8 ms·

Your anecdote of your fuzzy memory is not research. When measurements are taken, there is a clear pattern: https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2017/01/03

by gpawl 9y ago

Your anecdote of your fuzzy memory is not research. When measurements are taken, there is a clear pattern: https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2017/01/03/gal-interrupted-why-men-interrupt-women-and-how-to-avert-this-in-the-workplace/#32635baf17c3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2017/01/03/gal-inte... https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-interrupted-more-by-male-justices-and-advocates https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-in... http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/03/19/google-chief-blasted-for-repeatedly-interrupting-female-government-official/ http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/03/19/google...

Harimwakairi 9y ago
Thanks for bringing data.
f4rker 9y ago
A few links to NY Times and Forbes is also not research. Whatever gender is in the minority will often be talked over.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Your fuzzy memory is not research so I quote the three top scientific magazines: Forbes, HBR [1] & NYT. (If you look in the articles, they quote studies with 20 participants. At university I would have been destroyed when making fundamental claims on a sample size of 20). And yes my gut feeling tells me women get interrupted more often. And from this comment you may assume I'm guilty of this, though my bad social habits probably interrupt men as often. [1] the magazine of business anecdotes.
- burkaman 9y ago
  Here's one with 216 participants, and a whole bunch of citations that might be interesting: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1046496404263728 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1046496404263728 Another one from 1989 with 186 participants: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250069045_Interruptions_in_Group_Discussions_The_Effects_of_Gender_and_Group_Composition https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250069045_Interrupt...
  - belorn 9y ago
    Please quote the exact number in those papers. The summery of the first do not specify the levels of women interrupting women or men interrupting men, explicitly focusing only on interaction between men and women. The other one only say that "both men and women exhibiting higher levels of interruption behavior in male-dominated groups". Citations is only as good as the ability it provide to verify a claim. Those do not do that as far as summery goes.
    - burkaman 9y ago
      I'm not trying to prove anything, it just sounded like people were interested in relevant research with higher sample sizes. The first says "The participants for this study included 216 university students". The second says "We systematically varied the sex composition of the six-person groups, [...] Data on 31 groups in all were collected." The second study directly addresses this discussion: "The odds of a male attempting to interrupt another male (.078) are less than one-half the odds of a male attempting to interrupt a female (.163). Females attempt to interrupt male and female speakers at essentially identical levels (odds of .146 and .141 respectively). In other words, men discriminate in their interruption attempts, interrupting women much more often than men. Women, on the other hand, do not discriminate; they attempt to interrupt men and women equally. Group composition does not appear to influence interruption attempts."
      - belorn 9y ago
        Interesting to see actually numbers. They imply that the one odd number here is the low rate of male attempting to interrupt another male, and that the natural base line should be around 0.1435 (assuming that the female variance of 0.0025 is the natural one for all humans). That changes the tone of the issue. A 0.0195 difference from the norm is tiny on the negative discrimination of men interrupting women if we compare it to the norm difference of 0.0655 as positive discrimination for men interrupting men. As a social issue of 13.6% negative discrimination vs 45.7% positive discrimination, its a good time to ask what we want to fix. Is it the negative 13.6%, which mean we want men to interrupt women at the same rate as women interrupt women, or do we want men to treat other men worse by interrupting men as much as women do? It also raises questions about moderators. Should we favor male moderators over female ones because they will in average interrupt 20% less (.241 vs .287) for a panel of 50% women and 50% men? The original post had a panel of 80% men and 50% men, which given the above numbers would have a male moderator interrupt a panelist at the rate of 0.095 while a female moderator would have interrupted a panelist with the rate of 0.145. A female moderator would be 52% worse than a male moderator in this specific case.
camelite 9y ago
Your links do not justify your confident tone. Two are about the 7 Supreme Court Justices and some Google guy. That's 8 people. The first is about a study involving 11 male-female interactions (19 now), and a study which noted that "...The men interrupted their female conversational partners 2.1 times during a three minute conversation. That number dropped to 1.8 when they spoke to other men." So men just interrupt more in general, not against women specifically, i.e. not sexist behaviour but a simple gender difference. Ironically, the guy's "fuzzy memories" are more accurate than your "research-based" opinions.
- ryanmarsh 9y ago
  > So men just interrupt more in general, not against women specifically I'll buy that. If this disproportionately affects women then I'll buy that too. I don't buy that men interrupt women specifically out of some sort of bias. My experience has been that the more passionate conversationalists among us will interrupt anyone who will let them.
  - jgalt212 9y ago
    > passionate conversationalists a nice way of saying workplace bullies.
    - lgas 9y ago
      Not really. Bullies have something specific going on. They are trying to hurt people. Many average people get excited when they talk about a subject they are passionate about and enter into a state entirely unlike any bullying I've ever seen but which nevertheless results in non-bullying behaviors like talking over people. These people are exhibiting behaviors like interrupting because they are excited and passionate, not because they are trying to strike out at the people they are interrupting.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        I'm occasionally accused of interrupting others. But here's the thing: I like being interrupted. I enjoy conversations with lots of rapid back and forth. When I'm misguided, I want to be corrected as quickly as possible. I want others to finish my thoughts. But hey, I mostly rein it in :)
dando 9y ago
Even if there is a "clear pattern", that doesn't mean every instance of a man talking over woman is sexism. Not even close. So even if you can prove there is a pattern, it doesn't invalidate his statement that "it's generally sexless"

by gpawl 9y ago

Harimwakairi 9y ago

Thanks for bringing data.

