In a regular week, I have several meetings with different groups of people. Some meetings are because of an assignment of my study, others are about projects. In most cases, the groups consist of both men and women. I wonder if there are differences between their behavior during group interactions or discussions, so I decided to make this the topic of my current blog.
Based on my own experiences, I expect that men are more dominant during group discussions. However, I think it also depends on individual characteristics: a shy person will not come into prominance, while an outspoken person will dominate the discussion. I think there are different styles of discussing and interacting in a group; I am curious what the scientific literature says about this.
According to Lynn Smith-Lovin and Charles Brody, status plays an important role in group interactions. Someone with a high status talks more, is more successful in introducing a new topic, interrupts more, and receives more positive feedback from listeners. Gender is related to status, because men are more often assumed to be the leader of a group (have more status). In addition, groups of different sex composition have different patterns of talk. Male groups tend to be more competitive, and there is evidence that both men and women express more negative and less positive socioemotional behavior in mixed-sex than in same-sex groups.
Concerning the interruption of other people in the group, Smith-Lovin and Brody found that men interrupt women more often than other men, while women make attempts to interrupt men and women equally often. Group composition does not seem to influence the number of interruption attempts, but it does influence the type of interruptions. Men direct more supportive interruption attempts towards other men, but this decreases when the number of women in the group increases.
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| A perfect illustration of the findings |
Overall, men seem to discriminate during discussions, because they interrupt women more often than other men, while women do not discriminate. In addition, men are acting as if gender is a status characteristic, but women are not. The findings confirm my own feeling that men are more dominant during discussions and interrupt women more often. I will take this into account during meetings in the future and try to observe if this really happens. I am curious!
P.S. By the way, did you read my previous posts? If you thought this topic was interesting, I advise you to check them! In the column on the right, you can easily find the links.
Source:
Lynn Smith-Lovin, Charles Brody. Interruptions in group discussions: the effects of gender and group composition. http://www.interruptions.net/literature/Smith-Lovin-AmerSocRev89.pdf
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