Gender differences in direction ‘overplayed,’ experts say

Vivian Brown tries. She prints out directions in large type. She uses a highlighter on maps. She draws arrows. Nothing works. The Lexington, Ky., woman, 47, gets lost all the time, everywhere.

She once had to stop to get directions to go one street over from a place she was visiting.

The direction deficit she shares with many raises some questions. Why do some people get regularly, horribly, inscrutably lost? Is it worse for women than men?

Did the hunting and gathering of our long-ago ancestors imprint our neural pathways with an instinct that makes it easier for men than women to get to a new McDonald’s?

Gender differences have been “definitely overplayed,” said Diane Halpern, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. Stephen Edgell, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Louisville, said it’s true some women might have trouble driving a new route. But, he said, men have their lost moments, too.

“Lots of men — not all men — find the grocery store a totally intimidating, alien place,” he said. “They have no sense of direction.”

So what’s up?

Studies have shown that men and women process information differently and that women tend to navigate by landmarks and men by geographic directions, Halpern said.

But the stereotypes of the masterful male navigator and the faulty female pilot, as Edgell puts it, linger. “Men don’t get lost as much because they refuse to admit it,” he said.

Said Edgell: “There is probably a biological piece here, but we can’t get our hands on that biological piece. People can be trained and be taught to do almost anything.”

It’s true in this society that more males than females are taught basic map-reading skills, and video games that require navigation are generally more popular among males.

But that’s not true of all cultures, said Edgell, who has studied how people get around in Africa and Central Asia. He has studied groups in very rural places where everybody seemed equally adept at getting around “because people have to travel to do what they need to do.”

If you have a direction deficit, the first thing to do is get used to using a map, Edgell said.

Next, pay more attention to what’s going on around you.

“It’s sort of like waking up and smelling the roses,” he said. “You have to look around and see what’s around you.”

So there’s hope?

“They can absolutely improve,” said Halpern, “or they can develop a better sense of humor.”

But the best advice of all? Keep a full tank of gas.