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Chapter 3 of Strangers in a Strange Lab (Oxford University Press, 2009) by William Ickes

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Sex

I remember reading somewhere that you will sell more copies of your book if sex

plays a major role in one of the early chapters. So this chapter is all about sex!

Okay, I know—you’re not fooled. You realize that I’m using the word sex in a

different way than the writer of that advice intended. I might as well admit it. Using the

word Sex as the title of this chapter is just a shameless tease, because the chapter is really

about how differences in gender and gender composition affect our initial interactions with

others.

So let me apologize. If you were expecting a sexy chapter, this won’t be it. We’ll all

just have to save our lustful feelings for another time, because the topic of this chapter is

whether—and how—the gender of two strangers who are meeting for the first time will

affect their initial interaction. In other words, we will be dealing with two interrelated

questions. First, does the partners’ gender make a difference?1 And, second, if it does make

a difference, how is this difference expressed in the partners’ thoughts, feelings, and

interaction behavior?

When the chapter that you have just started writing has gone from potentially

titillating to potentially boring by the third paragraph, what do you do next? What I like to

1 Can I tell you now that the answer to this question is yes? Or, if you’re still feeling lustful, that the answer is Yes! Yes! Oh—Oh—Oh don’t stop . . . YES!!!

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do is to cite some people who are a lot more famous than I am, and then explain why we

should think twice before believing them. So I will do that now, using a table that separates

the female authors from the male authors:

Female Authors

Male Authors

Given the cultural barriers to intersex conversation, the amazing thing is that we would even expect women and men to have anything to say to each other for more than ten minutes at a stretch. —Barbara Ehrenreich, “Tales of the Man Shortage,” Mother Jones (1986)

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. —Oscar Wilde

Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different. — Kate Millet, Sexual Politics (1970)

Men and women belong to different species and communications between them is still in its infancy. —Bill Cosby

The clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that the two people are incompatible—that is, that one is male and the other female. —Anna Quindlen, Living Out Loud (1988)

I've had three wives, six children and six grandchildren and I still don't understand women. —John Wayne

Men and women, women and men. It will never work. —Erica Jong, Fear of Flying (1973)

I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known. —Walt Disney

These quotes, like most of the ones I found in my internet search, concern the

relationships between women and men—what Barbara Ehrenreich refers to as intersex

relationships. And, like most of the other such quotes I found, these are pretty pessimistic.

It’s obvious that a lot of famous people think that men and women just can’t get along; and

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that at least one of them feels that a cartoon mouse is more worthy of his love than any

woman he has ever known.2

Although they are less common, I also found a few quotes on the internet that

concern the relationships between people of the same sex—what Barbara Ehrenreich

would probably describe as intrasex relationships. As aphorisms, these few quotes were all

pretty lame, but for reasons other than its aphoristic potential, I liked this one the best:

Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug

wears better in the long run. — Edward Hoagland, “Heaven and Nature,”

Harper’s (1988)

One reason I like this quote is because Edward Hoagland is, like me, someone who

you probably never heard of before. Another reason I like it is because Edward Hoagland

isn’t trying to be supremely witty, outrageous, or even intellectual here. Instead of aspiring

to be a Goddess or God of Aphorisms, he is just making a prosaic comment about an

everyday occurrence that he has probably observed hundreds, or even thousands, of times.

But the most important reason why I like this quote is because it is truer—or at least, truer

in general— than any of the other quotes that appear above. If we examine the available

research evidence, we find that female-female relationships generally are characterized by

greater warmth and involvement than male-male relationships are. But we don’t find

evidence that male-female relationships are as bad as Ehrenreich, Millet, Quindlen, Jong,

Wilde, Cosby, Wayne, and Disney seem to think they are.

2 Never having been enamored of a cartoon mouse, I can’t really speak to this issue except to wonder if Walt had equally strong feelings for Minnie.

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Having said that, I must immediately state an important qualification: the data I will

describe come from studies of the initial interactions between same-sex or “opposite-sex”

strangers, and not from longer-term relationships.3 Perhaps if we studied the longer-term

relationships of acquaintances, friends, roommates, cohabiters, or marriage partners, then

we might find that male-female relationships really are the worst. But that isn’t true in the

initial interactions of strangers, as we will see.

