The age old ‘battle of the thermostat’ has taken a new turn with a new study suggesting that women score better in tests taken in warmer rooms. It is a universal truth that most women in work spaces feel much colder than men.
A specific study went on to suggest that since women have slower metabolic rates, the formula used to set temperatures at workplaces may have overestimated heat production in women’s bodies by almost 35 percent.
According to an article by the New York Times, a less addressed question is whether the temperature has anything to do with women’s productivity. An experiment conducted showed that under warmer temperatures women performed better than men in verbal and math tests as compared to a colder setting.
In an experiment conducted by researchers, Over 500 college students were made to a sit in a room and take verbal and math tests. These tests were conducted for an hour where the temperature in the room was between 16 degree celsius and 32 degree celsius.
The students were given the task of solving as many simple math problems as they could, form as many words as they could from a given set of letters and solve some tricky logic questions. These tests had to be done under a time limit.
Although overall there wasn’t much change in the group’s scores, there was a significant change when the group was divided by gender.
According to researchers when the temperature was colder, men performed better than women but when the temperature increased the gap disappeared and women outpaced men.
According to reports, with even a small, almost negligible increase in temperature, women’s math scores went up by almost 1.8 percent. Under a colder temperature (less than 21 degrees) women solved about 8.31 tasks correctly and when the temperature was slightly warmer ( above 26 degrees) The performance improved by almost 27 percent, with women solving over 10 tasks correctly.
If these results are anything to go by, then workplace and classrooms temperatures might be affecting productivity in women.
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