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Women Are Sort of More Tentative Than Men, Aren't They?How Men and Women Use Tentative Language Differently, Similarly, and Counterstereotypically as a Function of Gender SalienceUniversity of California, Davis, napalomares{at}ucdavis.edu Based on self-categorization theory's explanation for gender-based language use, male and female participants sent e-mail on a masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral topic to an ostensible male or female recipient (i.e., intergroup or intragroup dyads). As predicted, the topic affected if and how men and women used tentative language differently: For masculine topics, traditional gender differences emerged (i.e., women were more tentative than men) in intergroup, but not intragroup, contexts; for feminine topics, differences were counterstereotypical (i.e., men were more tentative than women) in intergroup contexts only; and for a gender-neutral topic, no differences resulted in either intra- or intergroup contexts. Moreover, gender salience partially mediated these effects in intergroup interactions only: Topic affected tentative language through gender salience in the mixed-sex condition (i.e., a conditional indirect effect).
Key Words: gender identity • social cognition • social identity • gendered communication • expertise • computer-mediated communication • message production • stereotypes • prototypes
This version was published on August
1, 2009 Communication Research, Vol. 36, No. 4,
538-560 (2009) |
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