Gender Communication in Small Groups

            Cues in gender communication can be misleading. The main cause of miscommunication in male-female relationships is the lack of understanding that men and women have different communication styles, rituals, and motivations. Because small groups are rarely entirely composed of one gender and lacking the other, it is important for those working in small groups to understand one another’s communication styles. One way to begin this understanding is to study the tendencies and patterns of gender in communication. 

It is important to note that this discussion is about gender differences in communication, as opposed to sex differences. Dr. Scott A. Myers defines gender as not referring to biological sex, necessarily, but rather “the social beliefs and values associated with being male or female” (Myers 79). For the sake of clarity, we will refer to communication traits as either male or female, feminine or masculine, or attribute them to men or women. 

It is also imperative to understand that patterns, however, no matter how real, are never absolute. Nothing is true of all men and all women, because there are many different influences on communication style other than gender, such as age, culture, and family, among others. Generalizations can be perceived to reinforce stereotypes, which are dangerous to pursue in interpersonal small group communication. However, there is greater danger in ignoring these patterns than there is in describing them. Ignoring patterns results in the minority in the group having their own communication styles labeled as “wrong” or “bad.” This leads to men and women blaming their problems and failure as a group on one another or on the relationship of the group as a whole, possibly resulting in an untimely termination of the group. An understanding of these patterns can help small groups avoid failure in satisfying communication needs. 

            With that in mind, we must begin to understand what these gender tendencies are in communication styles. Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University Deborah Tannen specializes in the study of gender communication. In a lecture talk entitled “He Said, She Said,” Tannen explores the fundamental differences in male and female motivation in communication. As soon as Tannen and other communicators began an in-depth study of the differences in gender communication, they discovered that masculine communication is status-focused while feminine communication is connection-focused. This principle explains much of the differences between the way men and women communicate, so it is important to understand the nuances of this distinction. Tannen held that conversations between men and women are equivalent to cross-cultural communication because boys and girls grow up in different worlds and learn to use language in different ways. 

            Communication rituals learned in childhood become the basis for rituals habitually used by men and women throughout their lives. If you watch young boys play, you will notice that they often engage in good-natured competition, comparing how fast they can run or how far they can throw a baseball. This is a masculine communication ritual called “ritual opposition,” and it is used by males of all ages within their relationships. Ritual opposition is the central communication ritual used in male communication, which women do not share and thus often take literally. It involves males using mock aggression such as teasing, verbal one-upmanship, and rough-housing to create connection with friends. Psychology explains ritual opposition in the discovery that males are status-focused. 

            “The same effort that the boys are putting into proving that they can top each other, the girls are putting an equal amount of effort into proving that they’re the same,” Tannen says. This is because female communication is connection-focused. Young female playmates spend much of their time together telling each other secrets and searching for all of the things that they may have in common. Girls will even go so far as to make a connection where there isn’t one; young girls may lie about their sister having braces, too, or that they like broccoli, too. This explains why women are so critical of the women who act as if they are better than the others, because being the same as other girls is as pleasing to girls as topping one another is to boys. 

            Females learn to downplay differences established by status and instead focus on connection, whereas males learn instead to focus on status and establish connection and solid relationships through good-natured competition. This explains why men and women can walk away from the same interaction and view the outcome two completely different ways. A woman asks herself if the interaction brought the group closer together, while a man asks himself if the interaction placed him in a “one-up” or “one-down” position. This understanding explains the humorous but popular truism that men do not like to stop and ask for directions, because doing so would lower their status and put them in a one-down position to the person they ask. 

            The different areas of focus in gender communication also explains why women communicate more indirectly than men, or in other words, why “women are so confusing.” Women communicate more indirectly because they do not want to make decisions or definitive statements without taking everyone’s feelings into account. It is why women rarely decide where they want to eat – they aren’t doing it to be frustrating, but rather to express that they are interested in what their partner wants to eat, too. Men, however, are typically more direct in their communication – except for when it comes to things like admitting fault, apologizing, talking about having been hurt, and other things that would emotionally put themselves in a one-down position. 