Let’s start by considering the simple, basic research design that is applicable in this

case:

F-F

F-M

M-M

In this design, we can compare the initial interactions of three different dyad types:

female-female dyads, female-male dyads, and male-male dyads. Notice that there are two

same-sex dyad types (F-F and M-M) and one mixed-sex dyad type (F-M). Ideally, the study

should include several dyads of each type so that we will have enough statistical power to

test for differences among the three dyad types with respect to the dyad members’

interaction behavior.

3 “Generalization Police” will insist that I add, as further qualifications, that these studies were all conducted using college-student samples at four-year universities in the United States, and that I shouldn’t presume to generalize the findings to any other age groups, socio-economic levels, etc., in this culture—or, indeed, to anyone at all in any culture outside the United States. These people have a point, but they also tend to poke you with it whenever they get the chance. That’s my opinion, anyway.

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Notice also how we immediately ask ourselves the two questions that were inspired

by the analogous design in Chapter 2. How might the behavior of the Fs (the female

participants) in the F-F dyad type differ from the behavior of the Fs in the F-M dyad type?

And how might the behavior of the Ms (the male participants) in the M-M dyad type differ

from the behavior of the Ms in the F-M dyad type?

The answers to these questions can be found in the same study by Ronen Cuperman

that I referred to in the last chapter. To help keep things organized, we will review the

findings question by question. We will start with the question, “How does the participants’

behavior differ when comparisons are made across the three dyad types (F-F, F-M, and M-

M)? We will then consider the questions, “How does the behavior of the women in the F-F

dyad type differ from the behavior of the women in the F-M dyad type?” and “How does the

behavior of the men in the M-M dyad type differ from the behavior of the men in the F-M

dyad type?” Finally, we will consider the question, “How does the behavior of the women

in the F-M dyad type differ from the behavior of the men in the F-M dyad type?

How does the participants’ behavior differ across the three dyad types?

How does the participants’ behavior differ across the three dyad types? Here are

the differences that we found in Ronen Cuperman’s study:

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Behavioral measure

F-F dyads

F-M dyads

M-M dyads

% of second-person pronouns used

16%

22%

18%

Number of verbal acknowledgements

13.2

10.8

7.5

Number of smiles/laughs

14.0

10.7

9.61

Number of mutual gazes

29.7

19.8

18.9

Duration of directed gazes

132.3

97.1

78.4

Duration of mutual gazes

60.8

34.0

25.1

Table 3.1. Average (mean) scores on various interaction behaviors in the F-F, F-M, and M-M dyad types.4

As you can see, the warmest and most involving of these initial interactions were

indeed the ones between two women. On average, the members of these F-F dyads smiled,

laughed, looked at each other more, and acknowledged each other’s comments more, than

did the members of the M-M dyads. But notice that the interactions in the F-M dyads

weren’t, on average, the worst. They were clearly less warm and involving than those of

the F-F dyads, but they were slightly more warm and involving than those of the M-M

dyads.

4 In this table, and in all other tables in this book in which the means for interaction behaviors are reported,

the largest mean in each row is significantly different from the smallest one. I’m not going to be obsessive about reporting all of the possible mean comparisons.

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These data suggest that if the interactions between men and women seem bad to

many would-be aphorists, we should ask them “Bad in relation to what?” In relation to

female-female interactions they don’t look so good, but in relation to male-male

interactions they don’t look so bad.

How does the behavior of women differ in the F-F and F-M dyad types?

If the interactions in F-M dyads are less warm and involving than the interactions in

F-F dyads, who is primarily responsible for that: the male members of the F-M dyads or

their female partners?

At first glance, the data in Ronen’s study seemed to pin the responsibility on the

male partners. When we compared the behavior of the women in the F-F dyads with the

women in the F-M dyads, we found that the women in the F-F dyads looked at their female

partners much longer (an average of 132.3 seconds) than the women in the F-M dyads

looked at their male partners (an average of only 86.3 seconds).5 In addition, the women in

the F-F dyads reported liking their female partners significantly more (an average rating of

7.6 on a 10-point scale) than the women in the F-M dyads reported liking their male

partners (an average rating of 6.4).6 What’s going on here? As interaction partners, were

the men simply less likable and less deserving of attention than the women?

