It's totally changed me life.
Mate? How're you doing? Prepare to discover what really separate the sexes.
We've invited five women and five men to take part in a series of unique tests.
- Good morning.
- Morning.
Could you tell me your name please? Yes.
Jamie Hannah.
Our test group has been chosen to represent as broad a range of people as possible.
And what is your occupation? I'm a housewife.
Ah, investment banker.
Engineer.
I'm a teaching assistant.
And how many sexual partners have you had? Um three.
I can count on both hands.
Hmm, God I can't answer that.
Um, a number less than my wife I think.
The volunteers know they're taking part in a programme about the differences between men and women.
We need to take a saliva sample What they don't know is that by the end of the programme some of them will have totally changed their view of who they really are.
First they need to complete the BBC's online sex survey.
They" be tested on everything from language to love, geometry to greed.
On your laptop computers there are a series of programmes that assess a whole range of traits and abilities.
What we want to see is how the brains of men and women differ.
Professor Richard Lippa and his colleagues designed the survey for us, and since it went online nearly half a million people world-wide have taken part.
This is the single largest gender survey that's ever been conducted.
We've never been able to assess such a variety of people in so many different areas.
What we want to know is how different our men and women are and how they measure up to the nation.
I'd rather die than lose I think.
I'm more interested in engineering than I am in people.
I'm a fighter.
I think that's a masculine quality that I definitely have.
I'm a man in a traditionally female role.
I like to say how I feel.
If that gets me into trouble, so be it.
Well that's me.
He sees me a bit like a Rottweiler or something.
And I always wear something that's quite low cut, quite you know In my job we deal with um, hundred and millions of pounds.
They're just numbers on screen.
They're just zeros.
I wouldn't really say I was a girlie girl at all.
We'll be testing out volunteers whatever they do.
Even the cab they arrived in was rigged with hidden cameras.
- Hello.
- Alright, how are you doing.
And driven by an actor.
The BBC, eh? - What a load of bollocks.
- Is it? What's going on? They're doing a science programme, difference between men and women.
The way they think, the way that we think differently, eh? Yeah.
As in, men do, women don't.
You know? - I love documentaries.
- Yeah.
There's so much rubbish on telly.
The actor makes sure that all of our passengers hear the same conversation.
Well they were saying that the square mile down here, if it-if it was an independent country it would be the 20th richest in the world.
Yeah.
- That's what they were saying.
- Amazing.
Well you'd think after 29 years of marriage you'd know someone pretty well, wouldn't you.
You would do, wouldn't you.
Not me.
She's run off with another bloke.
Like obviously not.
Think that's why I'm on the show.
I'd fucking party mass off round the world.
I just can't believe I was that stupid.
But will the men and women remember different bits of what they've heard? Will the next person come in please? Psychiatrist Doctor Sandra Scott springs a surprise interrogation.
What kind of car did you come here in? Er it was a silver Mercedes.
Anything else? Er, silver, leather seats, um, GPS system on the dashboard That it? I noticed the central locking switch had a chrome handle for opening the door after central locking.
Did you talk to the cab driver? Er yeah we talked er about um the sort of financial centre of er London.
Yeah they were going on about the square mile which is, you-you might have heard of it, just down here? It's where all the banks are in London.
Yeah.
They reckon that if it was an independent country it'd be the 20th richest in the world.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
Can you recall three facts or possibly more of what he told you about the City of London? Um tch er I can't remember.
He was er, um Er no.
Do you remember him talking about his marriage? Yes I do, yeah.
So that was another topic covered.
It was, yeah Car was automatic by the way.
Sorry? The car was automatic, by the way.
Okay.
It had a walnut trim.
So were you actually listening to him? I yes! Er um er or connecting but-rather than wishing to store information, so What did interest you? Talking about his marriage problems.
He was really quite open which quite surprised me really because men are quite, normally hide their feelings but he was quite forthcoming.
You know he's glad that the kids are older and they've moved out, but it just means that he's alone now really.
And he said, if it had been the other way round, um, she would have found out really early on.
You know, sort of woman's instinct and all that.
How did you catch her out? You didn't find her at come home early, did you? That'd be awful.
Generally speaking, all of the women had a much be-better memory for the emotional facts.
Men were more thing oriented And women were more people oriented.
Women like relationships, men like facts.
But according to Italian scientists it's not quite so simple.
Okay guys, take a seat.
Make yourself comfortable.
I'm just going to get you to watch a few minutes of TV.
If the Italians are right, you're about to witness something very revealing.
A High Street bank has warned that the number of new buyers has plunged to it's lowest level for 20 years.
The problem of When we asked our viewers what they'd seen and heard we discovered an extraordinary thing.
When 24-hour drinking becomes legal in England and Wales later this year pubs The men remembered some of what our male newsreader had said Licenses had been applied for six from London, none from other places.
If they didn't er curb it within eight weeks they were gonna receive a fine.
Scientists are warning that a recent outbreak of bird But when they were watching his female colleague they appeared to have gone deaf.
The scars outbreak in 2002 She had two stories Er-er she was quite attractive for a start.
The girl had a pink top with black trim.
That's about all I can remember.
And she had nice breasts.
We found that men are indeed interested in facts, but one thing they're more interested in is sex.
Which stands to reason.
Men are, after all, much more promiscuous than women Aren't they? How many partners have you had sexual intercourse with in the past five years? How old were you when you lost your virginity? We sent our researchers to find out just how much more promiscuous men really are Our street survey found that on average, men reported 13 sexual partners, while women only managed 7, in line with other sex surveys.
But hold on, who are all the men sleeping with? And the survey's about sexual behaviours and attitudes.
The trouble with asking personal questions face to face is that you rarely get honest answers.
How many sexual partners have you had? I think 25 or something like that, 20-25.
I can count on both hands.
You can - So 10.
- Ten.
Either men are exaggerating or women are being economical with the truth.
To find out what's going on we asked our volunteers to take a lie detector test.
I'm gonna put wire round your stomach, and I'm gonna put one around your chest then take the reading from one of them.
Try to breathe normally without taking in a deep breath or holding your breath.
Okay.
Try not to nod or shake your head, just say yes and no.
Okay.
I am the owner of a financial and accounting recruitment firm I'm very money driven.
Be Jack I want to have nice holidays, you know, I want to get my convertible sports car.
And in the next six months they're my goals.
So I'm gonna achieve them.
Gonna make sure it happens.
- Well I am about to start the test.
- Okay.
What I wanna hear from you is a yes or a no.
Okay.
- Is your first name Lucy? - Yes.
Have you had around 10 sexual partners in your lifetime? No.
Have you had more than 10 sexual partners in your lifetime? Yes.
I have had more sexual partners than I admitted to.
You know the reasons as to probably why I didn't want to sort of announce it, but yes I have.
Well what are the reasons? Well I think the main reasons is-is sort of you know, the reputation side of it um, you know.
I want to attract the and I think the-the man out there is still old-fashioned in his views and points, um, I think that you know, he still likes a very sort of feminine type of girl who and the thought of him, er her sorry, have slept with a lot of men, you know, disgusts him.
When they filled in our anonymous online survey, men and women did admit to having the same numbers of sexual partners.
And what's more, nearly a quarter of both sexes admitted to having been unfaithful to a long-term partner.
