The article that I focus on for this Exploring the Field talks about the difference in interruptive behavior and status differences in group conversations. Because men are viewed as being in positions of dominance, Smith-Lovin & Brody hypothesized that men will interrupt most often, regardless of who they are talking to. Researchers found that interruptions were not as common as they had expected. They found that males interrupt females but not other males. Females were found to interrupt equally for both males and females. The results show that men may interrupt more often due to expectation states framework which suggests that males use their status as a status diffentiation and therefore attempt to dominate men. Women, on the other hand, are inferior to men and therefore interrupt equally, knowing that they hold this position.
Although this article looks specifically at group conversations, I believe that it will extend to my experiment even between 2-person conversations. I am still in the process of deciding on a clear topic however I am interested in extending a previous comp by looking just at male participants (the previous, just female). After filling out a questionairre related to gender, I will see a range of gender associations within men and will be able to see behaviors across gender. So this article will help me in the process by understanding the role that sex plays in language behavior. I will look at gender specifically to see if the same is true across gender. If this is the case I would find that men who identify as more masculine will interrupt men who identify as more feminine.
Another aspect of my project that I need to consider is the situation I am going to present to the participants. As this article has said, interruptions are not as common in conversations as one might think. Because of this I have to set up a situation in which is going to elicit strong opinions so that interruptions can occur. With a good situation or question and a time restraint, the occurance of interruptions is greater.
Smith-Lovin, L. & Brody, C. (1989). Interruptions in group discussions. The effects of gender and group compositon. American Sociological Review, 54, 424-435.
Comments (1)
You know, another interesting thing to do might be to have a female and a male confederate and look at the interruptive behavior of male participants assigned to work with one or the other on some task. Katie was very excited to hear you were continuing "the charge" on this topic and would be happy to talk to you if you'd like. She also remembered that you were interested in learning about speech pathology programs. She's entering her second year in the program and said she would certainly talk with you about it if you'd like.
Posted by Prof Knupsky | April 28, 2009 9:17 AM
Posted on April 28, 2009 09:17