5 Whenever explicit comparisons between means are noted in a narrative format, it can safely be assumed that these particular means are significantly different. 6The men were not similarly biased. The men in the F-M dyads liked their female partners nearly as much (an average rating of 6.8) as the men in the M-M dyads liked their male partners (an average rating of 7.2).

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How does the behavior of men differ in the M-M and F-M dyad types?

That’s one possibility. However, other data suggest that it’s not that simple. When

we compared the behavior of the men in the M-M dyads with the men in the F-M dyads, we

found that the second group of men seemed to be the more interested and responsive

interaction partners. Specifically, the men in the F-M dyads asked their female partners

more questions (an average of 8.0) than the men in the M-M dyads asked their male

partners (an average of 5.1). The men in the F-M dyads also acknowledged their female

partners’ comments more often (an average of 11.6 times) than the men in the M-M dyads

acknowledged their male partners’ comments (an average of 7.5 times). Finally, the men in

the F-M dyads used a smaller percentage of third-person pronouns in their conversation

(18%) than the men in the M-M dyads did (23%). This behavior often signals a desire to

“personalize” the interaction by using third-person pronouns significantly less and first-

and second-person pronouns significantly more.

All of these additional findings suggest that the men in the F-M dyads were not

behaving in a way that made them unlikable and undeserving of their partner’s attention.

Instead, they appeared to be making a genuine effort to acknowledge and get to know their

female partners.

How does the behavior of the women and the men differ in the F-M dyad type?

This same conclusion is suggested by differences in how the women and the men in

the F-M dyads responded to certain items on the post-interaction questionnaire. The male

dyad members felt that the interaction was involving (an average rating of 7.0), thought

that their female partners also felt that the interaction was involving (an average rating of

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6.8), and believed that their female partners had a relatively strong need to communicate

with them (an average rating of 6.7). However, the female partners rated the interaction as

significantly less involving (an average rating of 6.0), believed that their male partners also

found it less involving (an average rating of 5.7), and believed that their male partners had

a relatively weak need to communicate with them (an average rating of 5.4). These data

suggest that the men—who were “elevating their game” in terms of being interested and

responsive—were not getting much credit from their female partners.

Interpreting these results

But why weren’t they? One might try to argue that the women in the F-M dyads

thought that their male partners were “coming on too strong” or were “trying too hard,”

and that they might have had an ulterior (that is, sexual) motive for doing so. However,

that interpretation simply isn’t supported by the women’s perceptions that the interactions

with their male partners were relatively uninvolving and that their male partners did not

appear to feel a particularly strong need to communicate with them. These findings lead

me to propose a different interpretation that better accounts for the entire pattern of data:

the women in the F-M dyads noticed that their interactions were relatively uninvolving (i.e.,

less involving than those of F-F dyads), but failed to recognize and appreciate the genuine

effort that their male partners were making.

Is this some kind of sexist, misogynist interpretation I’m proposing? Only if all of

the responsibility rests with the women—and I doubt that it does. Instead, I find it more

plausible to believe that both the women and the men in the F-M dyads failed to

understand each other sufficiently.

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What did the women in the F-M dyads fail to understand? I think they failed to

consider that their male partners were accustomed to having relatively non-warm and

uninvolving interactions with partners of the same sex (other men). In consequence, the

women also failed to realize that their new male acquaintances were making a genuine

effort to try to have warmer and more involving interactions with them. Not thinking about

how low the “baseline” level of involvement is in men’s same-sex interactions, the women

didn’t recognize or appreciate the fact that the men were making a real effort to “meet

them halfway.” For the women, it probably seemed like much less than halfway—and

certainly not enough to like, or even to take much interest in, their male partners.

What did the men in the F-M dyads fail to understand? I think they failed to

understand that their attempts to relate differently to a female stranger than to a male

stranger (by asking more questions, providing more verbal acknowledgements, and

reducing their references to third parties) wouldn’t be noticed by their female partners as

long as the overall level of interactional involvement remained low. Although the men felt

that the interactions were relatively involving and believed that their female partners felt

the same way, this second belief was incorrect. The women didn’t find these interactions to

be very involving, and they also didn’t seem to find much reason to regard their male

partners as likable or even to look at them much.

Does this mean that men are from one planet and women are from another? I don’t

see any reason to go that far. It’s enough to say that the different expectations that men

and women develop in their same-sex interactions can lead them to interpret what

happens in “opposite sex “interactions in distinctly different ways. Given the

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misunderstanding that seems to develop on both sides, the surprising finding is not that

the F-M dyads don’t have the best initial interactions, but that they don’t have the worst.