We also found that whatever their past experience, men predicted more than twice as many sexual partners in the future than women did.
So even though men are distracted by the idea of sex they aren't more promiscuous than women after all.
It's just that they'd like to be.
So one myth busted.
What about the other stereotypes? Women are more emotional.
We're more understanding Friendlier Sensitive Caring But are women really more caring? We hired an 8-year old actress, fitted her with a secret camera, and abandoned her on a London street.
This is what happened next This test is a measure of empathy, the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and to act appropriately.
Hello darling.
- You alright, sweetheart? - Yeah.
You're waiting for someone, pet? Yeah my mummy's just gone in Simsbury's.
- How long's she been? - Mm, don't know.
Do you want some company? Well I think it was shock to both of us to see a little girl sitting all on her own up against a cement wall.
Yes.
And you just wanted to go in and protect her and Yeah.
And that's make sure that she was okay.
But it was just commonsense when you see a little girl on her own you don't walk past her.
I saw her twice actually, going down and coming back up I thought she was probably waiting for somebody in the hairdressers actually.
I noticed she actually did have quite a brand new pair of shoes on.
So I thought she doesn't look as if she's in a light amount of trouble.
I'm a man with me own, aren't I.
And if I'm seen talking to little girls like that, what's the reaction? Of all the excuses given for doing nothing, concern about being seen as a paedophile seems the most plausible.
But note that none of the men alerted the authorities or asked a women to help on their behalf.
What you doing there, poppet? During the hour we filmed, 41 women stopped to help.
Some of them were so concerned that they came back several times.
But only two men stopped.
And one of them was with a woman.
- Are you alright, darlin'? - Yeah Twenty two percent of women offered help as opposed tojust one percent of men.
But this is just one test, and one way of measuring empathy.
Our volunteers are about to try another.
Former para Paddy Doyle runs a boxing gym.
If it wasn't for fitness I'd be be-be in prison.
You know.
I would be.
Paddy holds 130 world records for fitness and endurance.
He is officially the world's fittest athlete.
I've-I've had to be selfish er while doing my sport.
And it's affected my relationships because women couldn't take that.
It was either the world records or them.
And unfortunately I went for the world records.
Like the others, Paddy has filled in a detailed psychological questionnaire designed to measure empathy.
Of the half a million people who took part in our online survey, over 90%% % of the top scorers were women.
Men were very much in second place.
How do you think your husband would do on this? How do-what do you think his score Oh this guy, you'd be having a laugh, right at bottom.
Men have no empathy.
No.
Okay.
Well let's to a man to see how he feels about that.
For empathising I got 12 out of 20.
Oh, are we surprised? Yes.
Thought it would have been um a bit less.
Yeah.
So that has surprised me.
In the empathy test Paddy actually outscored all the other men, and all but two of the women.
Paddy's breaking the mould and shown that some men can be very empathic.
What about you? Um, definitely not.
A case, apparently, according to this test.
I got 3 out of 20.
Apparently I've been told I do lack a bit of empathy.
And er I-I have tried using it in a sentence before like saying, I empathise with you.
But apparently that's not empathy.
Can I suggest you go to Paddy for some lessons? I will.
Liz and Craig Watson have a personal interest in empathy.
Everyone looks so happy, don't they.
It seemed very idyllic really.
I rememberjust feeling very comfortable with you.
Then.
Craig is very calculating.
He's very stubborn.
Incredibly stubborn.
Liz is is the opposite of myself.
Um, she's almost too fiery, too almost out of control at times.
I don't feel Craig understands me hardly at all.
And we've gone out sometimes and Craig's had a book, and he's reading the book when we're out.
You know and that-that that really upsets me actually.
You see, I haven't done that for several years.
Oh you've done it recently.
Craig is living the life of a bachelor, actually.
And he, you know, he's a great bachelor.
Liz and Craig blame each other for their failure to communicate.
So in an unusual move we've asked neurologist Reuben Gerr to examine their brains.
So um here is er the scanner, and er what we will get is an image of your brain anatomy, but more importantly we'll get images of what parts of the brain become active when you have to solve specific kinds of problems.
A key part of empathy is recognising how other people feel.
We'll start doing the tests, and the first test is the test er of emotion recognition.
And you have to answer whether the face er looks to you like a positive or a negative emotion.
To me communication is mostly about the non-verbal, not what you actually say but what you're feeling.
And I think Craig's not that in touch with his feelings enough.
Actually maybe I've got perhaps more sensitivity in that area than I'm given credit for, and-and vice versa that Lizzie hasn't got quite as much strength in that area that she gives herself credit for.
Well that's interesting.
I just learned something else.
If the scan reveals that Liz and Craig read other people's emotion differently then some of their misunderstandings might be instantly explained.
The part of the brain that deals with emotions is right in the centre of the brain, right here.
Liz shows er a hefty activation, whereas Craig's brain shows no activation at all in this emotional part of the brain I'm not locking on.
whereas you went straight to the emotional part and you say, how would I have felt if I were looking like that.
You-you-you immediately invoke the the-the emotional part of your brain.
Liz is 40%% % more accurate than Craig at reading emotion in others because she is using the emotional part of her own brain.
And the scans reveal that in this test Craig shows no emotional response at all.
Liz, are you surprised at Craig's result? What surprised me most was the fact that it was completely devoid of any emotional response in the centre part of the brain.
I mean that actually has given me a big insight into why um I've often felt I wish he would show some emotion Yeah but-but also switching back, in terms of our relationship and in terms ofjust our understanding, I sometimes need things to be spelt out more.
Yeah.
Yeah that-just don't think I'm going to take it on telepathically or sojust, you've actually got to tell me.
And also I mean in situations where there's plenty of conflict and so on, I'm trying to calm things down actually.
I guess I just want to avoid conflict, whereas you're more able to or more willing to fort of embrace Yeah.
Well I just think it's-it's a much more interesting level to operate on if you can get into your emotional response a bit more.
If women assume that men are just like them, and vice versa, that's when you get into difficulties.
As far as you're concerned you're sending out all these signals.
It's entirely obvious that you are upset, so then when the bloke doesn't respond you up the anti some more because you're determined to get an emotional response, you introduce emotive s-you know, emotive topics so he has to respond, he can't ignore it.
And then what do you do? You end up having a ding-dong.
It's a shame for it to have to degenerate into a row just in order to activate the emotional response The only real way forward is to realise we are different, we process this sort of information differently, and how are we gonna make that work.
Until recently scientists were reluctant to acknowledge any sex differences.
Partly because of history.
In 1879 Gustav LeBon, the founding father of psychology announced that intelligent women are so rare that they are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as for example, a gorilla with two heads.
Consequently we men neglect them entirely.
And that, 125 years ago, was medical fact.
If I bring out a male brain and put it next to a female brain you can see er there's very little differences in any of the structures on the surface of the brain.
The only difference really between these two is their size.
And, ah, in general female brains are a little bit smaller.
So the er explanation for this is that men tend to be bigger.
And so this is in proportion to that difference in body size.
I don't think anyone's going to suggest that a small man is any less intelligent than a large man.
Having said that, there have been a number of er studies to suggest that certain areas of the brain might be slightly different in size.
