Meta-analyses of gender effects on conversational interruption: Who, what, when, where, and how

Abstract

Meta-analyses of 43 published studies comparing adult women's and men's interruptions during conversations were conducted. Combined significance levels and combined effect sizes were analyzed. Across studies, men were significantly more likely than women to use interruptions. This difference, however, was associated with a negligible effect size (d = .15). A more substantial effect size (d = .33) was found when studies looking specifically at intrusive types of interruption were analyzed separately. Other moderator variables were found to be related to gender effects on the use of intrusive interruptions. Most notably, reports of gender differences in intrusive interruptions were more likely and larger in magnitude when either women (versus men) were first authors, participants were observed in naturalistic (versus laboratory) settings, or participants were observed interacting in groups of three or more persons (versus in dyads). These results lend support to a contextual-interactive model of gender that emphasizes the importance of situational moderators on gender-related variations in social behavior.