Men vs. Women Interruptions

1. Men vs. WomenInterruptions Janyce Osborne Zoe Anthony Rahyl

2. Introduction • Research Question: • In casual coed conversations do women interrupt more often than men? What are the purposes and effects of these interruptions?

3. Hypothesis • We predict that women will interrupt more often than men during coed conversations.

4. Background Information • James C. Orcutt and Dianne L. Mennella found through an experiment that, “men initiated the vast majority of interruptions in dyadic conversations between men and women recorded in natural settings (96%) and between previously unacquainted pairs in a laboratory setting (75%)”(Orcutt and Mennella, 60). They studied a man and a women and how many times one would interrupt the other. Based off the research they found it seems that the man interrupted more than the women in different situations. We will use this source to demonstrate how men interrupt more than women. We have decided on changing our hypothesis to men interrupting more than women because most of our sources point to men interrupting more. This source helps prove our new hypothesis and hope to record the different types of conversation. • In this short three-page description of Gender-Related Patterns in the Classroom, the author Deborah Tannen, he talks about how there is a distinct difference of overlapping and interruptions when referring to conversations with multiple speakers. He explains this with an example of how a second speaker may “overlap” the first speaker to add enthusiasm or suspense and so on. He also talked about how in it is proven that men interrupt women more often in co-ed conversation but when it is all men or all women, women tend to interrupt more often. He also talks about other studies of how men and women use very different word choice when teaching. He said women are more assertive than male teachers and give more direct orders while male teachers kind of float around some of their topics. 

5. Methods • Data Collection • We recorded conversation • Tally the amount of boy vs. girls who interrupted • We choose these methods because we could go back and see if we missed any and wrote down what they said. • We asked someone why thy had interrupted. • Include pictures or audio clips of the data.

6. Results • Logical ways we categorize our data. • Bar graphs

7. Problems and Issues • What we encountered • Data: • We could of miscount the number of times someone interrupted. • We had technical issues on our data • Analysis • If we did miscount our analysis would not be correct.

8. Evaluate Success of Methodology • Do you think that you current methods are a good choice for our topic • Why or why not • What kind of refinements would have helped

9. Predictions for a Full-Scale Study • One major thing we would change that can work on that scale • Predict the results

10. Implications, Discussion, and Conclusion • What did the data show us. • Whether the hypothesis refuted or supported the data

11. Bibliography • Orcutt, J.D., & Mennella, D.L. (1995). Gender and Perceptions of Interruption as Intrusive Talk An Experimental Analysis and Reply to Criticism.  Symbolic Interaction, 18, 59-72 • Tannen, D., Johnson, D., (1996). Gender in Research on Language: Researching Gender-Related Patterns in Classroom Discourse. TESLOW Quarterly, 30.