f4rker 9y ago

A few links to NY Times and Forbes is also not research. Whatever gender is in the minority will often be talked over.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

Your fuzzy memory is not research so I quote the three top scientific magazines: Forbes, HBR [1] & NYT. (If you look in the articles, they quote studies with 20 participants. At university I would have been destroyed when making fundamental claims on a sample size of 20). And yes my gut feeling tells me women get interrupted more often. And from this comment you may assume I'm guilty of this, though my bad social habits probably interrupt men as often. [1] the magazine of business anecdotes.

burkaman 9y ago
Here's one with 216 participants, and a whole bunch of citations that might be interesting: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1046496404263728 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1046496404263728 Another one from 1989 with 186 participants: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250069045_Interruptions_in_Group_Discussions_The_Effects_of_Gender_and_Group_Composition https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250069045_Interrupt...
- belorn 9y ago
  Please quote the exact number in those papers. The summery of the first do not specify the levels of women interrupting women or men interrupting men, explicitly focusing only on interaction between men and women. The other one only say that "both men and women exhibiting higher levels of interruption behavior in male-dominated groups". Citations is only as good as the ability it provide to verify a claim. Those do not do that as far as summery goes.
  - burkaman 9y ago
    I'm not trying to prove anything, it just sounded like people were interested in relevant research with higher sample sizes. The first says "The participants for this study included 216 university students". The second says "We systematically varied the sex composition of the six-person groups, [...] Data on 31 groups in all were collected." The second study directly addresses this discussion: "The odds of a male attempting to interrupt another male (.078) are less than one-half the odds of a male attempting to interrupt a female (.163). Females attempt to interrupt male and female speakers at essentially identical levels (odds of .146 and .141 respectively). In other words, men discriminate in their interruption attempts, interrupting women much more often than men. Women, on the other hand, do not discriminate; they attempt to interrupt men and women equally. Group composition does not appear to influence interruption attempts."
    - belorn 9y ago
      Interesting to see actually numbers. They imply that the one odd number here is the low rate of male attempting to interrupt another male, and that the natural base line should be around 0.1435 (assuming that the female variance of 0.0025 is the natural one for all humans). That changes the tone of the issue. A 0.0195 difference from the norm is tiny on the negative discrimination of men interrupting women if we compare it to the norm difference of 0.0655 as positive discrimination for men interrupting men. As a social issue of 13.6% negative discrimination vs 45.7% positive discrimination, its a good time to ask what we want to fix. Is it the negative 13.6%, which mean we want men to interrupt women at the same rate as women interrupt women, or do we want men to treat other men worse by interrupting men as much as women do? It also raises questions about moderators. Should we favor male moderators over female ones because they will in average interrupt 20% less (.241 vs .287) for a panel of 50% women and 50% men? The original post had a panel of 80% men and 50% men, which given the above numbers would have a male moderator interrupt a panelist at the rate of 0.095 while a female moderator would have interrupted a panelist with the rate of 0.145. A female moderator would be 52% worse than a male moderator in this specific case.

camelite 9y ago

Your links do not justify your confident tone. Two are about the 7 Supreme Court Justices and some Google guy. That's 8 people. The first is about a study involving 11 male-female interactions (19 now), and a study which noted that "...The men interrupted their female conversational partners 2.1 times during a three minute conversation. That number dropped to 1.8 when they spoke to other men." So men just interrupt more in general, not against women specifically, i.e. not sexist behaviour but a simple gender difference. Ironically, the guy's "fuzzy memories" are more accurate than your "research-based" opinions.

ryanmarsh 9y ago
> So men just interrupt more in general, not against women specifically I'll buy that. If this disproportionately affects women then I'll buy that too. I don't buy that men interrupt women specifically out of some sort of bias. My experience has been that the more passionate conversationalists among us will interrupt anyone who will let them.
- jgalt212 9y ago
  > passionate conversationalists a nice way of saying workplace bullies.
  - lgas 9y ago
    Not really. Bullies have something specific going on. They are trying to hurt people. Many average people get excited when they talk about a subject they are passionate about and enter into a state entirely unlike any bullying I've ever seen but which nevertheless results in non-bullying behaviors like talking over people. These people are exhibiting behaviors like interrupting because they are excited and passionate, not because they are trying to strike out at the people they are interrupting.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      I'm occasionally accused of interrupting others. But here's the thing: I like being interrupted. I enjoy conversations with lots of rapid back and forth. When I'm misguided, I want to be corrected as quickly as possible. I want others to finish my thoughts. But hey, I mostly rein it in :)

dando 9y ago

Even if there is a "clear pattern", that doesn't mean every instance of a man talking over woman is sexism. Not even close. So even if you can prove there is a pattern, it doesn't invalidate his statement that "it's generally sexless"