Book Club: The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine

Scientists have soundly criticized pop science book The Female Brain and its author, Louann Brizendine, Director of the Women’s Mood & Hormone Clinic at UCSF, for her errors and scientific misrepresentations. Psychoneuroindoctrinology, a cleverly titled review in Nature, said it “disappointingly fails to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance. The book is riddled with scientific errors and is misleading about the processes of brain development, the neuroendocrine system, and the nature of sex differences in general.” Yet, with this book, Brizendine has parlayed her academic stature into that of a high-profile pop psychiatrist - a post it appears she will be at for a long time to come.

Brizendine is becoming famous for her incorrect claims. Her gabbiness theory on the number of words women use per day was trashed by linguists in the Boston Globe and elsewhere (she won a Becky Award for “the single most ridiculous or misleading bit of linguistic nonsense that somebody manages to put over in the media”), but she persists.

In a New York Times Magazine article Deborah Soloman confronted Brizendine on her “gabbiness” theory. The dialog went like this:

NYT: Your book cites a study claiming that women use about 20,000 words a day, while men use about 7,000.

Louann Brizendine: The real phraseology of that should have been that a woman has many more communication events a day—gestures, words, raising of your eyebrows.

Oh, okay, that clears up everything. Yet the book continues to be referenced and sourced. Just last February, Elle published the women-use-20,000-words canard. It goes on and on.-

Here’s a sample quote from The Female Brain, which I’ll proceed to tear apart shortly: “Connecting through talking activates the pleasure centres in a girl’s brain. Sharing secrets that have romantic and sexual implications activates those centres even more. [References for that? Of course not…] We’re not talking about a small amount of pleasure. This is huge. It’s a major dopamine and oxytocin rush, which is the biggest, fattest neurological reward you can get outside of an orgasm.”

Fact: oxytocin secretion in the brain isn’t triggered by speech alone. Fact: oxytocin, a.k.a. “the cuddle hormone” is only secreted in response to reproductive functions (think: sex, childbirth and breastfeeding). Despite what the marketers of the snake oil Liquid Trust would have you believe (perhaps Brizendine could do a testimonial), ambient scent in a social group and/or spraying yourself with a light mist of oxytocin will not do the trick.

Researcher Paul Zak, from Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Neuroeconomics, studied connections between oxytocin and trust and debunked “trust spray”, saying it’s “totally bogus” to sniff it from someone’s collar. You’d need to snort about three teaspoonfuls nasally (to cross the blood brain barrier) for any effect. Ironically, Brizendine does mention this study. Just in a different chapter.

So oxytocin is not wafting between chatty schoolgirls, nor is it spread via text messages or instant messenger. Research-article databases like PubMed and Google Scholar turn up nothing at all about a connection between oxytocin and speech or language (aside from autism) in humans.

Research on oxytocin and its links to autism suggests that increasing oxytocin levels (administered intravenously or with a nasal spray) may improve social cognition. There’s no doubt that oxytocin plays an important role in social bonding, for women and men alike. But is it what motivates young girls to talk to each other? Supposedly twice as much, twice as fast and via technology?

Mmmm… No.

Brizendine is working on a new book titled The Male Brain. That’ll be one to watch. I suspect it’ll be about how men think of nothing but sex and beer, and get an oxytocin release from porn on the internet.