Do women tend to be more gullible?

[Iamme]

Not only in belief of mediums, but in religion, miracle claims, believing a salesman, etc.

Do you know people who are in your life that you can use as examples to validate such a claim?


If there IS any validity to this, do you suppose this could be rooted in the fact that women, more than men, know less about how things work, and have relied on trust, to be their guide?

Remember back to the times before wopmen were 'liberated' and the man went out into the world, while the women were at home, taking for gospel what soap opera ads had to say, or what the Fuller Brush salesmen had to say? Could there be almost a genetic carryover of this in the brains of women, today?

What do you think?

[Nyarlathotep]

I think that women tend to accept things like psychic powers, astrology etc. more than men do. It's just an observation on my part, though, so I could be wrong.

I doubt it has anything to do with genetics or the female brain, though, I think it is more a cultural thing. Women are more encouraged than men are to be "spiritual", so they thusly more inclined to gravitate towards that nonsense. Once again, this is just an observation on my part, I don't know if there are numbers to back me up.

[Suezoled]

whatever you say, dear. :p

No, really, I wasn't raised to be "spiritual." I love ghost stories and horror movies, but the plain fact is I don't like to be deceived. Tell me about how light bends around solid objects or the force of gravity or a body's function on the celluar level. That, in my opinion, is far more fascinating than "miracles" or "psychic phenomena."

[renata]

Ahem....

[Phil]

Originally posted by renata
Ahem....
They may not be more gullable, but they're obviously more expressive.

[thaiboxerken]

I think they are. Does anyone know the gender make-up of programs such as Crossing Over? I suspect if you watch the commercials, you'll see who the target audience is... and it's housewives.

I've heard that women tend to rely more on emotion than reason and logic.

[jj]

Originally posted by Iamme
Not only in belief of mediums, but in religion, miracle claims, believing a salesman, etc.



The three women (spouse and two kids) I know best all regard that kind of claim as so silly as to not be worth getting into an argument about.

They wonder why I bother to argue with people who put forth such stuff, because they must be such moronic idiots to even think to say such stuff in the first place.

In other words, they aren't believers at all, they just don't seem to have the motivation to try to spread the facts. Must be that testosterone. Oh, wait, I forgot, I'm old, that's running down. Oh well, just be due to the brain structure testosterone creates? Or something. :)

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Suezoled
whatever you say, dear. :p

No, really, I wasn't raised to be "spiritual." I love ghost stories and horror movies, but the plain fact is I don't like to be deceived. Tell me about how light bends around solid objects or the force of gravity or a body's function on the celluar level. That, in my opinion, is far more fascinating than "miracles" or "psychic phenomena."

I didn't mean all women are like that, just that they tend that way. My wife brings new meaning to the phrase "militant atheist skeptic", but I do know a lot more women than men that buy into religion, the supernatural, etc.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Phil

They may not be more gullable, but they're obviously more expressive.

Don't forget expensive. :D

[Vitnir]

My theory to explain why women would be more gullible would be that they are culturally educated to accept what other people tell them, it's better to accept what the group thinks as true than to stand out. Men could be more encouraged to have opinions and figuring out things as children.

There are some women at the university where I work that can work as example that women are more open-minded to whacky ideas but there is one man who is into dowsing so the theory isn't flawless by any means.

Thank god my wife is a raving sceptic like me.

[Chanileslie]

I think women seem to be more prone to this type of thing because women tend to be more vocal than men especially how they feel about things. In fact, most of the biggest religious loonies I have met are men. Maybe it takes a greater degree of fanatacism for a man to talk about his woo-woo beliefs. Of course, most of the women I know are either atheist, agnostic or just not involved in religion. Of course the same could be said about most of the men I know as well.

[Chanileslie]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


I didn't mean all women are like that, just that they tend that way. My wife brings new meaning to the phrase "militant atheist skeptic", but I do know a lot more women than men that buy into religion, the supernatural, etc.

