What is it about women getting together, anyway? Men may laugh, but apparently there's a kernel of truth to the lowest common denominator (albeit we now know that gossip is good for you).

A new study by Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute has shown that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and, gasp, cocktail parties -- can effectively 'dumb down' some people, particularly the female of the species.

"You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well," said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Institute.

By placing together individuals with matched IQs, Montague and his team found that collectively their performance in cognitive tasks then dropped. In particular, subjects showed a reduction in their ability to problem-solve -- a little worrying when you consider juries.

While neither age nor ethnicity played a part in the brain response, gender did, however, with female subjects underperforming in group settings.

Researchers weren't clear on whether social pressures were to blame for women's dumbing down in the experiments but that such social dynamics were key in so many facts of society, including on national and international policy-making bodies like the United Nations.

The article appears in the current issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Do you find yourself dumbing down in small circles?