And the biggest areas of difference appear to be in language processing, and also in this part of the frontal lobe which is important in visio-spacial processing.
And this might be the basis for some of the er functional differences we see between men and women.
Ah, they may just be wired up differently.
Dub.
In this test Tim is listening to made-up words.
Bok.
Different sounds are played to each ear at the same time Bub.
but Tim only hears one of them.
Gab.
When Clare listens to the same test, this is what she hears Gab and gat.
Because women use both sides of the brain to process speech Clare can hear both sounds.
Tod and top.
Dot.
But Tim, who as a man, only uses the right side of his brain Get.
can only hear one.
Bok.
I found it really, really difficult.
It-it almost came over as one word in both ears at the same time.
Things aren't looking very good for men.
Yeah it was automatic by the way.
Object-centred, partially deaf, unempathic, sex-obsessed fantasists is not how most of them would like to be remembered.
Men are supposed to be go-getting, thrusting, successful.
So we're giving them a chance to shine.
After all, men love competition and they're great at driving.
Aren't they? I want women to win.
Badly.
I'm gonna really try and win this.
I'm in! I almost feel it in the pit of me stomach that I just wanna be better than everybody else.
The hormone testosterone plays an important part in competitiveness.
Testosterone, the so-called male hormone, is actually produced by both men and women.
We're analysing our volunteers' hormone levels throughout the competition to see how their testosterone responds.
It seems that men, um, the kind of biological response to competition is very different than that in women.
In the men we see large fluctuations which is consistent with what one expects in response to competition, but we see virtually zero fluctuation in the women.
Men are more likely, um, as a result of this increase in testosterone to take risks, and risks might end in encounter and competitive encounter may be beneficial.
The testosterone powered men quickly take the lead.
Lucy in cart 6, the woman who wanted to win, is languishing in 7th place.
But right at the very front is Lloyd hotly pursued by Jamie driving cart number 8.
Ah there's an individual who's very much worth, ah, pointing out to you, and that is number 2.
Ah if we look at his T-levels um and compare them with his pre-race levels, there's a substantial increase.
He's ah likely to be a very competitive, highly highly strung individual who takes it very seriously.
I'm more interested in engineering than in people.
If it-if it came a choice between separating me from me lathe, and separating me from Oliver, I would let go of the lathe.
But I wouldn't give it up easily.
Want me to go first? I can't just secretly let him win like his mum can.
I just don't feel it's honest.
Right are you ready? Ready for this? No.
Jump, jump.
To be honest I don't really feel bad that he's crying.
To me he's just displaying what I would feel if I lost and want to be doing the same thing really.
- How old is he? - Six.
I'm not a monster.
But monstrous things are happening to Lloyd.
Jamie's taken the lead and he's not showing any signs of giving it back.
But as Lloyd tries to regain the lead his testosterone sky-rockets and things go from bad to worse.
Yet more testosterone, and more stupid risks.
Lloyd's race position is in free-fall.
As Jamie strolls past the chequered flag, Lloyd's world has disintegrated.
The former race leader finishes fifth.
But I have an extraordinary finding here where number 2's testosterone levels decline rapidly to nearly that of his pre-race levels which suggests to me that something unusual has happened, that something has, something's gone wrong here and I suspect he's not very happy about it.
I feel absolutely enraged.
Not with anybody else but with myself.
Five minutes ago, when you were up there, I could have got out, smashed something, hit somebody.
That's how I felt.
I wouldn't have done, because you know you can't do that in public but I feel good.
But I mean I wanted I-I did actually aim to win.
I wasn't going in the well, I wanted to have a good time but I wanted to win as well.
Jamie's testosterone levels during the race revealed the secret of his success.
While Lloyd's levels went through the roof Jamie's were much more subtle, allowing him to become more competitive and take informed risks.
His modest rises were useful where Lloyd's were catastrophic.
But if we look at the women, there's no rise in testosterone levels at all.
There's no doubt that women can be competitive but they don't have the edge that testosterone can give men.
I am a very competitive person and I was trying to do my best.
Um, I think I just, you know, break and then when I see somebody in front of me, instead of trying to swerve round them I hesitate.
The men's' rise in testosterone turbo-charges their competitive instinct, though it can be a very mixed blessing.
It's not by chance that women are less prone to road-rage.
Testosterone is an incredibly powerful hormone.
It affects us all - men and women.
And it affects us well before we're even born.
For the first few weeks of development it's impossible to tell if the tiny embryo floating in its amniotic fluid is a boy or a girl.
They all appear to be female.
But in week 8 the males start to produce testosterone in huge quantities, and their bodies change.
And it's recently been discovered that from the very start they seem to behave differently as well.
At just a few hours old girls prefer to look at a human face while boys will look at, well, anything really.
Barely born, and yet girls like people.
And boys like things.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen had a hunch that the differences in behaviour were down to testosterone.
He just needed proof.
I was very surprised to discover that hospitals routinely store the amniotic fluid after they carry out an amniocentesis This was the opportunity that we were looking for.
Here was the fluid that if you like allowed us to go back in time to make any link between the hormone levels in the womb and the child's current behaviour.
Well finding the amniocentesis test was tremendously exciting because never before were you able to measure testosterone levels produced by the child and look at later behaviour in relation to that.
Oh look at that there.
Why do you think the big triangle's pushing the little one? Don't know.
You don't know? Well all the cartoons are designed to make people think about the two triangles as people.
And what we want to look at is whether there is any difference between the one with high testosterone and low testosterone very boring The kids with high testosterone are more likely to behave in a masculine way than the kids with low testosterone.
The mummy and a baby, and the mummy's pushing the baby out, so she could watch telly, missed baby too noisy.
Yeah? That's great If the big triangle was a person, what kind of person would it be? - A triangle person.
- A triangle person.
What about the little triangle? What kind of person would they be? Yeah but they're not, 'cos they haven't got any legs.
And we've been able to show that the testosterone levels, week 16 of your life, are related to the eye contact you make, the social relationships that you have, the interests you have, how fast you learn to talk.
All these things that could be very, very important in the long term, for who you are.
Most of us will never have the opportunity to have our amniotic fluid analysed.
But there is a scientist whose controversial theory could mean that we can all tell how much testosterone we've been exposed to in the womb right now.
Our fingers have information about how much testosterone and how much oestrogen we've been exposed to in the womb.
So the longer one's ring finger relative to one's index finger, the more testosterone you've had.
And that testosterone has an effect on the brain, and on the body.
If a boy has a large amount of testosterone before birth he's likely to be born with a very efficient heart and vascular system.
So the longer one's ring finger relative to one's index finger, the faster one can run.
These athletes are five thousand meter specialists.
Professor Manning has never met them, or seen them race.
But if his theory is correct he'll be able to tell us all about them.
What I should be able to do is look at the differences between the ring finger and the index finger, and on that basis rank these runners first, second, third, fourth and so on.
In theory that should work.
In practice, we're providing Professor Manning with photocopies of the athletes' hands and in return he's risking his reputation by providing us with the results of a race that has yet to be run.
I'm-I'm looking at a kind of living fossil in the fingers, something which tells us about an event a long time ago in the development of this particular individual.
Each of these cards has got a number on.
The numbers are obscured so don't take the front off, er and the number is my prediction as to where you're going to end up at the end of the race.