The dubious honor of having the worst initial interactions belongs, of course, to the

M-M dyads. But why? Why should their overall level of interactional involvement be so

low? Are male strangers just poorly socialized oafs who are unable to get in sync with each

other? Are they oblivious to the norms that govern socially appropriate behavior?

Far from it. As surprising and counter-intuitive as it may sound, there is evidence

that male strangers are actually more in sync with their interaction partners than female

strangers are. And, by implication, there is evidence that male strangers are at least as

sensitive to the norms governing socially appropriate behavior as female strangers are.

This evidence comes from a study of the “intersubjective themes” that are evident in the

initial interactions of M-M and F-F dyads. In this study, I and my colleagues William Tooke,

Linda Stinson, Vickie Lau Baker, and Victor Bissonnette examined not only the dyad

members’ overt behavior but their covert thoughts and feelings as well.7

Capturing the content of dyad members’ thoughts and feelings is something we do

fairly often in our research. After each interaction has been videotaped, the dyad members

are seated in separate cubicles where they each view a copy of the videotaped interaction

in which they have just participated. Their task is to stop the tape at the points where they

7 Ickes, W., Tooke, W., Stinson, L., Baker, V.L., and Bissonnette, V. (1988). Naturalistic social cognition: Intersubjectivity in same-sex dyads. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 12, 58-84.

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distinctly remember having had a particular thought or feeling, and to write down the

content of each thought or feeling on forms provided for that purpose.

When both dyad members have recorded all of the thoughts and feelings they

remembered having had during their interaction together, the thought-feeling data are

subsequently coded by trained raters. These raters decide whether each recorded entry is

a thought or a feeling; whether it is positive, neutral, or negative in its emotional tone; and

whether it is about oneself (self-focused) or one’s interaction partner (partner-focused).

The numbers of thoughts or feelings in each of these categories are then tallied, and the

similarity between the two partners’ scores on each of the resulting measures is then

measured using a statistic called the intraclass correlation. These intraclass correlations

reveal the extent to which various aspects of the partners’ subjective experiences during

the interaction were similar (positive correlations) or dissimilar (negative correlations).

When we computed the average intraclass correlations in thought-feeling content

for the M-M and F-F dyads that are compared in Table 3.2, we discovered that the

subjective experience of the male strangers was more similar than that of the female

strangers. The difference between the men and the women was strongly evident in the

total number of feelings and the total number of positive thoughts and feelings they

reported, with the men being significantly more “in sync” with each other than the women

were. The men’s greater subjective synchrony was also evident in the number of self- and

partner-focused thoughts and feelings they reported, and in the total number of thoughts

they reported. To put it simply, the male strangers seemed to be more cognitively and

emotionally attuned to each other than the female strangers were.

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Thought-feeling measure

M-M dyads

F-F dyads

# thoughts

.26

-.02

# feelings

.32

-.27

# positive thoughts or feelings

.36

.04

# neutral thoughts or feelings

.25

.11

# negative thoughts or feelings

.35

.20

# self-focused thoughts or feelings

.16

-.18

# partner-focused thoughts or feelings

.36

.14

Table 3.2. Average intraclass correlations of different categories of thought-feeling content for

M-M and F-F dyads in two samples. Adapted from data reported by Ickes, Tooke, Stinson, Baker,

and Bissonnette (1988).

Our initial impulse might be to resist this conclusion, and to argue that it simply

doesn’t make sense. After all, women are supposed to be more attuned to each other than

men are—aren’t they? My answer to this question is: Not in initial interactions, they

aren’t.

In initial interactions, there are two plausible reasons why the men’s thoughts and

feelings should be more in sync than the women’s. Both of these reasons reflect the men’s

greater concern about keeping their initial interaction from becoming too warm and

involving. For female strangers, this issue isn’t much of a concern; their stereotyped

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gender role deems it acceptable, and even desirable, for them to have emotionally warm

and involving interactions with each other. For male strangers, however, the expression of

too much warmth and involvement in an initial interaction can result in two negative

consequences, both of which are strongly discouraged by the expectations associated with

the men’s stereotyped gender role.

