Gender & Communication Styles

This paper is an examination of the differences in communication styles, content, and method of interpretation that are the result of gender. As bestsellers such as John Gray's Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus point out, men and women frequently appear to be speaking entirely different languages, even when the vocabulary, syntax, and grammar they use are identical. This is partly the result of the inherent garbling that occurs within any communication process, but it is also because of essential differences between the two sexes. The contrasts in biology, anatomy, and genes provide the initial reason for gender miscommunication, while the influences of society account for the fundamentally contrasting ways in which men and women select the messages they send and transmit to others. Understanding these differences can offer fascinating insights into both the process of information transmission and the contrast between the sexes.

The act of transmitting information is complex and therefore naturally subject to errors, miscommunication, and a complete failure to communicate anything at all. The act begins with an information source. In the case of human communication, this is usually one individual, the encoder. This source decides on the information, or message, to be transmitted and the means, or channel, to be used. The channel can be anything from a spoken sentence to a mass media source, such as a television signal, a magazine article, or the Internet.

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hen decide on the appropriate response, or feedback, and begin the process of responding to the message by composing his or her own message. Considering the complexity of the communication process, theorists have sometimes expressed astonishment that any information ever is exchanged effectively among human beings. When the individuals are as different as members of two "opposite" sexes, true communication appears to be an almost impossible process. Charles K. West observes, "A person's frame of reference consists of both cognitive (or knowledge) and emotional components" (27), and the substance of these components can present significant stumbling blocks to the way that messages are selected, encoded, and decoded. In fact, the most important reasons for communication failures are especially evident when men and women attempt to communicate. Information transmission is most often interrupted by the assumption of similarity, language problems, nonverbal misinterpretations, preconceptions and stereotypes, and the tendency to evaluate. On the matter of similarity, Kathleen Kelley Reardon argues: For too long business academics and practitioners have been hesitant to acknowledge that men and women experience life, and there

Category: Psychology - G