Two psychology professors actually went ahead and took a scientific look at whining and its impact on nearby human beings (Take a look at the study). They had their adult subjects attempt to complete math problems, first in silence, and then while being forced to listen to a child's whining.
As you can imagine, the whining made their math problem work extremely difficult. The subjects also had to listen to other sounds, like machine noise. Whining typically provided the most serious distraction.
It makes it pretty obvious as to why children whine to their parents all of the time. It works! A whining child becomes so annoying, that many times mom or dad will break down and just give the child what he or she wants, no questions asked. Just stop the whining!
The study's authors found that whining is so effective in gaining attention because of three factors: increased pitch (MOMMEEEE!), exaggerated pitch contours (can I HAVE THAT!!!) and slowed production (whhhhyyyyyy caaaann't I waaattcchhh teeeee veeeee???).
How do you combat whining, or at least outsmart the whiner? Unfortunately, the study doesn't offer any conclusions on that.
Maybe you have some ideas?
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