Santa Cruz, CA, USA. A Gallup poll recently confirmed that men and women both believe that it is women who are most likely to possess the gift of gab.

 

Some even believe that women are biologically built for conversation.

 

A previous Media Ranger (MR) column addressed this subject when reporting on research led by Matthias R. Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology (University of Arizona).

 

That article, Tracking The Blah Blah Blah Of Men And Women, admired the empirical methods used to actually record what people say and what words they use to say it. But MR wondered about the limitations. And, what about content?

 

A new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Review is the latest challenge to the widespread belief that women talk more than men. This time researchers at the University of California studied the existing studies and came up with interesting, but unpersuasive, results.

 

It is the same situation: interesting results, serious limitations, and nobody takes to the field and actually listens to grown-up men and women carry on with each other. Media Ranger wonders why if real people can talk to each other, why can't the researchers? Or is it just an Arizona vs. California thing? And, what about content?

 

Anyway, down to cases. The new study consists of a set of meta-analyses conducted by Campbell Leaper and Melanie Ayres at the University of California. They studied the differences between men and women regarding talkativeness.

The authors found a small but statistically reliable tendency for men to be more talkative than women overall — especially in certain contexts, such as when they were conversing with their wives or with strangers. Women talked more to their children and to their college classmates.

 

The type of speech was also explored in the analyses, which looked at verbal behavior in a wide variety of contexts. The researchers discovered that, with strangers, women were generally more talkative when it came to using speech to affirm her connection to the listener, while men’s speech focused more on an attempt to influence the listener.

 

With close friends and family, however, there was very little difference

between genders in the amount of speech.

 

“These findings compellingly debunk simplistic stereotypes about gender differences in language use,” conclude Leaper and Ayres.

 

OK, let's go with that. How do the authors propose to control all the social variables, so that both men and women are in identical social contexts and can escape the dread onus of social conditioning? Or, have the authors simply assumed they know the affect of social factors and can account for their influence.

 

The authors themselves say that "Depending on particular moderators, more meaningful effect sizes (d > .2) occurred for each language construct." This is where methodological considerations come into play. To what extent can studies conducted under widely different circumstances be compared? What method was used to ensure that the original data collection efforts had validity in the first place? So far at least, the researchers are silent on those questions.

 

The authors go on: “The notion that the female brain is built to systematically out-talk men is hard to square with the finding that gender differences appear and disappear, depending on the interaction context. The results of the meta-analyses bolster arguments for social rather than strong biological influences of gender differences in language use.”

 

Now, Media Ranger isn't pleading the case one way or another. And the study authors bolstered their waffling by saying that "results of the meta-analyses bolster arguments for social rather than strong biological influences".

 

Well, ok again. It is the result of the meta-analyses. But since the analyses did not look at the underlying neurobiological situation, how would one know?

 

Empiricism matters. Why not combine a meta-analysis with actual physicality, such as discussed in the TS-Si.org article, Tracking The Blah Blah Blah Of Men And Women. Then, take a look at the findings of Neuroscience. Roll up all that stuff and we are in business.

 

And while you all are at it, how about talking to some actual, grown-up men and women? College students and restricted age groupings might give way to children and the middle-aged (at least).

 

While you are at it, visit a neighborhood block party or barbecue, the break room in an auto plant, maybe even a church social.

 

You know, real people outside of academe.

 

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A Meta-Analytic Review of Gender Variations in Adults' Language Use: Talkativeness, Affiliative Speech, and Assertive Speech. Campbell Leaper and Melanie M. Ayres. Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 11, No. 4, 328-363 (2007). DOI: 10.1177/1088868307302221.

 

Abstract. Three separate sets of meta-analyses were conducted of studies testing for gender differences in adults' talkativeness, affiliative speech, and assertive speech. Across independent samples, statistically significant but negligible average effects sizes were obtained with all three language constructs: Contrary to the prediction, men were more talkative (d = —.14) than were women. As expected, men used more assertive speech (d = .09), whereas women used more affiliative speech (d = .12). In addition, 17 moderator variables were tested that included aspects of the interactive context (e.g., familiarity, gender composition, activity), measurement qualities (e.g., operational definition, observation length), and publication characteristics (e.g., author gender, publication source). Depending on particular moderators, more meaningful effect sizes (d > .2) occurred for each language construct. In addition, the direction of some gender differences was significantly reversed under particular conditions. The results are interpreted in relation to social-constructionist, socialization, and biological interpretations of gender-related variations in social behavior.

 

 

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