The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Communication 231

language that have been studied are shown

in Table 7.2 (Colley et al., 2004; Guiller &

Durndell, 2006; Mulac, 2006; Newman et al.,

2008). Men are more likely than women

to refer to quantity in language (e.g., “That

house is as large as a football field”; “I had

to walk four times as far to school as my

son does”); to use directives; to make ref-

erence to themselves (i.e., use “I”); to use

judgment adjectives (e.g., “This is a ridicu-

lous assignment”); and to use offensive lan-

guage. Women are more likely than men to

use intensive adverbs (e.g., I “totally” agree,

so, really), refer to emotions in language, use

longer sentences, ask questions, use hedges

(e.g., sort of, kind of, maybe), use qualifiers,

offer theminimal response(e.g., uh-huh,

okay, nodding), and make exclamations.

Men are more likely to talk about sports and

to use assertive language, whereas women are

more likely to use social words in language

and express agreement. Some of these dif-

ferences can be found in the example inter-

actions I provided. However, I do not want

to overstate the differences. The fact of the

matter is that when communications written

by women and men are examined, people

typically cannot guess the sex of the writer

or speaker (Mulac, 2006). Thus again, there

must be more similarities than differences in

the language used by women and men.

To better understand the language

men and women use, we can classify it along

three dimensions (Mulac, Bradac & Gibbons,

2001). First, language is direct or indirect.

Men’s language is more direct because they

use directives; women’s language is more

indirect because they ask questions and use

qualifiers and hedges. Second, language can

be succinct or elaborative. Women’s longer

sentences and use of intensive adverbs make

their language more elaborative. Third, lan-

guage can be instrumental or affective. Men’s

reference to quantity is instrumental, and

women’s use of emotion words is affective.

Thus men’s language can be said to be in-

strumental, succinct, and directive, whereas

women’s language is affective, elaborative,

TABLE 7.2 FEATURES OF LANGUAGE

Feature Example Sex Difference

Self-reference “I” Male

Directive/imperative “Close the door” Male

Quantity terms “Five miles” Male

Intensive adverb “so”; “really” Female

Use emotions “afraid”; “loved” Female

Ask questions “Why?” Female

Hedges “sort of”; “kind of”; “maybe” Female

Exclamation “wow” Female

Sentence length longer sentences Female

Judgment adjectives “good”; “stupid” Male

Offensive language swear words Male

Minimal response “OK”; “uh-huh” Female

Qualifiers “unless” Female

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