Conversation a different art for men and women
University of Queensland research has confirmed what many have long suspected - that men and women have different conversational styles.
Men prefer to hold the floor, speaking for an average of three-and-a-half minutes, frown on interruption and compete for expert status.
Women, on the other hand, cooperate with each other to tell a story, finishing each other's sentences, making more encouraging noises then men and often even talking at once.
According to the PhD by Dr Jennifer Peck, problems arise when men and women talk to each other with women almost always conforming to men's conversational styles.
She said this "style shift" on the part of women meant many areas such as business and education were being deprived of nurturing, collaborative and cooperative communication.
Supervised by English Department Associate Professors David Lee and Jeff Pittam, the research is significant in adopting an interdisciplinary approach, using findings from sociology and psychology to explain differences in male and female communication. The work has attracted interest from leading business figures concerned at the alienation some women feel in today's business culture.
According to the recommendations of the 1995 Report of the Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills, the business community should capitalise more on the "soft" skills of women such as consultative and cooperative communication as these were essential to future improvements in business practice, Dr Peck said.
To complete her thesis, Dr Peck analysed more than 30 hours of conversations pruned from six years of recording people's interactions in coffee shops, university offices and at home.
She stressed her findings were generalisations drawn from a predominantly white, middle-class, western study group.
Dr Peck said the differences between men and women's conversational styles were not inbuilt but rather socialised or taught at a young age.
"You can hear differences in the conversational styles of boys and girls as young as three-and-a-half. Boys are encouraged to compete for expert status while little girls are taught to be facilitative and acquiesce," she said.
When women talked to each other, they collaborated in producing a narrative, she said. For example, they finished each other's sentences and encouraged each other with minimal responses such as "mmm" or "yes".
"Two or more women can speak at one time and the conversation flows and progresses with everybody understanding what is going on," Dr Peck said.
However, men competed for expert status in conversations with each other with talk a competitive, individualistic thing, she said.
In a mixed group, men perceived overlapping conversation as an interruption and a challenge to their control, she said.
"Men used control mechanisms to regain the floor such as saying ?you interrupted me - I was talking' or more subtle means such as repeating the word ?but' or a phrase several times," Dr Peck said.
"Some men would also fall silent if they felt they were losing control of the conversation. They used silence to silence."
In contrast, women became increasingly uncomfortable when speaking to another woman if they found themselves speaking alone.
"If this occurred, the first woman would gradually slow the conversation down, increasing the length of her pauses and asking things like ?that's right isn't it?' or ?know what I mean?'. Once she received encouragement, the conversation became animated again, with much overlapping speech," Dr Peck said.
Dr Peck said women should not abandon their speaking styles in mixed groups.
"If necessary, a group of women should get together before a mixed business meeting, for example, to develop a strategy to ensure their voices and ways of speaking are heard and supported," Dr Peck said.
For more information, contact Dr Peck (telephone 07 54748204).
