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Meta-Analyses of Gender Effects on Conversational Interruption: Who, What, When, Where, and How

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Abstract

Meta-analyses of 43 published studies comparingadult women's and men's interruptions duringconversations were conducted. Combined significancelevels and combined effect sizes were analyzed. Acrossstudies, men were significantly more likely than womento use interruptions. This difference, however, wasassociated with a negligible effect size (d = .15). Amore substantial effect size (d = .33) was found when studies looking specifically at intrusive typesof interruption were analyzed separately. Othermoderator variables were found to be related to gendereffects on the use of intrusive interruptions. Most notably, reports of gender differences inintrusive interruptions were more likely and larger inmagnitude when either women (versus men) were firstauthors, participants were observed in naturalistic(versus laboratory) settings, or participants wereobserved interacting in groups of three or more persons(versus in dyads). These results lend support to acontextual-interactive model of gender that emphasizes the importance of situational moderators ongender-related variations in social behavior.

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  1. Kristin J. Anderson
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  2. Campbell Leaper
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Anderson, K.J., Leaper, C. Meta-Analyses of Gender Effects on Conversational Interruption: Who, What, When, Where, and How. Sex Roles 39, 225–252 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018802521676

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