Do men and women communicate differently? If so, how?

Answer 1

Interesting question! :-)

Although there have been many books written about this Venus-Mars debates. I honestly don't think we communicate differently.

Other say that we communicate differently because of the way our brains are wired. Where women are more verbal and men are more talented in visual-spatial. BUT, these are mental aspects that can be developed with training, so I ask myself if we are not just comfortable repeating some kind of stereotype about these assumed difference. (yes I have seen documentaries where it is stated that the female left side of the brain has more communication with the right side), but...the brain is a muscle that can be trained IMO

Communication varies from person to person. Do we communicate better with men? or with women? I just can talk about my own point of view, but for me, it depends. There are men with whom I have fantastic communication, and with some women I just feel there is a wall, and the other way around. I think this depends in so many factors from education, personality, own experiences in life, age, culture...

There is an interesting article about a book that touches this topic:

Do women and men really speak so differently?

In 2005, an article appeared in the journal American Psychologist with the title The Gender Similarities Hypothesis. This title stood out as unusual, because, as we have seen, the aim of most research studies is to find differences rather than similarities between men and women. Yet, as the article's author Janet S Hyde pointed out, on closer inspection, the results of these studies very often show more similarity than difference.

Hyde is a psychologist who specialises in "meta-analysis", a statistical technique that allows the analyst to collate many different research findings and draw overall conclusions from them. Scientists believe that one study on its own does not show anything: results are only considered reliable if a number of different studies have replicated them. Suppose that the question is: who interrupts more, men or women? Some studies will have found that men interrupt more, others that women do, and others may have found no significant difference. In some studies the reported gender difference will be large, while in others it will be much smaller. The number of people whose behaviour was investigated will also vary from study to study. Meta-analysis enables you to aggregate the various results, controlling for things that make them difficult to compare directly, and calculate the overall effect of gender on interruption.

Hyde used this technique to review a large number of studies concerned with all kinds of putative male-female differences. In Table 1, I have extracted the results for just those studies that dealt with gender differences in linguistic and communicative behaviour.

To read this table you need to know that "d" is the formula indicating the size of the overall gender difference: minus values for "d" indicate that females are ahead of males, whereas plus values indicate that males are ahead of females.

Click here for the table on Gender differences in verbal/communicative behaviour adapted from Hyde, 'The Gender Similarities Hypothesis'.

So, for instance, the table tells us that when the findings of different studies are aggregated, the overall conclusion is that men interrupt more than women and women self-disclose more than men. However, the really interesting information is in the last column, which tells us whether the actual figure given for d indicates an effect that is very large, large, moderate, small, or close to zero. In almost every case, the overall difference made by gender is either small or close to zero. Two items, spelling accuracy and frequency of smiling, show a larger effect - but it is still only moderate.

There were a few areas in which Hyde did find that the effect of gender was large or very large. For instance, studies of aggression and of how far people can throw things have shown a considerable gap between the sexes (men are more aggressive and can throw further). But in studies of verbal abilities and behaviour, the differences were slight. This is not a new observation. In 1988 Hyde and her colleague Marcia Linn carried out a meta-analysis of research dealing specifically with gender differences in verbal ability. The conclusion they came to was that the difference between men and women amounted to "about one-tenth of one standard deviation" - statistician-speak for "negligible". Another scholar who has considered this question, the linguist Jack Chambers, suggests that the degree of non-overlap in the abilities of male and female speakers in any given population is "about 0.25%". That's an overlap of 99.75%. It follows that for any array of verbal abilities found in an individual woman, there will almost certainly be a man with exactly the same array.

Chambers' reference to individual men and women points to another problem with generalisations such as "men interrupt more than women" or "women are more talkative than men". As well as underplaying their similarities, statements of the form "women do this and men do that" disguise the extent of the variation that exists within each gender group. Explaining why he had reacted with instant scepticism to the claim that women talk three times as much as men, Liberman predicted: "Whatever the average female versus male difference turns out to be, it will be small compared with the variation among women and among men." Focusing on the differences between men and women while ignoring the differences within them is extremely misleading but, unfortunately, all too common.

Do women really talk more than men?

If we are going to try to generalise about which sex talks more, a reliable way to do it is to observe both sexes in a single interaction, and measure their respective contributions. This cuts out extraneous variables that are likely to affect the amount of talk (like whether someone is spending their day at a Buddhist retreat or a high school reunion), and allows for a comparison of male and female behaviour under the same contextual conditions.

Numerous studies have been done using this approach, and while the results have been mixed, the commonest finding is that men talk more than women. One review of 56 research studies categorises their findings as shown here:

Answer 2

First of all, I doubt there is any mature adult here that doesn't already know that the process of communication is different for each sex. So maybe we should ask "why do men and women communicate differently? Is it related to the generic roles they play in society?

This is interesting. Because I am pretty certain the differences are uniformly encountered in all societies regardless of culture, race, religion etc. That would tend to suggest the differences may be directly attributed to biology, or at the very least the roles our biology prescribe for us to perform.

Shingoshi Dao

Answer 3

Yes. Women are very much in touch with their emotions, and even though it affects out logical thinking at times ( that is the way we are wired ), we have no problem talking about your feelings. Men on the other hand are trained to pretend not to experience emotions at all. They mostly ignore their own feelings along with ours. Now, we do have a couple of serious problems here:

1. We have different communication styles

2. We refuse to listen and learn from each other.

3. We are too stubborn to admit: we do have a problem.

Answer 4

Assuming that to be feminine is to be predominately nurturing and masculine to be predominately challenging, and that people, while distinguished by biological gender, can nonetheless exhibit either feminine or masculine feelings and behavior, I believe that "feminine" and "masculine" communicate differently, not "women" and "men". For example, in a given moment, a nurturing man can be more sensitive than a challenging woman, and thus communicate differently than a challenging man and nurturing woman.

Answer 5

Yes. Men use a system of communication known as writing. Women, on the other hand, write. Thus it is not possible for men and women to communicate.

Answer 6

because of society's effect on masculinity, men feel the need to not talk things out; hold back their tears, their complaining, their so called sensitivity that only a 'sissy' has. men therefore choose to hold everything in; not talking things out means their tough and that nothing bothers them. of course things bother them; men are just as sensitive as women most of the time!!! a man can cry just as much as a woman could!! but damn society and it's biased media and mythologies and stereotypes on gender roles and sexuality....grrrrrr.....damn them all to hell. THEY r the reasons why american culture is the way it is today. THEY r the reasons why men choose to remain silent in most situation (until they blow up and hit their wives or punch a wall in aggrivation) and why men pour their hearts out when any tny emotional need is present. it is culturally accepted by society for women to act this way; to be sensitive and show compassion for other people.

though some men has fought the negative affects of society and do cry, communicate and explain their feelings to other man and women. they r the powerful ones i think.

it is so sad.............................it is a fact that more women than men attend therapy of any sort. again, another example of women feeling confident about showing their feelings, whereas men would feel degraded or in other words, feminine.

Answer 7

Men tend to talk moreso than women in public situations; while women talk moreso at home.
Women are more likely to make eye-contact with each others; while men are more likely to turn away.
Girls and women tend to talk at length about one topic; while boys and men jump from topic to topic.
While listening females tend to interject with "mmm-hmmms"and "uh huhs"; while the men listen in silence.
Women are more inclined to express agreement and support; while men are more inclined to debate.