Female–male differences in conversational interaction

ABSTRACT This article describes a preliminary experiment looking at possible differences in how females and males interact in conversation. The article analyzes data from an experiment where two females and two males talked to each other in all possible pairs; a total of 60 minutes of conversation (six dyads) was transcribed. The goal was to isolate quantifiable entities related to controlling or directing the conversation. We looked at issues such as who talked how much, how fluently or confidently – and how the two people in the conversation interacted in terms of interruptions and indications of support, agreement, or disagreement. The findings from such a small sample are only relevant to suggest hypotheses for further research. However, we noticed a number of interesting differences: the female speakers used more 1st person pronouns and fewer 3rd person references than the male speakers; the female speakers used mm hmm at a much higher frequency than the male speakers; the female speakers also interrupted each other more; and the female/female conversation seemed more fluent than the other conversations, as measured by number of disfluencies and number of affirmative transitions upon speaker change. All of these differences suggest that this area is a fruitful one for further investigation. (Conversational analysis, gender differences)