The first negative consequence is that a man who expresses “too much” warmth and

involvement in an initial interaction with a male stranger may be perceived as the weaker,

more vulnerable, and lower-status member of the pair. As the comparative psychologist

D.W. Rajecki has noted, human males—like primate males more generally—are motivated

from their very earliest encounter to determine their relative status and dominance vis-à-

vis each other,8 and being “too” warm and accommodating early on can often work to the

kinder and gentler male’s disadvantage.

The second negative consequence is, for heterosexual males, even more

undesirable: being perceived as “too” warm and accepting—and then having that behavior

interpreted as evidence of homosexual interest.9 Because most heterosexual males are

highly motivated to avoid any appearance of being homosexual, 10 11 they have a second

reason to try to keep their initial interaction with a strange male from becoming too

emotionally warm and involving.

8 Rajecki, D.W. (1985). Predictability and control in relationships: A perspective from animal behavior. In W. Ickes (Ed.), Compatible and incompatible relationships (pp. 11-31). New York: Springer-Verlag. 9 Monroe, M., Baker, R.C., and Roll, S. (1997). The relationship of homophobia to intimacy in heterosexual men. Journal of Homosexuality, 33, 23-37. 10 Bosson, J.K., Taylor, J.N., and Prewitt-Freilino, J.L. (2006). Gender role violations and identity misclassification: The roles of audience and actor variables. Sex Roles, 55, 13-24. 11 Davies, M. (2004). Correlates of negative attitudes toward gay men: Sexism, male role norms, and male sexuality. Journal of Sex Research, 41, 259-266.

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Given this motivation, and the two concerns that drive it, men adhere to the

prescriptions of their gender-role stereotype at least as strongly as women adhere to the

prescriptions of theirs. In the men’s case, however, this sensitivity to the norms of “social

appropriateness” results in the low level of interactional involvement that we previously

saw in the right-hand column of Table 3.1. This low level of interactional involvement was

clearly evident in the data reported by Ickes, Tooke, Stinson, Baker and Bissonnette. Their

data showed that the members of the M-M dyads smiled and looked at each other

significantly less, and acknowledged each other’s comments significantly less, than did the

members of the F-F dyads. In addition, the members of the M-M dyads talked somewhat

less and used significantly fewer hand gestures than did the members of the F-F dyads.

The men’s motives for keeping their level of interactional involvement low also help

to explain why the male strangers were more attuned to the content of each other’s

thoughts and feelings than the female strangers were (Table 3.2). By monitoring each

other closely and being more attuned to each other’s feelings, the male strangers could

more effectively regulate and constrain their levels of emotional and interactional

involvement. If this interpretation is correct, male strangers intentionally limit their

involvement in ways that female strangers do not. Male strangers are, therefore, neither

insensitive to the relevant social norms nor incapable of getting “in sync” with each other.

In fact, just the opposite is true.

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We have just taken a closer look at the initial interactions of M-M dyads in order to

help us solve the puzzle of why their average level of interactional involvement is so low.

Let’s now take a closer look at the initial interactions of F-M dyads, where a different puzzle

presents itself.

If you were paying attention to the findings that emerged in Ronen Cuperman’s

study of F-F, F-M, and M-M dyads, you may have noticed that I described the women and

the men in the F-M dyads as differing only in their responses to questions about how

involving their interaction was and how much they believed their partners needed to

communicate with them. I didn’t go on to talk about significant differences in the men’s

and women’s interaction behavior, and you might have wondered why I didn’t. The reason

is simple: there weren’t any such differences.

What? How can that be true? Aren’t men and women supposed to come from

“different planets” and act in very different ways when they first encounter each other?

That’s one person’s well-publicized opinion, of course,12 but it’s not what the actual

research findings show. In general, the research findings show that men and women are

far more similar than different in their interaction behavior.

For example, in our studies of initial F-M interactions, we have found that the only

consistent behavioral difference between the male and female partners is that the men

display more “open” and relaxed body postures than the women do. And that’s it. With

regard to the behaviors that are most indicative of interactional involvement, the male and

12 Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: A practical guide for improving communication and getting what you want in your relationships. New York: HarperCollins.

