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 Salience

Author: Palomares, N.A.

Description: 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).

Subject Headings: Gender identity; Social cognition; Social identity; Gendered communication; Expertise; Computer-mediated communication; Email; Message production; Stereotypes; Prototypes; Tentative language

Publication year: 2009

Journal or book title: Communication Research

Volume: 36

Issue: 4

Pages: 538-560

Find the full text: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093650209333034

Find more like this one (cited by): https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=13013474418259769529&as_sdt=1000005&sciodt=0,16&hl=en

Type: Journal Article

Serial number: 2546