Thank you, honey. Flattery will get you everywhere. :-)

Yes, I am very much hardcore atheist and skeptic. Although, while I am very firm in my views and there are people who have claimed that I am militant, I don't really think that I am. Militant to me implies that I expect everyone to be like me, which I don't. I firmly believe that one can believe whatever one wants, but one doesn't have the right to tell me what to believe or how to live, and that person certainly doesn't have the right to tell me not to scoff at their idiotic, absurd beliefs when they can provide no evidence to back up their belief system. So basically keep it to youself, and you are fine. :roll:

[jj]

Originally posted by Chanileslie

Yes, I am very much hardcore atheist and skeptic. Although, while I am very firm in my views and there are people who have claimed that I am militant, I don't really think that I am.

Henh. I wonder which the idjits think is worse, you who gives them back a facefull, or my spouse, who just stares at them in amazement, yawns, and walks off shaking her head. :)

[Dilettante]

Originally posted by thaiboxerken
I've heard that women tend to rely more on emotion than reason and logic.

As a skeptic, you must know that that doesn't prove much.

Women have certainly fooled me a few times.

Assuming the anecdotal observation is correct, I can give you a falsifiable alternative hypothesis off the top of my head: maybe topics like mediums and astrology hold more natural appeal for women. Then more women would want them to be true, so more women would believe in them.

How many women do you know who are convinced that the Cubs will win the World Series in the next decade?

Of course, in some places the phrase used for "wishful thinking" is "women's logic"...but that's also a different question.

[kitsune]

Cultural conditioning has a lot to do with it. After all, boys aren't told to peel an apple to get the first initial of their wife's first name, or twisting an apple stem to find said initial. I learned the apple twisting thing when I was in elementary school.

We're taught this from a very early age. We are encouraged to be more creative and dreamy. We are given stories about unicorns and magical castles and princes... not stories about robots and swords and being victorious through our actions like boys get. We all tend to model the stories that we are given, and that is to be helpless and to depend on some miracle to save us from our terrible situation. With that kind of background, it does make it easier to look for anwsers in the more mystical and metaphysical realms. They're not conflicting with the stories we hear as girls.

In the best sense, we see that women are in tune with their feelings and intuition and use their creativity to help solve problems in their lives. Combined with reason and logic, it can be a very powerful way to solve problems.

In the worst sense, we see women who depend on psychics, religion, or whatever to protect them and solve the problems in their lives.

Fortunately, women don't always listen to cultural programming. This board is a good example of those who don't.

[HarryKeogh]

women tend to be more gullible but they can still trick a man into buying them lots of nice stuff.

so i guess men are more gullible then.

[Soapy Sam]

Women are more gullible than men about the kind of things men are less gullible about than women.
And vice versa.

Which is why men buy stupid cars and women buy knickers they can't get their bum into.

Vive la difference I say. It all keeps the economy growing.

Ever notice how few women religious figures there are?
Jesus, Buddha , Mohammed , definite preponderance of males there.Whatever happened to female prophets? Too busy cooking dinner is my guess.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

jj said:Henh. I wonder which the idjits think is worse, you who gives them back a facefull, or my spouse, who just stares at them in amazement, yawns, and walks off shaking her head.
Hey, that's exactly what my wife does, too. Then she shakes her head at me for even bothering with the nonsense.

~~ Paul

[Soapy Sam]

...which raises another male / female dichotomy. Did you ever try yawning and walking while shaking your head? I bet you can't do it and hold a straight line. Women can.
These are THE SAME WOMEN who can't tell left from right at a road junction.

I think we are being conned, gentlemen. I don't quite know how, or why, but they're up to something.

[jj]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
jj said:
Hey, that's exactly what my wife does, too. Then she shakes her head at me for even bothering with the nonsense.

~~ Paul

Did you marry my wife's forgotten twin sister?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep
[B]I think that women tend to accept things like psychic powers, astrology etc. more than men do. It's just an observation on my part, though, so I could be wrong.



No they do apparently. And no I don't believe they're more gullible

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by thaiboxerken
I think they are. Does anyone know the gender make-up of programs such as Crossing Over? I suspect if you watch the commercials, you'll see who the target audience is... and it's housewives.

I've heard that women tend to rely more on emotion than reason and logic.

I see precious little reason and logic exhibited by the stereotypical skeptic.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by jj


The three women (spouse and two kids) I know best all regard that kind of claim as so silly as to not be worth getting into an argument about.

They wonder why I bother to argue with people who put forth such stuff, because they must be such moronic idiots to even think to say such stuff in the first place.