            How does this understanding apply to small group communication? Because men are status-focused, they tend to speak up more in public small group settings in order to make sure that they are respected, heard, and taken seriously. Men feel the need to establish their position and prove their knowledge, and to argue when necessary to defend their opinions. All in all, a male’s goal in a small group setting is to establish and maintain his status. Women, however, tend to talk less in small group settings because they typically feel they have to watch themselves in public. If they say the wrong thing, they fear that they will either hurt somebody’s feelings, accidentally disregard somebody’s opinion, spark a conflict, or come off as aggressive. In other words, women are afraid of accidentally destroying their connections between themselves and others in the small group. 

            The differences in gender communication also play into who is more likely to arise as a leader of a small group – a man or a woman? For the purpose of clarity, this refers specifically to emergent leadership rather than appointed, assigned, or elected leadership. In other words, is a man or a woman more likely to emerge naturally as a leader of a small group? 

            According to researcher Katherine W. Hawkins, the sole significant predictor of leadership as an emergent role is the levels of task related communication from the group member in question. Women are more likely to participate in socio-relational rather than task-related communication, due to their inherent focus on connection within small groups.  Historically, then, males are more likely to emerge as group leaders due to their tendency of being aggressive and dominant in task-related communication, although research shows that they tend to be less dominant in mixed-sex groups than they are in same-sex groups. Interestingly, Dr. Edward A. Mabry of the University of Wisconsin wrote that “homogeneous male groups evince more dominant tendencies than homogeneous female groups.” As the number of males in a mixed-sex group increases, so too does the level of dominance expressed by each male in the group. This is because the presence of other males also seeking status in a small group increases each male’s drive to establish his own status. 

            Why do men historically tend to become leaders of mixed-sex small groups more often than women? Mabry addressed this, tying it back to Hawkins claim that task-oriented discussion is the sole predictor of emergent leadership: 

“Men initiate more task-oriented communicative acts, such as giving suggestions, opinions, and information, and receive more overt acts of agreement in comparison to female group members. Men dominate small group interactions because they initiate and receive more interaction than women, and interaction initiated by women is more likely to be directed to men rather than to other women.” 

Men are also more likely, according to Hawkins, to be more sociable, initiate more verbal acts, yield less readily to interruption, and defend their opinions more forcefully than women in small group settings. Women are less likely than men to make task-related suggestions or offer up task-related information in mixed-sex small groups. 

            However, Hawkins confirms that “evidence does seem to exist to support the conclusion that gender composition of a group does affect leadership ratings in that the gender of the emerged group leader seemed to reflect the gender of the majority of group members.” This opens up the possibility of a female leader in a group in which over 50% of the group members are also female. (This is not to say that females cannot lead predominantly male small groups.) Emergent female leaders are likely to attempt to avoid the leader label in their actions, however, as they do not want to destroy connections or gain a negative reputation within the group. Women care less about recognition as a leader as they are less focused on status than men are. Thus, women are only likely to emerge into a leader role because they sense a void in that the group needs leadership but no one else is willing to step up. As Hawkins writes, “Female leaders face a paradox, in that they feel compelled to assume a leadership role to ensure group success but try to avoid the leadership label for fear of alienating group members.” 

            In today’s world, with social and gender-based boundaries being consistently pushed, these patterns are beginning to be broken in leadership trends. Yet the trends in gender communication still stand, as masculine communication continues to be status-focused and feminine communication continues to be socio-relationally focused. Again, patterns are not all-inclusive, but are dangerous to ignore when pursuing success in small group communication. Understanding gender communication is only the beginning of creating an environment in which small group communication both achieves the task and leaves group members relationally fulfilled. 

Hawkins, Katherine W. “Effects of Gender and Communication Content on Leadership Emergence in Small Task-Oriented Groups.” Small Group Research, vol. 26, no. 2, 1 May 1995, pp. 234-249. Sage Publication Journals, doi:10.177/1046496495262004. 

Mabry, Edward A. “The Effects of Gender Composition and Task Structure on Small Group Interaction.” Small Group Behavior, vol. 16, no. 1, 1985, pp. 75-96. Sage Pub Journal, doi:10.1177/104649648501600104.

Myers, Scott A., and Carolyn M. Anderson. The Fundamentals of Small Group Communication. Sage Publications, 2008.

Nelson, Kathy A. “Gender Communication Through Small Groups.” The English Journal, vol. 79, no. 2, Feb. 1990, pp. 59-61. JSTOR.org, doi:10.2307/819102. 

Tannen, Deborah. Lecture, “He Said, She Said.” Into the Classroom Media. Accessed 5 April 2020.