Gender and Speech

There are differences between how men and women communicate, but they are not what you might expect, a new study finds:

Participants were categorized as facilitative or nonfacilitative, and results indicated that their conversational partners responded to them in a systematic way regardless of gender. Over time, however, women and men shifted their speech towards gendered patterns. Men's talk increased, their utterances became longer, and they asked fewer questions of their partners. Women increased their use of minimal responses, reduced the amount they spoke, and asked more questions. Over time, women and men's language became more clearly differentiated.