Power displays between women and men in discussions of gender-linked tasks: A multichannel study.

We conducted a multichannel investigation of how gender-based familiarity moderates verbal and nonverbal behaviors between men and women.Undergraduates in 24 mixed-sex dyads discussed masculine, feminine, and non-gender-linked topics.The primary dependent variables were verbal and nonverbal behaviors related to social power.The verbal behaviors examined were speech initiations and total amount of speech; the nonverbal behaviors studied were visual behavior (while speaking and while listening), gesturing, chin thrusts, and smiling.As expected, systematic differences in the behaviors of men and women emerged on the gender-linked tasks.On the masculine task men displayed more verbal and nonverbal power-related behavior than did women.On the feminine task women exhibited more power than men on most of the verbal and nonverbal measures.Also as predicted, on the non-gender-linked task men displayed greater power both verbally and nonverbally than did women.There were two exceptions to this overall pattern.Across all conditions, women smiled more often than did men, and men had a higher frequency of chin thrusts than did women.In this study we investigated the communication of power between women and men.Social power concerns the ability to influence others or to control the outcomes of others (Ellyson & Dovidio, 1985).Power is positively related to, but not synonymous with, status and dominance.According to Berger, Wagner, and Zelditch (1985), recognition of status produces invidious social evaluations (in terms of differences in honor, respect, esteem, etc.) and both specific expectations (capacities to perform specified tasks, such as math problems, mechanical tasks, etc.) and general expectations (capacities which are not defined with respect to tasks, such as "intelligence").(pp.12-13) Thus, status typically implies power.Dominance, like power, relates to the ability to influence or control others, but it also involves "groupness" (Ellyson & Dovidio, 1985).Specifically, dominance concerns power relationships within a relatively enduring social organization.Thus, although ethological studies of interaction within primate living units may involve domi-