On your marks There are other variables that I ha-just have no knowledge of whatsoever.
How many times do these runners train, for example.
Er are they feeling okay today.
Have they had a row with their girlfriend.
You know, I don't know these men, and all I've seen are their hands.
You know I'm quite nervous about this.
Um, I hope I'm right and er, I'm willing to give it a go.
In most people the difference between ring and index fingers is small.
But the ring finger of one of our runners is a whopping six millimetres longer than his index finger, and Professor Manning is certain that he's found his winner.
That was absolutely magnificent.
What I'd like you to do is to line up in your finishing order, and we'll work down line and I'll rip your numbers off.
Starting with Russell Oh my god.
That is amazing.
Pot luck so far.
No way! Six.
We got four out of six right but er the two that were wrong were kinda quite close.
Yeah I thought that the finger thing was bollocks because there's so many variables.
I'm very impressed.
Professor Manning has agreed to do one further, more radical test to see if finger length can be used to determine our volunteers' brain sex - how male or female their brains are.
If I arrange you along this line in terms of the amount of testosterone you've had before birth, that has no implications for sexuality, but is has some implications about your very, very early brain organisation.
Our fingers may provide a record of testosterone in the womb because the genes that trigger its production also determine finger growth.
In general the men and women performed to type.
The men are at the male end and the women are at the female end.
Liz and Craig are at opposite ends.
But there's one exception.
Grace's fingers put her well into the male domain.
In our survey of half a million people, the biggest difference between men and women was in visuo-spacial tasks.
On average men scored 40%% % higher than women.
But some women did outstandingly well and Professor Manning thinks that's partly down to testosterone.
If Professor Manning is right Grace should do rather well at our very own visuo-spacial task.
- Hi everybody.
- Hi.
- Morning Tony.
- Good morning.
I'm here today to teach you on the cut 432 backhoe loader.
Operating a digger requires a lot of hand-eye co-ordination.
And visuo-spacial skills.
Okay? As if you're holding a fine lady.
And according to our survey most women aren't that great at visuo-spacial skills.
Put the bucket flat.
Right, the bucket's which one's the bucket? Don't, don't dig it in though.
Right.
Ooh.
You've just got to be gentle.
So you will win because we're gentle.
These lot are like That's brilliant.
All our volunteers have to do is copy Tony.
Oh you've gotta be kidding me.
And try not to break too many eggs.
According to Professor Manning Grace is the only woman who'll be any good at this.
Good luck.
Oh shit.
Oh no! As expected, the women were comprehensively outclassed by the men.
I've broken my bucket.
But there was one exception.
Grace was joint winner with Lloyd, scoring three times higher than the rest of the women.
I think most of the the girls, the other four girls are living up to the social expectations of being woman-like, whereas Grace hasn't fallen into that trap.
I'm a flight test engineer on the eurofire to typhoo.
I assess the aircraft systems whilest it's being flown by one of our test pilots.
I wouldn't really say I was a girlie-girl at all.
I've always found boys' toys far more interesting than girls'.
You might think that Grace has simply acquired 3-D skills by becoming an engineer but her fingers tell a different story.
Even before she was born, testosterone gave Grace an all-male brain with better visuo-spacial skills.
Testosterone is an incredibly powerful hormone that affects us all, men and women.
- A triangle person.
- A triangle person.
It shapes our bodies and affects our minds and it even seems to be at the heart of why on average women are better at language and emotional skills while men are better at visuo-spacial skills.
But of course it's not quite that simple.
Averages conceal individual differences.
We've got nine months in the womb to consider and testosterone is not produced in the same amounts throughout those nine months.
So that it's possible to have a kind of mosaic brain.
Different levels of testosterone at different times in development might explain apparently contradictory brain skills in the same person.
So although Paddy's verbal skills put him firmly in the male camp, he was as sensitive as most women when it came to some tests of empathy.
Previously, um, I perceived it as a weakness but as the days have gone by and going through all the tests, I'm quite happy that I've got another side to me.
But I was also happy that most of the times I was standing on the 100 m 100%% % male brain size.
Time for one last test.
This task is gonna be about changing nappies.
And each one of you lucky ladies is gonna have to be with this, well crying baby.
On the face of it, simply a question of who's best at child care.
But in fact it has a deeper purpose.
You're a good boy for Auntie Lulu weren't you, 'cos you didn't do any, any, any naughtiness for Lulu.
As we might expect, most of the women do the task well There you go you right mate? Howya doing? While most of the men struggle.
Let's see how this thing works.
Okay.
Oh I got that wrong already.
Try again.
Okay mate.
This will be interesting.
And you might expect testosterone fuelled ultra-male-brained Lloyd to struggle more than most.
I don't think I did a a particularly good job of connecting with the child.
But there was a task to do, wasn't there, and I just had to get on with it and do it.
You know I could be changing a tyre on a car.
It's a little bit to one side.
Even me own son, I found it quite alien to connect with him.
I only made a connection grew older and the connection got stronger and stronger.
Wasn't instinctive, immediate bond.
It was something that grew very, very gradually with my son I don't connect too easily with people.
That's actually making me quite emotional.
I actually wanna cry.
If you like, there's something missing Many men find making emotional connections difficult.
Once the women had changed the nappy they picked the baby up.
In stark contrast, most of the men simply stepped away.
Do you want me to return her? Or Everything's fine? Nappy-changed, baby spoken to, task done.
Good boy.
Are you going to be a footballer? Yet despite Lloyd's fear that he doesn't readily connect, when it came to the end of the baby test he surprised everyone.
Ooooh! There's a real, a real connection there.
Yeah.
He's enjoying that.
Feels, it looks natural to him, it feels natural.
I could kiss you.
I ooooh, I see, we're talking now aren't we.
Eh? Lloyd is aware that he's not naturally empathic.
So he's made more of an effort, working his brain harder.
The result is that his behaviour is indistinguishable from the women's.
Ooooh yes.
Look.
I feel really quite emotional watching that.
That's lovely It's almost like he does all these empathic things but in his mind these things don't add er add-add up to empathy for some reason.
I'm not quite sure what ha I'm not quite sure how he would describe these things.
The sex of our brain is not as clear cut as the sex of our body.
I'm much more feminine than I realised.
While women tend to have female brain sex, and men usually have male brain sex, as individuals we are a mosaic, a unique mixture of both.
As a child-minder looking after kids, I'd have hoped my empathy score would be a bit better.
Though I have got a hard exterior but it's nice I've got a soft interior.
I can learn a lot from Paddy.
Er P-er and Paddy has-has learned me a lot already.
They're saying that guys have these skills and girls have these, but I think you'd be more successful if you were a guy who had all these female skills.
Do you.
'Cos then you'd have something different to offer.
I've perhaps assumed I had more of a male brain than a female brain but there are things that I have got quite a lot of my female aspects as well and then totally become a better person for it.
And knowing about our brain-sex and where our strengths and weaknesses lie has to mean a better understanding of ourselves and each other.
I-I think it's a two-way street and actually that we both actually have to take a little bit more time and effort to understand where the other person is coming from.
Yeah
I'd rather die than lose I think.
You can't trust women.
Women can get away with everything I think in life, just by smiling.
Men and women can't get along.
I don't feel Craig understands me hardly at all.