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female strangers in F-M dyads are remarkably similar. They talk, look, and gesture to about

the same extent, and they also ask each other a similar number of questions and provide

each other with a similar number of verbal acknowledgements. The women in F-M dyads

do tend to smile and laugh a bit more than the men, but the difference is often not a

statistically significant one.13

Does this mean that men and women aren’t from “different planets” after all? As

you can probably tell, I think the “different planets” idea is an exaggeration at best and a

gross distortion at worst. According to the relevant research findings, the social behavior

of men and women is much more similar than different. This point is underscored in the

following quote from communication researchers Daniel Canary and Tara Emmers-

Sommer:

In 1990, Deborah Tannen published her widely accepted quasi-academic

book, You Just Don’t Understand, wherein men and women were cast as

though they come from different cultures . . . . Then John Gray (1992)

exaggerated sex differences even further with the analogy that men are from

Mars and women are from Venus, a thought that was inspired by the film E.T.

(Gleick, 1997). The “nonfiction” portrayals by Tannen and Gray of men’s and

women’s communication remained best sellers for years.

[However], most of the research does not support the view that men and

women come from separate cultures, let alone separate worlds. Long-

13 Gender differences in self-disclosure also tend to be slight and non-significant in F-M strangers’ interactions (Dindia and Allen, 1992). Moreover, because instances of touching or interrupting one’s partner are relatively rare in initial F-M interactions, gender differences in these behaviors are typically non-significant as well (see Aries, 1996; Hall and Veccia, 1990; James and Clark, 1993). Politeness norms for initial interactions are likely to be responsible for the low incidence of both interrupting and touching behavior.

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presumed differences in men’s and women’s interpersonal behaviors simply

do not reflect in the empirical research literature . . . . According to these

objective summaries, men and women are much more similar than different.

If men and women do originate from different cultures or worlds, they at

least speak the same language about 99% of the time.14

The reference to language in the final sentence of this quote is certainly appropriate,

but it raises an important issue that we haven’t considered yet. It reminds us that

interactions aren’t just about how much two people talk, look, smile, gesture, and ask each

other questions; they are also about how people use language during their conversations

together.

This brings us back to Deborah Tannen’s book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women

and Men in Conversation. In this book, Tannen argued, as had others before her,15 16 that

men regard conversations as “negotiations [for power] in which people try to achieve and

maintain the upper hand . . . and protect themselves from others’ attempts to put them

down and push them around,” whereas women regard conversations as “negotiations for

closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support, and to reach

consensus.”17 Tannen’s argument suggests that gender differences in F-M dyads really do

exist, but might take the form of differences in language use rather than in less-nuanced

behaviors such as the total amount of talking, looking, and gesturing.

14 Canary, D.J., and Emmers-Sommer, T.M., with Faulkner, S. (1997). Sex and gender differences in personal relationships. New York: The Guilford Press (pp. vi-vii). 15 Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and woman’s place. New York: Harper & Row. 16 Maltz, D.N., and Borker, R.A. (1982). A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In J.J. Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity (pp. 196-216). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 17 Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York: William Morrow (pp. 24-25).

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Instead of offering any “hard” research evidence to support her claims, Tannen

peppered her book with stories and anecdotes that were carefully chosen to illustrate her

points and advance her general argument. Some of these stories and anecdotes were taken

from linguistic case studies; others were taken from novels, short stories, and movie

scripts; and still others were invented by Tannen herself. Given the ease with which

entertaining examples can be selected or created to “support” any position one might want

to adopt, it is reasonable to ask whether Tannen’s general thesis (that men’s talk

emphasizes status whereas women’s talk emphasizes connection) survives a more rigorous

test.

One of the first attempts to provide such a test was organized by William Stiles, a

research psychologist at Miami University of Ohio whose career has been dedicated to the

study of how people use language in everyday conversation. In contrast to the linguistic

case studies that Tannen cited throughout her book, Stiles’s studies involve the

transcription, coding, and statistical analysis of larger numbers of conversations (typically,

20 to 40 of them). His standard method requires a set of trained raters to code the verbal

expressions of each partner into categories that capture the conversational functions that

these expressions serve. Of particular relevance to Deborah Tannen’s thesis are Stiles’s

categories of presumptuous and attentiveness.

