Steven Smith Professor Dunn Gender & Communication Research Mini Project

For my Research Mini Project I decided to further investigate the discussions weve had in class regarding gender related turn taking and interruptions, both in the workplace and group discussions in general. There has been much research done on this topic and many reasons have been offered as reasons to the findings of the studies. This topic is extremely important in our everyday lives as group work continues to become more and more prevalent in almost every setting imaginable. To make sure everyones voice is heard in a group setting is of the utmost importance; there is no point to a group discussion/meeting if it is dominated by one or two people of the same school of thought. As we discussed in class, research shows that same-sex interactions show the same amount of interruptions; cross-sex relationships show that men interrupt 75-96% more than women. However, men and women tend to interrupt in different ways. Women tend to interrupt by inquiring or asking questions about what the man is talking about, while men usually interrupt the women in order to make a statement or perhaps offer advice. Also, fathers are much more likely to interrupt children than mothers are, and girls are more commonly interrupted by their parents than boys are. I found a piece of research online, taken from the book called Interruptions in Group Discussions: The Effects of Gender and Group Composition written by Lynn Smith-Lovin and Charles Brody. They asked three questions about the structure of the interruptions. Who is interrupting whom, and under what conditions? How does the affective character of interruptions

vary across speakers and groups? What determines whether an interruptions succeeds? I thought that what they found was extremely interesting. They noted that when women interrupt, they tend not to be gender biased. They interrupt other men and women equally. In groups of all men, men will interrupt other men with supportive comments, but as the number of women increases in a group, those supportive comments by men seem to decrease. Smith-Lovin and Brody attributed status as having a large effect on participation in group discussions. High-status people are more likely to be asked there opinions, receive more positive comments, are more likely to be chosen as the group leader, and are more likely to influence the group decisions and dominate the conversation. As we talked about in class, women only hold 5% of senior managerial and executive positions in larger companies. So if status is a major determiner of participation in group discussion, women have almost no chance of speaking up in any major business meeting. I also read a study taken from the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. The study was done at the University of Rochester by Laura F. Robinson and Harry T. Reis, where they had people listen to a four-minute audiotape of a conversation and rated the conversants on masculinity, femininity, competence, sociability, attractiveness, and traditionality. The sex of the interrupter, style of interruption, and status were varied. Results showed that interruption leads to negative personality attributions. The interrupters were seen as less sociable and more assertive than the individuals that didnt interrupt. The interrupters were also seen as more masculine than those who did not interrupt. Few sex differences emerged, demonstrating that women who interrupt are not penalized relative to men. In my experiment, I wanted to find out what would happen if status wasnt a factor in a group discussion. I wanted to see what would happen in a setting with both men and women participating in a group discussion in which all members were all of the relatively same status. I targeted to test the common conclusion that men plainly and simply interrupt more then women do. Ive always

heard that men interrupt more then women in group settings because of the typical dynamics of todays group discussions; in the business world, it seems conventional that there is a male boss with both male and female subordinates, and that the man interrupts because he is of a higher status in the workplace and has the authority to do so. While this might be the case sometimes, I dont think it explains interruptions in a broader context. What happens when there isnt an overbearing authority in the group? When I was home two weeks ago, I asked my Dad if he would mind me going along with him to work. My Dad works for himself, he owns and operates his own real estate development company. Every day of the week, he attends numerous meetings regarding any given development project. I asked his permission to sit in on one of the meetings. The meetings my Dad is involved are unconventional in comparison to your typical business meeting, with bosses and individuals of various workplace statuses. These meetings are made up of commercial realtors, real estate attorneys, landowners, etc. None of these people are distinguished for being of a higher status than any other member of the group. In general, all of the people involved of the meeting were sent by their bosses in order to represent their company. But for the most part, each person is of the same status in their respective fields. I decided to sit in on one of these meetings (which ideally included exactly 4 women and 4 men), telling them that I wanted to record the meetings for one of my classes. I recorded the entire meeting and listened to it later. I counted the number of interruptions, who interrupted whom, and the types of interruptions that took place. The meeting went on for roughly fourty-five minutes. I decided it would be easier to focus on the middle fifteen minutes. I thought the middle of the meeting was a good time to focus on because it allowed the members of the discussion to get comfortable in the setting, but was before anyone started the think about wrapping up the meeting or bringing it to a close. The discussion was based around a relatively large piece of property that had previously be mined. Each member was weighing in on

potential new uses for the land, issues that might arise regarding certain solutions, whether or not something was environmentally sound, which solution was most cost effective, etc. After reviewing the recording of the meeting, many items stood out as noteworthy. Not only did it seem that across the board men interrupted more than women do, but that men also seem to interrupt more in every type of interruption. The count showed that in that fifteen minute period, the men in the meeting interrupted 18 times, while the women only interrupted 5. 10 of the 18 times the men interrupted, they were interrupting women. A woman only interrupted a man once during the fifteen minute duration, the other 4 times were women interrupting other women. I also counted whether the interruptions were supportive comments, statements, disagreements, or questions. Of the 18 times men interrupted during the recorded time, 2 were supportive comments, 9 were statements or personal thoughts to add on to someone elses thoughts, 4 were questions, and 3 were disagreements. When women interrupted, 3 were questions and 2 were statements of personal thoughts. Previous to this experiment, I had never really given too much thought to this issue. I had never noticed that either gender interrupted more or less than the other, and had definitely never recognized the different types of interruptions as being gender specific. I was shocked when I actually took the time to look at interruptions by gender in a group setting for myself. The disparity is shocking! I may have anticipated that men would have out-interrupted women by a small margin, but would have never guessed that I would observe men interrupting almost 4 times as much as women! My experiment seems to undoubtably prove and validate previous research. So what can be done about this? I think everyone should be able to agree that its important for everyones voice to be heard in a group setting. Personally, I had no idea that this was an issue. I just always assumed that there was an obvious reason (such as status), that a given person would interrupt another. Im sure a lot of people would echo my ignorance about this

issue. I understand that a lot of business meetings are informal and its kind of okay to jump in and say something if you feel the need. However there is a serious problem if someone is never able to say what they need to because of constant interruptions. I feel that in any group discussion or meeting, there should be a previous agreement that each person will be able to talk for x amount of time. And if there were any disagreements, questions, or statements, that person should be able to voice that thought when it is their turn to talk in the rotation. It seems juvenile and elementary, but that may be the only way to insure equal speaking opportunity across the board.