[kowen]

Yes, "why" would be extremely interesting!

It would appear that the research on the subject is somewhat spotty and often gets misinterpreted, sometimes at the source.

I found a book on amazon the other day called Pink Brain, Blue Brain by neuroscientist Lise Elliot, which is next up on my reading list.

http://www.amazon.com/Pink-Brain-Blue-Differences-Troublesom...

One study I read about described a situation where the researchers bundled the same baby up and told some people that it was a boy and others that it was a girl. The people who thought it was a girl tended to comfort the baby when it got fussy, and the people who thought it was a boy tended to try to distract it.[1] Subtle, but I can imagine that there are other ways that we train girls to be more 'face to face'.

[1] from http://www.amazon.com/Failing-At-Fairness-Schools-Cheat/dp/0... --marred by some selection bias in the data they used, but very interesting nonetheless.

[sp332]

That's because distraction is a more effective pain reducer for men than for women. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17951004

[dkarl]

Causation could go either way. Comfort may work best when it comes in a familiar form.

[kowen]

Interesting! I wonder if people know this instinctively, or we just sort of pattern match in the background and pick up on it.