When it comes to risk, confidence, and stress, who handles them better, men or women? Believe it or not, just asking this question shows we have a lot to learn. Turns out it is not about better, but about different. And while conventional wisdom often has us thinking women are indecisive, risk averse, and fragile, those perceptions are far from what research reveals.

In her groundbreaking book, How Women Decide: What Is True, What Is Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best choices, Therese Huston, founding Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning at Seattle University, clues us in. Armed with a doctorate in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon, she is a contributing writer for The New York Times and Harvard Business Review.

Therese pinpoints what the research reveals around perceptions of women. Perhaps even more importantly, she discusses several research-based strategies for overcoming these misperceptions.

In this conversation, we talk about:

How we misunderstand female decision making
The mistake parents make when dealing with daughters on the playground
The bias in the term risk averse and the term that should replace it
Two traits that make the top 10 list for men but not for women
Who pays a higher price for failure
The risks women take when they speak up
A dating app with unique features for women
Confidence as a dial we need to turn up or down, depending on the situation
Which gender has the more appropriate level of confidence
Two things women can do to overcome negative perceptions of self-promotion
How men and women differ when under pressure to make a crucial decision
Strategies to avoid being nervous before an important event
Why failure trumps regret

Episode Links

@ThereseHuston

Daniel Kahneman

The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely

Chip and Dan Heath

Pew Research Center 2015 Study on What Makes a Good Leader

Barbara Morrongiello

What Women and Men Should Be by Deborah Prentice and Erica Carranza

Victoria Brescoll

We Are Way Harder on Women Who Mak...

CM 040: Therese Huston Shatters Myths About Women Leaders

Curious Minds at Work