Chapter 08 - Gender and Communication

82%

In the Cheng et al. (2011) study observing email writing tone and writers sex, the computer algorithm classified writer sex with _______ accuracy

no better than chance

In Mulac (2006) study observing email writing tone and writers sex, humans sex guesses were ___________

Whorfian (linguistic relativity) hypothesis

A hypothesis stating that the structure of language determines the nature of the speaker’s thoughts and worldviews.

Political correctness

The social norm, often viewed as taken to an extreme, that people should avoid language or acts that might offend, marginalize, or exclude members of socially disadvantaged groups

Generic masculine

The use of male-gendered terms to refer not only to men but to mixed-sex groups, to human beings in general, or to individuals whose sex is unknown or unspecified

• male default wording can bias mental representations of the target group

Grammatical gender

A type of classification system in certain languages, such as French and Hindi, in which most nouns are assigned a gender (masculine, feminine, and sometimes neutral)

• language correlated w/ national gender equality - however this cannot establish which variable causes the other

Although there is a correlation between language and sexist replies, causation cannot be established between language and sexism. There is a short term framing effect here - not proof of permanent worldview change due to language used

Wasserman & Wesely (2009) found that answering sexism questionnaires in gendered languages (French/Spanish) produced more sexist responses than non-gendered languages. What conclusion can we draw from this studies findings?

Diminutive

A form of a word used to indicate a smaller, less powerful, or more familiar version (e.g., booklet, duckling, mommy, and daddy)

• “actress” and ‘hostess” explicitly feminize otherwise occupational labels

• calling adult women “girls” can infantilize in some contexts

Passive voice and agency

• “A woman was assaulted” foregrounds victim and omits actor.

• “A man assaulted a woman” makes perpetrator explicit.

• News reports used passive voice more for sexual assault than for some other crimes.

victim blaming

Bohner (2001): passive wording with accounts of sexual assault associated with greater _______________.

reclaim

Groups sometimes _______ stigmatizing labels as self-descriptors. However, this is not equivalnt to outsiders freely using the same term

Different cultures approach

The belief that boys and girls are socialized to use language so differently that they may as well come from different “cultures,” which leads to miscommunication.

• girls and boys acquire contrasting communication norms

• predictions - women use relational/affective language, men use intrumental language

Interactional/contextual account

Roles, power, relationship, and setting shift speech patterns

• significantly more evidence for this model

16,000

Women and men each averaged saying roughly _____ words a day

795 to 47,000

Observed range for words spoken in a day between women and men was about ____ to ______ words/day

small

The sex differences in talkativeness are often ______ and depend on contextual factors

slightly more

Leaper (2014) found that men are _________ talkative overall (d = 0.14)

slightly more

Leaper (2014) found that girls are _________ talkative than boys (d = -0.11)

small collaborative

Leaper (2014) found that women spoke more in _________ groups

task-oriented, mixed sex

Leaper (2014) found that men spoke more in _________ groups

Intrusive interruptions

cuts off or takes the floor from another speaker

• men showed more of this in conversational studies

Supportive overlap

simultaneous talk that signals agreement or engagement

• women used more of this in conversational studies

Women justices experienced disproportionate interruptions from male colleagues, institutional status does not eliminate interactional asymmetries

Jacobi & Schweers (2017) analyzed interuptions during Supreme Court arguments. They found that…

Relational aggression

Subtle aggression, usually committed when the target is not physically present, that is intended to harm the target’s social relationships or status

• Gossip in contrast concerns absent others and can transmit reputational information (not always mean)

affirmative/emotion, profanity/object

In Schwartz et al. (2013) analysis of Facebook words and phrases between genders, women used more __________ language; men used more ____________ terms

self-disclosure

Dinda and Allen (1992) found small overall gender difference in ________, the tendency to share personal emotional information

• women disclosed more than men to female partners

• no difference in discolsure to male partners

Code-switching

The process by which bilingual and multilingual individuals switch back and forth between languages and their different cultural meaning systems

• speakers shift language or dialect across settings and audiences

• identity priming can alter ratings of biracial speaker’s speech

Nonverbal communicaton

Includes one’s face, gaze, posture, touch, interpersonal distance, and vocal tone

• one behavior can signal different meanings in different contexts

Visual dominance

A pattern of eye contact in which a person looks at others when speaking and looks away when listening

• men more often showed this patern in mixed-sex dyads

• higher power individuals often use this gaze pattern

• cultural norms can change whet

agentic

Uzzell & Horne (2006) found that highly ______ pairs of individuals kept the largest interpersonal distances between each other when in the same space regardless of their partners sex

Oxytocin

A neurotransmitter that facilitates bonding, connectedness, and coordination

closer relationships

Suvilehto et al. (2015): participants marked acceptable touch regions on silhouettes, and founded that __________________ permitted touch over more body areas as well as women generally permitting more touch, w/ some acceptions for unfamiliar women

• faciliated through oxytocin

Manspreading

The tendency for men to spread out and adopt an expansive posture while sitting, thus taking up more space.

• Expansive postures are judged as more dominant (Hall et al., 2005).

stereotype threat

Van Loo & Rydell (2014): Nonverbal Threat - Participants vierwed male/female actors discussing a math study group, video varies which actor displayed diminant nonverbal cues. This primed ____________, making women perform worse after viewing the dominant-man condition

Point-light displays

A minimal animated figure represented by points of light, which is created by a computer that reads sensors attached to the joints of a moving person

• observers could classify walker’s sex from their gait

Subordination hypothesis

states that sex-linked behavior reflects power differences

• Male-typical expansive posture and visual dominance align with high status.

• Female-typical smiling and nodding do not consistently track low status.

• Evidence supports a partial, not complete, status explanation.

Emotion

A complex, internal, subjective reaction that includes physiological, psychological, and behavioral components. Joy, anger, and fear, are thought to be innate and universally expressed and recognized.

• includes: experience, expression, and recognition

Experience

What people feel privately

Expression

What people display through face, voice, or behavior

Recognition

How accurately people interpret other’s emotions

fear, anger

Condry & Condry (1976): showed viewers the same startled infant video with a different sex labels; observered labeled behavior “______” more for girl and “______” more for boy - sex label altered attribtuion despite identical behavior

other-oriented and inward-focused; anger

Brody (1999, 2000): temperament interacts w/ socialization. found that girls more _______ and _______ displays, boys showed more outward-focused _________ on average

• observed patterns reflect display norms as well as emotional experience

Display rules

Culture-specific norms that regulate how, when, and whether individuals should express particular emotions

salary

Brescoll & Uhlmann (2008): workplace anger carried different status implications.

• Angry women received lower status and lower _________ recommendations than angry men.

Teddy bear effect

The tendency for baby-faced (physically nonthreatening) Black men to have an advantage in seeking high-status positions because they do not activate stereotypes about Black men as aggressive

Encoding accuracy

The ability to communicate nonverbally in a clear manner that others can interpret correctly

• producing nonbverbal cues others interpret as intended

Decoding accuracy

The ability to read the nonverbal communications of others correctly

• correctly inferring thr meaning of someon elses cues

• adult female advantage

Empathy

The tendency to feel the emotional state of another person and to see the world from another person’s vantage point. Has both affective and cognitive components

• women typically report more of this on average

Emotional contagion

The tendency for people to synchronize their emotions automatically with the emotions of others, without necessarily being aware of it happening

Mirror neurons

Neurons that fire both when performing an action and when observing another individual perform the action

• repond during action and action observation

• their role in empathy remains debated

Emotional intelligence

The ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions and the emotions of others, and to use emotions to solve problems