Page 109 - Effective group discussion theory and practice by Adams, Katherine H. Brilhart, John K. Galanes, Gloria J

92 Chapter 4

The same action can be evaluated differently depending on whether it was done by a
man or a woman in a group context. For example, there appears to be gender bias
regarding achievement, with men’s performance evaluated as better than their actual
performance. In addition, a study of intrusive interruptions in groups found that
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women who interrupted women were perceived as most dominant (in a negative
way) and men who interrupted women as least dominant. Speculation is that
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women are held to different standards and penalized more for intrusive interrup-
tions, which violate conversational norms. This study suggests that men can use
interruptions to control conversation without penalty because they are enacting a
more expected, dominant role. For example, during Capital Hill hearings into the
possible Russian interference in the 2017 presidential elections, Kamala Harris was
repeatedly interrupted by John McCain, leading to further discussion of the noted
tendency of men to interrupt women and, in the case a woman of color, to exert
control of the discussion.
Second, as with any cultural factor, if that factor is not relevant at the time, then
other factors will affect behavior more. For example, Canary and Spitzberg found in
their study of small group conflict that perceptions of member behavior rested on
factors other than sex. They concluded that the approach to conflict (e.g., using win–
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win strategies), not sex, determined effectiveness, with each sex perceived as being
equally effective when they used a more win– win strategy.
To complicate our generalizations, multiple factors— such as the nature of the
task, group composition, member roles, the behaviors used to cue status, and individ-
ual identity preferences— can mediate the influence of gender and sex. As with any
cultural variable, we need to stay away from either- or thinking— that is, thinking that
men are only this way and women are only that way, and one way is better. Grob and
her colleagues, in studying gender differences in small group communication con-
texts, make the case that when women and men are treated as being socialized into
two different cultures, we tend to stereotype men as instrumental/powerful and
women as affiliative/powerless. You can see this dichotomy in the previous themes:
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expressive/instrumental, task/relationship, and individual/group. However, there are
more similarities than differences between men and women.
Typically, women are stereotyped as using powerless speech, such as disclaim-
ers (e.g., “This could be wrong, but don’t we need to consider the cost before we
decide?”), and men as interrupting more and being interrupted less. However, Grob
and colleagues found that males and females interrupted others with similar fre-
quency and used disclaimers and tag questions similarly. In fact, they discovered
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that it was the males in the groups who were interrupted more. However, they also
found that when males interrupt others, they are more successful than when females
interrupt others.
What are we to make of all this? First, treating males and females only as mem-
bers of different gender cultures masks other cultural factors that affect communica-
tion (e.g., race, ethnicity, age, social class) and also masks the vast similarities.
Second, discussing male and female differences within an either- or perspective most
often traps us into destructive value judgments— we have to behave this or that way, but
not both ways. We know that both men and women communicate in many different

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