I am *OK* at Scrabble – better at Boggle, but could still hold my own against a 12-year-old at Scrabble. Especially a 12-year-old girl, apparently, because it turns out that men are better than women at Scrabble.
According to research published in the journal Psychological Research, men consistently out-perform women in Scrabble competitions around the world, even though there are actually slightly more female players.
But why?
Well, to find out, University of Miami researcher Dr Jerad Moxley questioned 300 participants at the 2004 and 2008 US National Scrabble tournaments about their playing habits.
It turns out that men are ‘better’ than women because women can’t be arsed to spend loads of time perfecting a pointless skill. It all makes sense now – women would rather spend their time on useful pastimes, and men channel all their effort into dumb things like getting good at FIFA or board games that don’t actually matter.
Dr Moxley found that men would spend their time in between games studying past winners and analysing anagrams, whereas women (who spent the same amount of time playing the game) would simply play for fun. Trust men to take all the fun out of something and turn it into an insufferable obsession.
He concluded by saying:
“Just because there is a huge gender difference, it doesn’t mean there is a huge ability gap.”
It’s simply down to practice – whereas women probably realise that being really, really good at Scrabble means almost nothing, men took the opposite route in their quest to become the world’s best Scrabble player.
If you think you’re an expert, then why not check out our Scrabble quiz here. Ladies, it’s a fun way to spend five minutes. Men, IT WILL ENABLE YOU TO BECOME SUPREME SCRABBLE OVERLORD. GO FORTH AND CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES.
(Image: iStock)
