Women who want to succeed at work should shut up - while men who want the same should keep talking, research says

It is a conclusion likely to upset most feminists - and perhaps even most women. Female employees who want to succeed in the workplace should keep their mouths shut.

Research suggests that women who talk too much in the office are seen as less competent than their quieter peers, The Daily Mail reports.

For men however, the more often they voice their opinions the better they are seen at doing their jobs.

The researchers say that chatty women are seen as a nag who is ‘domineering and presumptuous’ if they speak too much.

Their depressing conclusion is that if you are a woman who wants to get ahead you should hold your tongue - especially in front of men.

The Yale University research involved asking 156 people to read an article about a fictional chief executive.

The executive was described as either a talkative man, quiet man, talkative woman or quiet woman and the respondents were asked to rate how competent they were on a seven point scale.

Talkativeness was measured as how often the executive voiced an opinion in article.
Talkative men were given a competency rating of 5.64 on average, whilst quiet men were given 5.11.
Chatty women however got just 4.83 versus 5.62 if they were more quiet.