Are we different species? Five men, five women.
I found it really, really difficult.
Men have no empathy.
The world's biggest sex survey Secret experiments And in a world first, brain changing drugs It's totally changed me life.
Mate? How're you doing? Prepare to discover what really separate the sexes.
We've invited five women and five men to take part in a series of unique tests.
- Good morning.
- Morning.
Could you tell me your name please? Yes.
Jamie Hannah.
Our test group has been chosen to represent as broad a range of people as possible.
And what is your occupation? I'm a housewife.
Ah, investment banker.
Engineer.
I'm a teaching assistant.
And how many sexual partners have you had? Um three.
I can count on both hands.
Hmm, God I can't answer that.
Um, a number less than my wife I think.
The volunteers know they're taking part in a programme about the differences between men and women.
We need to take a saliva sample What they don't know is that by the end of the programme some of them will have totally changed their view of who they really are.
First they need to complete the BBC's online sex survey.
They" be tested on everything from language to love, geometry to greed.
On your laptop computers there are a series of programmes that assess a whole range of traits and abilities.
What we want to see is how the brains of men and women differ.
Professor Richard Lippa and his colleagues designed the survey for us, and since it went online nearly half a million people world-wide have taken part.
This is the single largest gender survey that's ever been conducted.
We've never been able to assess such a variety of people in so many different areas.
What we want to know is how different our men and women are and how they measure up to the nation.
I'd rather die than lose I think.
I'm more interested in engineering than I am in people.
I'm a fighter.
I think that's a masculine quality that I definitely have.
I'm a man in a traditionally female role.
I like to say how I feel.
If that gets me into trouble, so be it.
Well that's me.
He sees me a bit like a Rottweiler or something.
And I always wear something that's quite low cut, quite you know In my job we deal with um, hundred and millions of pounds.
They're just numbers on screen.
They're just zeros.
I wouldn't really say I was a girlie girl at all.
We'll be testing out volunteers whatever they do.
Even the cab they arrived in was rigged with hidden cameras.
- Hello.
- Alright, how are you doing.
And driven by an actor.
The BBC, eh? - What a load of bollocks.
- Is it? What's going on? They're doing a science programme, difference between men and women.
The way they think, the way that we think differently, eh? Yeah.
As in, men do, women don't.
You know? - I love documentaries.
- Yeah.
There's so much rubbish on telly.
The actor makes sure that all of our passengers hear the same conversation.
Well they were saying that the square mile down here, if it-if it was an independent country it would be the 20th richest in the world.
Yeah.
- That's what they were saying.
- Amazing.
Well you'd think after 29 years of marriage you'd know someone pretty well, wouldn't you.
You would do, wouldn't you.
Not me.
She's run off with another bloke.
Like obviously not.
Think that's why I'm on the show.
I'd fucking party mass off round the world.
I just can't believe I was that stupid.
But will the men and women remember different bits of what they've heard? Will the next person come in please? Psychiatrist Doctor Sandra Scott springs a surprise interrogation.
What kind of car did you come here in? Er it was a silver Mercedes.
Anything else? Er, silver, leather seats, um, GPS system on the dashboard That it? I noticed the central locking switch had a chrome handle for opening the door after central locking.
Did you talk to the cab driver? Er yeah we talked er about um the sort of financial centre of er London.
Yeah they were going on about the square mile which is, you-you might have heard of it, just down here? It's where all the banks are in London.
Yeah.
They reckon that if it was an independent country it'd be the 20th richest in the world.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
Can you recall three facts or possibly more of what he told you about the City of London? Um tch er I can't remember.
He was er, um Er no.
Do you remember him talking about his marriage? Yes I do, yeah.
So that was another topic covered.
It was, yeah Car was automatic by the way.
Sorry? The car was automatic, by the way.
Okay.
It had a walnut trim.
So were you actually listening to him? I yes! Er um er or connecting but-rather than wishing to store information, so What did interest you? Talking about his marriage problems.
He was really quite open which quite surprised me really because men are quite, normally hide their feelings but he was quite forthcoming.
You know he's glad that the kids are older and they've moved out, but it just means that he's alone now really.
And he said, if it had been the other way round, um, she would have found out really early on.
You know, sort of woman's instinct and all that.
How did you catch her out? You didn't find her at come home early, did you? That'd be awful.
Generally speaking, all of the women had a much be-better memory for the emotional facts.
Men were more thing oriented And women were more people oriented.
Women like relationships, men like facts.
But according to Italian scientists it's not quite so simple.
Okay guys, take a seat.
Make yourself comfortable.
I'm just going to get you to watch a few minutes of TV.
If the Italians are right, you're about to witness something very revealing.
A High Street bank has warned that the number of new buyers has plunged to it's lowest level for 20 years.
The problem of When we asked our viewers what they'd seen and heard we discovered an extraordinary thing.
When 24-hour drinking becomes legal in England and Wales later this year pubs The men remembered some of what our male newsreader had said Licenses had been applied for six from London, none from other places.
If they didn't er curb it within eight weeks they were gonna receive a fine.
Scientists are warning that a recent outbreak of bird But when they were watching his female colleague they appeared to have gone deaf.
The scars outbreak in 2002 She had two stories Er-er she was quite attractive for a start.
The girl had a pink top with black trim.
That's about all I can remember.
And she had nice breasts.
We found that men are indeed interested in facts, but one thing they're more interested in is sex.
Which stands to reason.
Men are, after all, much more promiscuous than women Aren't they? How many partners have you had sexual intercourse with in the past five years? How old were you when you lost your virginity? We sent our researchers to find out just how much more promiscuous men really are Our street survey found that on average, men reported 13 sexual partners, while women only managed 7, in line with other sex surveys.
But hold on, who are all the men sleeping with? And the survey's about sexual behaviours and attitudes.
The trouble with asking personal questions face to face is that you rarely get honest answers.
How many sexual partners have you had? I think 25 or something like that, 20-25.
I can count on both hands.
You can - So 10.
- Ten.
Either men are exaggerating or women are being economical with the truth.
To find out what's going on we asked our volunteers to take a lie detector test.
I'm gonna put wire round your stomach, and I'm gonna put one around your chest then take the reading from one of them.
Try to breathe normally without taking in a deep breath or holding your breath.
Okay.
Try not to nod or shake your head, just say yes and no.
Okay.
I am the owner of a financial and accounting recruitment firm I'm very money driven.
Be Jack I want to have nice holidays, you know, I want to get my convertible sports car.
And in the next six months they're my goals.
So I'm gonna achieve them.
Gonna make sure it happens.
- Well I am about to start the test.
- Okay.
What I wanna hear from you is a yes or a no.
Okay.
- Is your first name Lucy? - Yes.
Have you had around 10 sexual partners in your lifetime? No.
Have you had more than 10 sexual partners in your lifetime? Yes.
I have had more sexual partners than I admitted to.
You know the reasons as to probably why I didn't want to sort of announce it, but yes I have.
Well what are the reasons? Well I think the main reasons is-is sort of you know, the reputation side of it um, you know.
I want to attract the and I think the-the man out there is still old-fashioned in his views and points, um, I think that you know, he still likes a very sort of feminine type of girl who and the thought of him, er her sorry, have slept with a lot of men, you know, disgusts him.
