According to Science, Men Mature Later Than Women

6 years ago

Many of us have heard people say that men, even in adulthood, continue to behave like children. Some also believe that when it comes to couples, it’s women who bring maturity to the relationship. So scientists decided to confirm if this widespread belief was true, and this is what they discovered.

Bright Side wants to share a study with you that strived to investigate the features of maturity in adult men and compare them with that of women.

What science says

A study conducted by the University of Oxford explained that the maturation of the human brain is distinguished by a prolonged development of functional and structural network properties which extends into adulthood. This research had the objective of discovering which features transform during maturation and which ones remain the same. Scientists examined the brain of 121 participants between the ages of 4 and 40 years old through brain imaging. They also tracked the changes in the different functions while taking into account the age and gender of the participants.

Men mature later in life.

The results of this experiment revealed that although the brains of both men and women end up developing the same capabilities to operate in daily life, men often show a delay in the prolonged development of functional networks compared to women. Ladies, however, show a more premature deterioration of these networks. This is why it’s said that men mature later in life than women.

The female brain is more efficient.

On top of what has been reported above, there’s even more data that confirms the greater efficiency of the female brain. Eduardo Calixto, a professor of physiology and pharmacology on the Faculty of Medicine at UNAM, explained in a recent publication that although the brains of men are larger than those of women, the female one presents greater efficiency. For example, it shows better memory, more neural connections, and a detailed perception of color and flavor. Calixto said that all of this has hormonal origins.

Thanks to science, we can now say with confidence that women and men’s brains function differently, which explains the variations in behavior and degree of emotional maturity in people.

Have you encountered these differences in your daily life? Do you think all men mature later than women? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Please note: This article was updated in March 2022 to correct source material and factual inaccuracies.

Preview photo credit The Hangover / Warner Bros

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Pedja Jevtic

6 years ago

It doesn't mention what type of maturity, since there are more (e.g. social maturity, physical maturity, mixed maturity, emotional maturity, and there's one more but I can't remember) so, I'm just not certain in what way does a female brain mature faster than males. Like in physical maturity it would go to women, since they hit puberty earlier. But for emotional maturity... Well I've met a lot of women who would cry if someone said something remotely critical or outright mean... So if you could clarify in what field of maturity women develop faster than men, that'd be great. Oh, and one more thing, isn't maturity like, the more life experiences you get the more mature you become? Cause some people who have a tougher life take up on more responsibilities, therefore they seem more mature, and I don't think a hard life is discriminatory... Or am I wrong, or did I poorly word it? xD

James Gibson

6 years ago

Seems like lately a lot of people hate the idea of men and women having differences. I don't know why.

amba upadhyaya (ambi)

6 years ago

Not always, there are mans also who works more smartly than womens .. it's depends on man or woman's lifestyle environment, family environment , struggle journey , crisis , needs , curiousity and so on ,other experiences of life which made a maturity level high or low in to the people .. whatever they get earlier or later from their different fields different life experiences they became behave like that....!