Scientists reveal why nobody notices when women are tired - but do when it's a man

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Men might like to think they are the more stoic of the sexes.

But scientists have now shown that people pay far less attention when women are tired than when it's a man.

A study conducted by NASA scientists found that we routinely underestimate how tired women are, while men's fatigue is significantly overestimated.

Scientists say this may be because women make greater efforts to appear sociable, even when exhausted. 

Men, on the other hand, seem more tired because they tend to be less attentive and expressive in conversation.

Researchers say that understanding these differences is of vital importance when it comes to monitoring astronauts in space.

More than half of all space and aviation accidents are believed to be caused by fatigue, meaning that accurately assessing how tired someone is could be lifesaving.

Lead author Dr Morgan Stosic, from NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston, says: 'Generally, perceivers were underestimating how much fatigue women themselves had reported but they were overestimating how much fatigue men had reported.'

Scientists have found that people don't notice when women are tired but tend to overestimate how tired men might be (file photo)

In space missions, male and female astronauts work long, exhausting days in high-stress environments.

This means that managing tiredness is a constant concern for space agencies like NASA, which need their crews to operate at top performance.

Dr Stosic wanted to develop a method for estimating fatigue based solely on non-verbal cues like body language.

Male and female volunteers were asked to have a five-minute conversation with a stranger and then rate the level of fatigue they were feeling at the time.

Their tiredness was measured on a scale ranging from zero, meaning not tired at all, to 10, meaning as exhausted as they possibly could be.

A separate group of 71 participants then watched the videos of those conversations with the sound muted and rated how tired they thought each of the speakers was at the time.

While Dr Stosic didn't find any connection between non-verbal cues and self-reported fatigue, she did find some big differences between the genders.

Even though women reported feeling more tired, observers underestimated how tired women were feeling by 1.3 points on average.

NASA scientists wanted to develop a way of assessing how fatigued astronauts were based on their body language alone. With more than half of space and aviation accidents attributed to tiredness, knowing how exhausted crew members are could make a lifesaving difference. Pictured: The current crew of the International Space Station 

Meanwhile, observers rated men's tiredness as about 0.9 points higher than the men themselves reported.

Dr Stosic thinks this could be related to how much of an effort men and women make to be sociable when they are tired.

By tracking the participants' body language, the researchers found that women tended to act in a way that made them seem more attentive, such as making more direct eye contact.

While this wasn't a good measure of how tired the participant actually was, observers may have mistaken these gestures for genuine signs of alertness.

Dr Stosic told The Times: 'Perceivers were using those behaviours as a cue to think that women were less fatigued.'

These findings fit with a growing body of research which suggests much less attention is paid to women's discomfort.

In a previous study, Dr Stosic applied a tourniquet to participants' upper arms and asked them to do handgrip exercises to induce pain.

Despite their discomfort, observers consistently underestimated how much pain women were in and overestimated the pain being felt by men.

Observers tended to rate women as less fatigued than they actually were by a significant factor. Compared to men, women used body language that made them seem more awake even when they were extremely tired. Pictured: NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore (left) and Suni Williams (right) 

The researchers found that men made less of an effort to be sociable when they were tired, leading to the impression that they experienced more fatigue than women. By contrast, female participants were more attentive and made more direct eye contact while in conversations even when tired (file photo)

Other studies have found that women's pain is often not taken seriously, even in medical settings.

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One study from researchers at the University of Miami found that an expectation that women should be more expressive led observers to downplay obvious signs of injury.

Likewise, a study published last year found that female patients were less likely to get the correct treatment in the ER because they are viewed as 'hysterical and exaggerating'.

An analysis of more than 21,000 patients showed that female patients were less likely to be prescribed pain medication and were more likely to have their symptoms dismissed.

Men, by contrast, are more likely to be prescribed analgesic painkillers or antidepressants and are more likely to have laboratory tests requested for possible issues.