interruptions - Zimmerman and West

Zimmerman and West 1975

studied interruptions in conversations between men and women. they found that men interrupted 96%-100% more often than women

Beattie

her research considered over 10X the corpus of Z&W and discovered that there was pretty much an equal number of interruptions by men and women alike

this research is based on a much larger and representative corpus so is likely to be more accurate than Z&W’s study

limitations of Z&W

they examined a small number of subjects all of whom were white MC men under 35

this isn’t a representative sample which means their research is flawed and not necessarily investigating what they think they are investigating

it might be that the research shows traits typical of MC conversations but not all conversations

Pamela Fishman

her research discovered that convos between men and women often fail because of how men act

she details that men use a third of the number of questions as women gave minimal responses

this leads to as Fishman describes, women doing the conversational shitwork