An article in Science Digest entitled "Why Men Don't Speak Their Minds" (November 1983) discusses new evidence which demonstrates that the male brain is put together in a manner that inhibits men from putting emotions into words. Psychologist Martin Safer of the Catholic University of America has performed extensive experiments leading him to believe that "the brain’s two halves, or hemispheres, don’t talk to each other as easily in men as they do in women."
The article points out that both hemispheres of the brain process emotions; however, the right deals with perception of emotions, and the left describes them verbally. Safer performed experiments in which he showed slides depicting emotional facial expressions to both male and female test subjects. He directed one slide to the left brain, followed by another directed at the right brain; subjects were asked whether or not the emotions on the two sides matched. It was discovered that emotional data that entered the right hemisphere of the man’s brain seemed to remainthere, but similar information entering a woman’s brain traveled more easily to the left hemisphere, where it found expression in words.
Exercise 29: Summarizing a Brief Article
Summarize this article by Phillip Shaver, which appeared in Psychology Today, May 1983, p. 16. The article is actually a summary of a psychological study on depression which was conducted at the University of California at San Diego.