When they filled in our anonymous online survey, men and women did admit to having the same numbers of sexual partners.
And what's more, nearly a quarter of both sexes admitted to having been unfaithful to a long-term partner.
We also found that whatever their past experience, men predicted more than twice as many sexual partners in the future than women did.
So even though men are distracted by the idea of sex they aren't more promiscuous than women after all.
It's just that they'd like to be.
So one myth busted.
What about the other stereotypes? Women are more emotional.
We're more understanding Friendlier Sensitive Caring But are women really more caring? We hired an 8-year old actress, fitted her with a secret camera, and abandoned her on a London street.
This is what happened next This test is a measure of empathy, the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and to act appropriately.
Hello darling.
- You alright, sweetheart? - Yeah.
You're waiting for someone, pet? Yeah my mummy's just gone in Simsbury's.
- How long's she been? - Mm, don't know.
Do you want some company? Well I think it was shock to both of us to see a little girl sitting all on her own up against a cement wall.
Yes.
And you just wanted to go in and protect her and Yeah.
And that's make sure that she was okay.
But it was just commonsense when you see a little girl on her own you don't walk past her.
I saw her twice actually, going down and coming back up I thought she was probably waiting for somebody in the hairdressers actually.
I noticed she actually did have quite a brand new pair of shoes on.
So I thought she doesn't look as if she's in a light amount of trouble.
I'm a man with me own, aren't I.
And if I'm seen talking to little girls like that, what's the reaction? Of all the excuses given for doing nothing, concern about being seen as a paedophile seems the most plausible.
But note that none of the men alerted the authorities or asked a women to help on their behalf.
What you doing there, poppet? During the hour we filmed, 41 women stopped to help.
Some of them were so concerned that they came back several times.
But only two men stopped.
And one of them was with a woman.
- Are you alright, darlin'? - Yeah Twenty two percent of women offered help as opposed tojust one percent of men.
But this is just one test, and one way of measuring empathy.
Our volunteers are about to try another.
Former para Paddy Doyle runs a boxing gym.
If it wasn't for fitness I'd be be-be in prison.
You know.
I would be.
Paddy holds 130 world records for fitness and endurance.
He is officially the world's fittest athlete.
I've-I've had to be selfish er while doing my sport.
And it's affected my relationships because women couldn't take that.
It was either the world records or them.
And unfortunately I went for the world records.
Like the others, Paddy has filled in a detailed psychological questionnaire designed to measure empathy.
Of the half a million people who took part in our online survey, over 90%% % of the top scorers were women.
Men were very much in second place.
How do you think your husband would do on this? How do-what do you think his score Oh this guy, you'd be having a laugh, right at bottom.
Men have no empathy.
No.
Okay.
Well let's to a man to see how he feels about that.
For empathising I got 12 out of 20.
Oh, are we surprised? Yes.
Thought it would have been um a bit less.
Yeah.
So that has surprised me.
In the empathy test Paddy actually outscored all the other men, and all but two of the women.
Paddy's breaking the mould and shown that some men can be very empathic.
What about you? Um, definitely not.
A case, apparently, according to this test.
I got 3 out of 20.
Apparently I've been told I do lack a bit of empathy.
And er I-I have tried using it in a sentence before like saying, I empathise with you.
But apparently that's not empathy.
Can I suggest you go to Paddy for some lessons? I will.
Liz and Craig Watson have a personal interest in empathy.
Everyone looks so happy, don't they.
It seemed very idyllic really.
I rememberjust feeling very comfortable with you.
Then.
Craig is very calculating.
He's very stubborn.
Incredibly stubborn.
Liz is is the opposite of myself.
Um, she's almost too fiery, too almost out of control at times.
I don't feel Craig understands me hardly at all.
And we've gone out sometimes and Craig's had a book, and he's reading the book when we're out.
You know and that-that that really upsets me actually.
You see, I haven't done that for several years.
Oh you've done it recently.
Craig is living the life of a bachelor, actually.
And he, you know, he's a great bachelor.
Liz and Craig blame each other for their failure to communicate.
So in an unusual move we've asked neurologist Reuben Gerr to examine their brains.
So um here is er the scanner, and er what we will get is an image of your brain anatomy, but more importantly we'll get images of what parts of the brain become active when you have to solve specific kinds of problems.
A key part of empathy is recognising how other people feel.
We'll start doing the tests, and the first test is the test er of emotion recognition.
And you have to answer whether the face er looks to you like a positive or a negative emotion.
To me communication is mostly about the non-verbal, not what you actually say but what you're feeling.
And I think Craig's not that in touch with his feelings enough.
Actually maybe I've got perhaps more sensitivity in that area than I'm given credit for, and-and vice versa that Lizzie hasn't got quite as much strength in that area that she gives herself credit for.
Well that's interesting.
I just learned something else.
If the scan reveals that Liz and Craig read other people's emotion differently then some of their misunderstandings might be instantly explained.
The part of the brain that deals with emotions is right in the centre of the brain, right here.
Liz shows er a hefty activation, whereas Craig's brain shows no activation at all in this emotional part of the brain I'm not locking on.
whereas you went straight to the emotional part and you say, how would I have felt if I were looking like that.
You-you-you immediately invoke the the-the emotional part of your brain.
Liz is 40%% % more accurate than Craig at reading emotion in others because she is using the emotional part of her own brain.
And the scans reveal that in this test Craig shows no emotional response at all.
Liz, are you surprised at Craig's result? What surprised me most was the fact that it was completely devoid of any emotional response in the centre part of the brain.
I mean that actually has given me a big insight into why um I've often felt I wish he would show some emotion Yeah but-but also switching back, in terms of our relationship and in terms ofjust our understanding, I sometimes need things to be spelt out more.
Yeah.
Yeah that-just don't think I'm going to take it on telepathically or sojust, you've actually got to tell me.
And also I mean in situations where there's plenty of conflict and so on, I'm trying to calm things down actually.
I guess I just want to avoid conflict, whereas you're more able to or more willing to fort of embrace Yeah.
Well I just think it's-it's a much more interesting level to operate on if you can get into your emotional response a bit more.
If women assume that men are just like them, and vice versa, that's when you get into difficulties.
As far as you're concerned you're sending out all these signals.
It's entirely obvious that you are upset, so then when the bloke doesn't respond you up the anti some more because you're determined to get an emotional response, you introduce emotive s-you know, emotive topics so he has to respond, he can't ignore it.
And then what do you do? You end up having a ding-dong.
It's a shame for it to have to degenerate into a row just in order to activate the emotional response The only real way forward is to realise we are different, we process this sort of information differently, and how are we gonna make that work.
Until recently scientists were reluctant to acknowledge any sex differences.
Partly because of history.
In 1879 Gustav LeBon, the founding father of psychology announced that intelligent women are so rare that they are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as for example, a gorilla with two heads.
Consequently we men neglect them entirely.
And that, 125 years ago, was medical fact.
If I bring out a male brain and put it next to a female brain you can see er there's very little differences in any of the structures on the surface of the brain.
The only difference really between these two is their size.
And, ah, in general female brains are a little bit smaller.
So the er explanation for this is that men tend to be bigger.
And so this is in proportion to that difference in body size.
I don't think anyone's going to suggest that a small man is any less intelligent than a large man.