Presumptuousness . . . measures the degree to which the speaker presumes

to know what the other’s experience is, was, will be, or ought to be (Stiles,

1992). Thus, presumptuousness has to do with being one up, with knowing

the other, with assuming that one is important to the other. In naturalistic

studies of encounters between people whose roles differ in status, the person

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higher in status role has consistently tended to be more presumptuous. For

example, relatively greater presumptuousness was shown by parents with

children . . . by psychotherapists with clients . . . by physicians with patients . .

. by attorneys with witnesses . . . by management representatives with labor

representatives . . . by professors with students . . . and by college seniors

with first-year students . . . .

Attentiveness . . . measures the degree to which a speaker’s utterances

concern the other person’s experience (Stiles, 1992). Thus, attentiveness has

to do with manifest interest in the other and attempts to ensure that the

other’s thoughts are expressed and considered in the conversation. In

naturalistic studies of interviews, one would expect interviewers to be

attentive, whereas interviewees would be informative . . . For example,

relatively greater attentiveness was shown by psychotherapists with clients .

. . by attorneys with witnesses . . . and by radio call-in program hosts with

callers . . . .18

A few years after Tannen’s book appeared, Bill Stiles contacted me and asked if he

could include the conversations from some of our dyadic interaction studies in a large-scale

project that would test two major hypotheses derived from Tannen’s argument. The first

hypothesis was that men, because of their greater concern with status and hierarchy,

should be more verbally presumptive than women. The second hypothesis was that

women, because of their greater desire for connection with others, should be more verbally

attentive than men.

18 Stiles, W.B., Lyall, L.M., Knight, D.P., Ickes, W., Waung, M., Lowry Hall, C., and Primeau, B.E. (1997). Gender differences in verbal presumptuousness and attentiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 759-772.

21

These hypotheses were both plausible, given Tannen’s argument. However, neither

hypothesis was supported in the two studies of initial F-M interactions that I contributed to

Stiles’s larger investigation. In neither study did the male and female strangers differ

significantly in their average levels of verbal presumptuousness or verbal attentiveness.

Instead of appearing to be from different cultures or different worlds, the men and women

who met and conversed in these studies appeared to be equal-status residents of the North

American sector of Planet Earth.

I began this chapter by stating that we would be dealing with two interrelated

questions. First, does the partners’ gender make a difference? And, second, if it does make

a difference, how is this difference expressed in the partners’ thoughts, feelings, and

interaction behavior? I immediately went on to note that the partners’ gender really does

make a difference in initial dyadic interactions, 19 and then talked at some length about

where these differences are evident (in comparisons made across the F-F, F-M, and M-M

dyad types) and where these differences aren’t evident (in comparisons of the male and

female partners within the F-M dyads). It is now time to review the entire pattern of

results.

Where gender differences are evident

The partners’ gender clearly does make a difference when we examine the effects of

the dyads’ gender composition. In general, the initial interactions of F-F dyads are warmer

19 See footnote 1.

22

and more involving than those of M-M dyads, with the female strangers smiling, laughing,

looking at each other more, and acknowledging each other’s comments more, than the male

strangers do. The substantially lower level of interactional involvement in the M-M dyads

appears to be intentional, and may reflect the men’s desire to avoid being perceived by

their partner in undesirable ways (i.e., as being the weaker, more vulnerable, and lower-

status member of the pair and/or as having homosexual intent).

Gender differences are also evident when the female members of the F-M dyads are

compared to their female counterparts in the F-F dyads. These comparisons reveal that

women who are paired with female partners not only look at them more, but also like them

more, than women who are paired with male partners. Are the male partners in these F-M

dyads behaving in objectionable ways? They don’t seem to be. In fact, when the male

members of the F-M dyads are compared to their male counterparts in the M-M dyads, they

appear to be making a genuine effort to better, more responsive interaction partners. They

ask their female partners more questions, acknowledge more of their comments, and use a

higher ratio of first- and second-person to third-person pronouns than the men with male

partners do.

Despite this effort, however, the men and women in the F-M dyads perceive their

interactions differently. The men, who are presumably aware that they are trying to be

warmer and more responsive partners than they would in M-M interactions, regard these

F-M interactions as relatively involving and believe that their female partners must feel

that same way. But they are wrong in that belief. On the other hand, the women, who are

presumably aware that the F-M interactions are less involving than F-F interactions, rate

23

them as uninvolving and believe that their male partners must feel the same way. But they

are wrong in that belief, and they also don’t appear to recognize—let alone appreciate—

their male partners’ effort to “try to meet them halfway.”

