Gender Differences in Communication

Question 1

Women as compared to men are

Answer 1

(1) More likely to ask rhetorical questions
(2) To hesitate
(3) To use use “hedges,” like “sort of” and “I guess”
(4) To add tag questions to statements, like “It’s warm in here, isn’t it?”

Question 2

Which gender is more likely to interrupt other speakers?

Answer 2

Mentioned in literature that men are more likely to interrupt; however, this is not what empirical studies bear out, i.e., not well-supported; in terms of number of interruptions there is not a significant difference; however, women more likely to interrupt for cooperation or rapport-building reasons

Question 3

Which gender talks more in terms of amount of talk?

Answer 3

Inconsistent results with majority of studies finding that men talk more than women overall or, alternatively, talk more in certain circumstances; for example, in mixed dyads, men talk more than women about neutral topics or “masculine” topics while women talk more about “feminine” topics