Having said that, there have been a number of er studies to suggest that certain areas of the brain might be slightly different in size.
And the biggest areas of difference appear to be in language processing, and also in this part of the frontal lobe which is important in visio-spacial processing.
And this might be the basis for some of the er functional differences we see between men and women.
Ah, they may just be wired up differently.
Dub.
In this test Tim is listening to made-up words.
Bok.
Different sounds are played to each ear at the same time Bub.
but Tim only hears one of them.
Gab.
When Clare listens to the same test, this is what she hears Gab and gat.
Because women use both sides of the brain to process speech Clare can hear both sounds.
Tod and top.
Dot.
But Tim, who as a man, only uses the right side of his brain Get.
can only hear one.
Bok.
I found it really, really difficult.
It-it almost came over as one word in both ears at the same time.
Things aren't looking very good for men.
Yeah it was automatic by the way.
Object-centred, partially deaf, unempathic, sex-obsessed fantasists is not how most of them would like to be remembered.
Men are supposed to be go-getting, thrusting, successful.
So we're giving them a chance to shine.
After all, men love competition and they're great at driving.
Aren't they? I want women to win.
Badly.
I'm gonna really try and win this.
I'm in! I almost feel it in the pit of me stomach that I just wanna be better than everybody else.
The hormone testosterone plays an important part in competitiveness.
Testosterone, the so-called male hormone, is actually produced by both men and women.
We're analysing our volunteers' hormone levels throughout the competition to see how their testosterone responds.
It seems that men, um, the kind of biological response to competition is very different than that in women.
In the men we see large fluctuations which is consistent with what one expects in response to competition, but we see virtually zero fluctuation in the women.
Men are more likely, um, as a result of this increase in testosterone to take risks, and risks might end in encounter and competitive encounter may be beneficial.
The testosterone powered men quickly take the lead.
Lucy in cart 6, the woman who wanted to win, is languishing in 7th place.
But right at the very front is Lloyd hotly pursued by Jamie driving cart number 8.
Ah there's an individual who's very much worth, ah, pointing out to you, and that is number 2.
Ah if we look at his T-levels um and compare them with his pre-race levels, there's a substantial increase.
He's ah likely to be a very competitive, highly highly strung individual who takes it very seriously.
I'm more interested in engineering than in people.
If it-if it came a choice between separating me from me lathe, and separating me from Oliver, I would let go of the lathe.
But I wouldn't give it up easily.
Want me to go first? I can't just secretly let him win like his mum can.
I just don't feel it's honest.
Right are you ready? Ready for this? No.
Jump, jump.
To be honest I don't really feel bad that he's crying.
To me he's just displaying what I would feel if I lost and want to be doing the same thing really.
- How old is he? - Six.
I'm not a monster.
But monstrous things are happening to Lloyd.
Jamie's taken the lead and he's not showing any signs of giving it back.
But as Lloyd tries to regain the lead his testosterone sky-rockets and things go from bad to worse.
Yet more testosterone, and more stupid risks.
Lloyd's race position is in free-fall.
As Jamie strolls past the chequered flag, Lloyd's world has disintegrated.
The former race leader finishes fifth.
But I have an extraordinary finding here where number 2's testosterone levels decline rapidly to nearly that of his pre-race levels which suggests to me that something unusual has happened, that something has, something's gone wrong here and I suspect he's not very happy about it.
I feel absolutely enraged.
Not with anybody else but with myself.
Five minutes ago, when you were up there, I could have got out, smashed something, hit somebody.
That's how I felt.
I wouldn't have done, because you know you can't do that in public but I feel good.
But I mean I wanted I-I did actually aim to win.
I wasn't going in the well, I wanted to have a good time but I wanted to win as well.
Jamie's testosterone levels during the race revealed the secret of his success.
While Lloyd's levels went through the roof Jamie's were much more subtle, allowing him to become more competitive and take informed risks.
His modest rises were useful where Lloyd's were catastrophic.
But if we look at the women, there's no rise in testosterone levels at all.
There's no doubt that women can be competitive but they don't have the edge that testosterone can give men.
I am a very competitive person and I was trying to do my best.
Um, I think I just, you know, break and then when I see somebody in front of me, instead of trying to swerve round them I hesitate.
The men's' rise in testosterone turbo-charges their competitive instinct, though it can be a very mixed blessing.
It's not by chance that women are less prone to road-rage.
Testosterone is an incredibly powerful hormone.
It affects us all - men and women.
And it affects us well before we're even born.
For the first few weeks of development it's impossible to tell if the tiny embryo floating in its amniotic fluid is a boy or a girl.
They all appear to be female.
But in week 8 the males start to produce testosterone in huge quantities, and their bodies change.
And it's recently been discovered that from the very start they seem to behave differently as well.
At just a few hours old girls prefer to look at a human face while boys will look at, well, anything really.
Barely born, and yet girls like people.
And boys like things.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen had a hunch that the differences in behaviour were down to testosterone.
He just needed proof.
I was very surprised to discover that hospitals routinely store the amniotic fluid after they carry out an amniocentesis This was the opportunity that we were looking for.
Here was the fluid that if you like allowed us to go back in time to make any link between the hormone levels in the womb and the child's current behaviour.
Well finding the amniocentesis test was tremendously exciting because never before were you able to measure testosterone levels produced by the child and look at later behaviour in relation to that.
Oh look at that there.
Why do you think the big triangle's pushing the little one? Don't know.
You don't know? Well all the cartoons are designed to make people think about the two triangles as people.
And what we want to look at is whether there is any difference between the one with high testosterone and low testosterone very boring The kids with high testosterone are more likely to behave in a masculine way than the kids with low testosterone.
The mummy and a baby, and the mummy's pushing the baby out, so she could watch telly, missed baby too noisy.
Yeah? That's great If the big triangle was a person, what kind of person would it be? - A triangle person.
- A triangle person.
What about the little triangle? What kind of person would they be? Yeah but they're not, 'cos they haven't got any legs.
And we've been able to show that the testosterone levels, week 16 of your life, are related to the eye contact you make, the social relationships that you have, the interests you have, how fast you learn to talk.
All these things that could be very, very important in the long term, for who you are.
Most of us will never have the opportunity to have our amniotic fluid analysed.
But there is a scientist whose controversial theory could mean that we can all tell how much testosterone we've been exposed to in the womb right now.
Our fingers have information about how much testosterone and how much oestrogen we've been exposed to in the womb.
So the longer one's ring finger relative to one's index finger, the more testosterone you've had.
And that testosterone has an effect on the brain, and on the body.
If a boy has a large amount of testosterone before birth he's likely to be born with a very efficient heart and vascular system.
So the longer one's ring finger relative to one's index finger, the faster one can run.
These athletes are five thousand meter specialists.
Professor Manning has never met them, or seen them race.
But if his theory is correct he'll be able to tell us all about them.
What I should be able to do is look at the differences between the ring finger and the index finger, and on that basis rank these runners first, second, third, fourth and so on.
In theory that should work.
In practice, we're providing Professor Manning with photocopies of the athletes' hands and in return he's risking his reputation by providing us with the results of a race that has yet to be run.
I'm-I'm looking at a kind of living fossil in the fingers, something which tells us about an event a long time ago in the development of this particular individual.