Where gender differences aren’t evident

Surprisingly, perhaps, the partners’ gender makes relatively little difference in

initial F-M interactions. When male and female strangers interact for the first time, they

differ in their body postures (the men’s body postures are more relaxed and expansive),

but are remarkably similar in their interaction behavior. They talk, look, and gesture to

about the same extent; they ask each other a similar number of questions; they provide

each other with a similar number of verbal acknowledgements; and they self-disclose to

about the same degree. They do not differ in how much they interrupt each other, or in

their levels of verbal presumptuousness or verbal attentiveness. The women in F-M dyads

do tend to smile and laugh a bit more than the men, but the difference is often not a

statistically significant one.

What do we see in this pattern?

The general outline of this pattern of gender differences and non-differences in

initial interactions has been evident for many years. For example, I noted in 1982 that

most of the gender differences in initial interactions are found when comparing F-F dyads

with M-M dyads, whereas hardly any are found when comparing the male and female

members of F-M dyads.20 Similarly, Elizabeth Aries wrote in 1987 that “Gender differences

20

Ickes, W. (1982). A basic paradigm for the study of personality, roles, and social behavior. In W. Ickes and E.S.

Knowles (Eds.), Personality, roles, and social behavior (pp. 305-341). See page 322.

24

are most pronounced in single-sex interactions and are reduced in cross-sex encounters.”21

She immediately followed up that insightful quote with an even more telling one: “If these

gender differences were simply expressions of power and status, one would expect them to

be maximized in male-female encounters (Hall, 1984).”

I agree with this statement. Indeed, based on the data from Ronen Cuperman’s

study, I would go even further. I believe that Ronen’s data portray male dyad members in a

more sympathetic way than many previous reviews of men’s interaction behavior 22 would

suggest. In my opinion, his data reveal men who are struggling to meet the expectations

that apply to them in interactions with same-sex versus opposite-sex strangers. They are

men who are less concerned about status and power than with establishing the “right” level

of warmth and involvement with their new interaction partner and trying to protect

themselves from being evaluated negatively.

21

Aries, E. (1987). Gender and communication. In P. Shaver and C. Hendrick (Eds.), Review of Personality and

Social Psychology, Vol. 7, Sex and Gender (pp. 149-176). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. See page 161. 22

In particular, those written by authors with an avowedly feminist perspective.

25

Recommended readings

Aries, E. (1996). Men and women in interaction: Reconsidering the differences. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Bosson, J.K., Taylor, J.N., and Prewitt-Freilino, J.L. (2006). Gender role violations and

identity misclassification: The roles of audience and actor variables. Sex Roles, 55,

13-24.

Canary, D.J., and Emmers-Sommer, T.M., with Faulkner, S. (1997). Sex and gender

differences in personal relationships. New York: The Guilford Press.

Davies, M. (2004). Correlates of negative attitudes toward gay men: Sexism, male role

norms, and male sexuality. Journal of Sex Research, 41, 259-266.

Dindia, K., & Allen, M. (1992). Sex differences in self-disclosure: A meta-analysis.

Psychological Bulletin, 112,106-124.

Hall, J.A., and Veccia, E.M. (1990). More “touching” observations: New insights on men,

women, and interpersonal touch. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59.

1155-1162.

Ickes, W., Tooke, W., Stinson, L., Baker, V.L., and Bissonnette, V. (1988). Naturalistic social

cognition: Intersubjectivity in same-sex dyads. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 12,

58-84.

James, D., & Clarke, S. (1993). Women, men, and interruptions. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Gender

and conversational interaction (pp. 231-280). New York: Oxford University Press.

26

Monroe, M., Baker, R.C., and Roll, S. (1997). The relationship of homophobia to intimacy in

heterosexual men. Journal of Homosexuality, 33, 23-37.

Rajecki, D.W. (1985). Predictability and control in relationships: A perspective from animal

behavior. In W. Ickes (Ed.), Compatible and incompatible relationships (pp. 11-31).

New York: Springer-Verlag.

Stiles, W.B., Lyall, L.M., Knight, D.P., Ickes, W., Waung, M., Lowry Hall, C., and Primeau, B.E.

(1997). Gender differences in verbal presumptuousness and attentiveness.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 759-772.

27