In other words, they aren't believers at all, they just don't seem to have the motivation to try to spread the facts. Must be that testosterone. Oh, wait, I forgot, I'm old, that's running down. Oh well, just be due to the brain structure testosterone creates? Or something. :)

What sort of claim? Would they also believe something like "life after death", astrology, the I Ching, etc as also being incredibly silly? If so do they have absolutely any reasons whatsoever to support their position in this regard? Or are they just hapless brainwashed puppets of the "wisdom" of the materialist metaphysic like the vast majority of people on this board? :rolleyes:

Tell them to come on here and argue with me. I could do with a laugh.

[Ratman_tf]

Hey, is this the same Kitsune from Player2Player.net?

[jj]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I see precious little reason and logic exhibited by the stereotypical skeptic.

I see that once more you are making serious professional allegations with no evidence to back them up.

Please provide your testable, verifiable evidence immediately, or retract your accusations entirely and agree to never make them again.

[jj]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Tell them to come on here and argue with me. I could do with a laugh.
You wouldn't last 5 minutes in the face of their total indifference to your fantasy world.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by jj


I see precious little reason and logic exhibited by the stereotypical skeptic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I see that once more you are making serious professional allegations with no evidence to back them up.

Please provide your testable, verifiable evidence immediately, or retract your accusations entirely and agree to never make them again.

Ha Ha Ha! Yeah, all my serious professional allegations! :rolleyes: My God, what a complete tithead you are! {shakes head sadly}

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by jj

You wouldn't last 5 minutes in the face of their total indifference to your fantasy world.

How familiar are they with all the evidence for anomalous cognition and anomalous perturbation? One needs to bear in mind that it is ones implicit philosophical suppositions regarding the world which will determine the a priori assessment of the likelihood of various paranormal phenomena. So how much of their lives have they devoted to philosophy? How much have they read other peoples philosophy? How many hours have they devoted each day thinking and discussing what materialism implies, what idealism means, what various other metaphysical positions mean, and what these various positions imply about the ultimate nature of reality and thereby the possible existence of the phenomena being discussed?

Hang on, allow me to make a guess. They know and understand absolutely nothing whatsoever about the foregoing topics, indeed they probably haven't given it a passing thought in their lives. Allow me to make another guess. They are skeptics wholly and simply because they vaguely believe this is what intelligent people do. They are hapless puppets of intellectual fashion in other words who follow the lead of other people and refuse to think about the issues for themselves. In other words they are precisely like you. Tell them to come on so they can prove me wrong and impress me with their dazzling intellect :rolleyes:

[Dilettante]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Did you ever try yawning and walking while shaking your head? I bet you can't do it and hold a straight line. Women can.


You're joking, right?
If I read your description correctly, I just tried it. It wasn't very hard.

[Vitnir]

Originally posted by Dilettante


You're joking, right?
If I read your description correctly, I just tried it. It wasn't very hard.

Yeah some people can't chew gum and walk at the same time, it would hardly prove anything. It found be a fun thing to study maybe :)

[Peach Jr.]

Originally posted by jj


Henh. I wonder which the idjits think is worse, you who gives them back a facefull, or my spouse, who just stares at them in amazement, yawns, and walks off shaking her head. :)
I tend toward the latter.

Of course, I giggle while I walk off ;)

I think that women aren't necessarily less skeptical than men. We've just had the "female intuitive brain" garbage drummed into our head from the minute we come out. I can think of several exceptions to the "women are more gullible" rule - my mother and younger sister among them.

If you see my sister coming, and you are a believer in any kind of unverifiable phenomenon, do yourself a favor. Just run. If you try to have an argument with her, you'll be sorry for a long while :D

[Kevin_Lowe]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
So how much of their lives have they devoted to philosophy? How much have they read other peoples philosophy? How many hours have they devoted each day thinking and discussing what materialism implies, what idealism means, what various other metaphysical positions mean, and what these various positions imply about the ultimate nature of reality and thereby the possible existence of the phenomena being discussed?

Hang on, allow me to make a guess. They know and understand absolutely nothing whatsoever about the foregoing topics, indeed they probably haven't given it a passing thought in their lives.

It's not whether they've studied the works of philosophers.

It's whether they would understand them if they did.