Each of these cards has got a number on.
The numbers are obscured so don't take the front off, er and the number is my prediction as to where you're going to end up at the end of the race.
On your marks There are other variables that I ha-just have no knowledge of whatsoever.
How many times do these runners train, for example.
Er are they feeling okay today.
Have they had a row with their girlfriend.
You know, I don't know these men, and all I've seen are their hands.
You know I'm quite nervous about this.
Um, I hope I'm right and er, I'm willing to give it a go.
In most people the difference between ring and index fingers is small.
But the ring finger of one of our runners is a whopping six millimetres longer than his index finger, and Professor Manning is certain that he's found his winner.
That was absolutely magnificent.
What I'd like you to do is to line up in your finishing order, and we'll work down line and I'll rip your numbers off.
Starting with Russell Oh my god.
That is amazing.
Pot luck so far.
No way! Six.
We got four out of six right but er the two that were wrong were kinda quite close.
Yeah I thought that the finger thing was bollocks because there's so many variables.
I'm very impressed.
Professor Manning has agreed to do one further, more radical test to see if finger length can be used to determine our volunteers' brain sex - how male or female their brains are.
If I arrange you along this line in terms of the amount of testosterone you've had before birth, that has no implications for sexuality, but is has some implications about your very, very early brain organisation.
Our fingers may provide a record of testosterone in the womb because the genes that trigger its production also determine finger growth.
In general the men and women performed to type.
The men are at the male end and the women are at the female end.
Liz and Craig are at opposite ends.
But there's one exception.
Grace's fingers put her well into the male domain.
In our survey of half a million people, the biggest difference between men and women was in visuo-spacial tasks.
On average men scored 40%% % higher than women.
But some women did outstandingly well and Professor Manning thinks that's partly down to testosterone.
If Professor Manning is right Grace should do rather well at our very own visuo-spacial task.
- Hi everybody.
- Hi.
- Morning Tony.
- Good morning.
I'm here today to teach you on the cut 432 backhoe loader.
Operating a digger requires a lot of hand-eye co-ordination.
And visuo-spacial skills.
Okay? As if you're holding a fine lady.
And according to our survey most women aren't that great at visuo-spacial skills.
Put the bucket flat.
Right, the bucket's which one's the bucket? Don't, don't dig it in though.
Right.
Ooh.
You've just got to be gentle.
So you will win because we're gentle.
These lot are like That's brilliant.
All our volunteers have to do is copy Tony.
Oh you've gotta be kidding me.
And try not to break too many eggs.
According to Professor Manning Grace is the only woman who'll be any good at this.
Good luck.
Oh shit.
Oh no! As expected, the women were comprehensively outclassed by the men.
I've broken my bucket.
But there was one exception.
Grace was joint winner with Lloyd, scoring three times higher than the rest of the women.
I think most of the the girls, the other four girls are living up to the social expectations of being woman-like, whereas Grace hasn't fallen into that trap.
I'm a flight test engineer on the eurofire to typhoo.
I assess the aircraft systems whilest it's being flown by one of our test pilots.
I wouldn't really say I was a girlie-girl at all.
I've always found boys' toys far more interesting than girls'.
You might think that Grace has simply acquired 3-D skills by becoming an engineer but her fingers tell a different story.
Even before she was born, testosterone gave Grace an all-male brain with better visuo-spacial skills.
Testosterone is an incredibly powerful hormone that affects us all, men and women.
- A triangle person.
- A triangle person.
It shapes our bodies and affects our minds and it even seems to be at the heart of why on average women are better at language and emotional skills while men are better at visuo-spacial skills.
But of course it's not quite that simple.
Averages conceal individual differences.
We've got nine months in the womb to consider and testosterone is not produced in the same amounts throughout those nine months.
So that it's possible to have a kind of mosaic brain.
Different levels of testosterone at different times in development might explain apparently contradictory brain skills in the same person.
So although Paddy's verbal skills put him firmly in the male camp, he was as sensitive as most women when it came to some tests of empathy.
Previously, um, I perceived it as a weakness but as the days have gone by and going through all the tests, I'm quite happy that I've got another side to me.
But I was also happy that most of the times I was standing on the 100 m 100%% % male brain size.
Time for one last test.
This task is gonna be about changing nappies.
And each one of you lucky ladies is gonna have to be with this, well crying baby.
On the face of it, simply a question of who's best at child care.
But in fact it has a deeper purpose.
You're a good boy for Auntie Lulu weren't you, 'cos you didn't do any, any, any naughtiness for Lulu.
As we might expect, most of the women do the task well There you go you right mate? Howya doing? While most of the men struggle.
Let's see how this thing works.
Okay.
Oh I got that wrong already.
Try again.
Okay mate.
This will be interesting.
And you might expect testosterone fuelled ultra-male-brained Lloyd to struggle more than most.
I don't think I did a a particularly good job of connecting with the child.
But there was a task to do, wasn't there, and I just had to get on with it and do it.
You know I could be changing a tyre on a car.
It's a little bit to one side.
Even me own son, I found it quite alien to connect with him.
I only made a connection grew older and the connection got stronger and stronger.
Wasn't instinctive, immediate bond.
It was something that grew very, very gradually with my son I don't connect too easily with people.
That's actually making me quite emotional.
I actually wanna cry.
If you like, there's something missing Many men find making emotional connections difficult.
Once the women had changed the nappy they picked the baby up.
In stark contrast, most of the men simply stepped away.
Do you want me to return her? Or Everything's fine? Nappy-changed, baby spoken to, task done.
Good boy.
Are you going to be a footballer? Yet despite Lloyd's fear that he doesn't readily connect, when it came to the end of the baby test he surprised everyone.
Ooooh! There's a real, a real connection there.
Yeah.
He's enjoying that.
Feels, it looks natural to him, it feels natural.
I could kiss you.
I ooooh, I see, we're talking now aren't we.
Eh? Lloyd is aware that he's not naturally empathic.
So he's made more of an effort, working his brain harder.
The result is that his behaviour is indistinguishable from the women's.
Ooooh yes.
Look.
I feel really quite emotional watching that.
That's lovely It's almost like he does all these empathic things but in his mind these things don't add er add-add up to empathy for some reason.
I'm not quite sure what ha I'm not quite sure how he would describe these things.
The sex of our brain is not as clear cut as the sex of our body.
I'm much more feminine than I realised.
While women tend to have female brain sex, and men usually have male brain sex, as individuals we are a mosaic, a unique mixture of both.
As a child-minder looking after kids, I'd have hoped my empathy score would be a bit better.
Though I have got a hard exterior but it's nice I've got a soft interior.
I can learn a lot from Paddy.
Er P-er and Paddy has-has learned me a lot already.
They're saying that guys have these skills and girls have these, but I think you'd be more successful if you were a guy who had all these female skills.
Do you.
'Cos then you'd have something different to offer.
I've perhaps assumed I had more of a male brain than a female brain but there are things that I have got quite a lot of my female aspects as well and then totally become a better person for it.
And knowing about our brain-sex and where our strengths and weaknesses lie has to mean a better understanding of ourselves and each other.
I-I think it's a two-way street and actually that we both actually have to take a little bit more time and effort to understand where the other person is coming from.
Yeah