Re: How does gender affect a person's reaction to distracting noises?

I’m interested to know where you got the idea that females don’t focus as 
much as males, as current psychological research shows that while 
people hold a number of stereotyped views about gender most of the 
evidence is conflicting. There is only consistently supportive evidence 
for males being more aggressive and more spatially/mathematically aware 
and for females  being more verbally aware.

However in the 1960s Hans Eysenck put forward the idea of people either 
tending to be extrovert (outgoing) or introvert (quiet, inward looking). 
Extroverts are more easily distracted than introverts. Eysenck wrote many 
books but one co-written with Glenn Wilson called Know Your Own 
Personality has some useful questionnaires in it for testing to see if you 
are an extrovert or introvert. You could easily get the questions from this 
or any other book on personality and test your classmates to see if girls 
are more extroverted than boys.

6 questions from Eysenck to start you off are:

1. Do you prefer action to planning for action?

2. Are you happiest when you get involved in some project that calls for 
rapid action?

3. Do you usually take the initiative in making new friends?

4. Are you inclined to be quick and sure in your actions?

5. Would you rate yourself as a lively individual?

6. Would you be very unhappy if you were prevented from making numerous 
social contacts?

The more Yeses in reply, the more extrovert the person answering the 
questions is.

Good luck.