[jj]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Hang on, allow me to make a guess. They know and understand absolutely nothing whatsoever about the foregoing topics,

They might agree that nobody, infact, knows anything about such stuff, because there's not a whit of evidence for it.

indeed they probably haven't given it a passing thought in their lives.

Typical dishonest, unethical, sexist Ian, saying "havent' given it a passing thought" about women.

Allow me to make another guess. They are skeptics wholly and simply because they vaguely believe this is what intelligent people do.

Your ignorance does not excuse your defamation of people you've never met.

They are hapless puppets of intellectual fashion in other words who follow the lead of other people and refuse to think about the issues for themselves.

You, sir, should stop taking whatever substance it is that you routinely take before you engage on these flights of fancy.

In other words they are precisely like you. Tell them to come on so they can prove me wrong and impress me with their dazzling intellect :rolleyes:
Face it, Ian, I've won every argument with you totally and irrevocably. Your only comeback to the obvious, absoutely true statement that nobody can provide evidence for any of that crap you tout as psi is to insult my wife.

That's only evidence of your unethical, offensive, and unmannerly nature. There's nothing psionic about that, that describes just about everyone who's had three too many Woodpeckers every day for the last 70 years.

[dmarker]

In my experience, gullibility is equally distributed between men and women. After all, Pat Robertson may have honestly believed that Isabella was going to back off if he prayed hard enough.

Just that men seem less gullible because their beliefs are more socially acceptable.

[Chanileslie]

Originally posted by jj


Henh. I wonder which the idjits think is worse, you who gives them back a facefull, or my spouse, who just stares at them in amazement, yawns, and walks off shaking her head. :)

I think both types equally. They both threaten their nice little pat worldview. Of course the yawn and walk away types are often thought of as possibly easier to convert, IMO.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by jj
[B]
Face it, Ian, I've won every argument with you totally and irrevocably.



You don't argue. You just spout forth your dogmatic prejudices.



Your only comeback to the obvious, absoutely true statement that nobody can provide evidence for any of that crap you tout as psi is to insult my wife.



Insult your wife??? :eek: Dear me! Is calling someone a hapless puppet of intellectual fashion an insult?? :eek: I simple state that if she thinks I'm stupid then let her come and argue with me. We'll soon see how stupid I am. I hope she can actually argue because you clearly can't.



That's only evidence of your unethical,



Hey dickhead, I certainly do insult people (although not your wife), but I take great exception to the suggestion that I act unethically.

[Phil]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
. . .
Hey dickhead, I certainly do insult people (although not your wife), but I take great exception to the suggestion that I act unethically.
:eek: 'dickhead'?

jj, I'd think twice about messing with a wit as sharp as his, if I were you. You don't want to be called a fart-knocker or have everyone think you have cooties. Proceed caustiously, my friend.

[jj]

Originally posted by Phil

:eek: 'dickhead'?

jj, I'd think twice about messing with a wit as sharp as his,

Yeah, you're right. I could wind up with blunt-instrument trauma!

He's who's mistaken a tree branch for a rapier, methinks.

if I were you. You don't want to be called a fart-knocker or have everyone think you have cooties. Proceed caustiously, my friend.

Well, either that, or proceed caustically. :D Maybe I'll just leave him to the spouse, but I doubt she thinks highly enough of him to bother.

[jj]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Hey dickhead, I certainly do insult people (although not your wife), but I take great exception to the suggestion that I act unethically.

Ian, in my world, it's unethical to accuse research scientists of scientific misconduct unless you have some evidence to put forth. Perhaps you don't agree with that, but that's not my problem.

When you produce some testable, verifiable, repeatable evidence for PSI, apply for the prize.

Until then, I think 'anibus fideas' is more to the point.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by jj


Ian, in my world, it's unethical to accuse research scientists of scientific misconduct

You are a research scientist? Anyway, I have never accused you of any such thing. I just think you're a big mouthed idiot who talks a lot but doesn't say anything. Do you imagine calling someone like yourself a hapless brainwashed follower of intellectual fashion somehow amounts to scientific misconduct? How that can be construed as scientific misconduct is quite beyond me. If that were sufficient criteria for scientific misconduct then the vast majority of scientists would be guilty of the charge.

[jj]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

Do you imagine calling someone like yourself a hapless brainwashed follower of intellectual fashion somehow amounts to scientific misconduct?

That's but one example, and it's not my imagination.