There are hundreds of emotions, together with variations, blends, and nuances. While there is no consensus as to which emotions may be considered primary, Professor Paul Ekman of the University of California at San Francisco has identified specific facial expressions for four of them: (1) fear; (2) anger; (3) sadness; (4) enjoyment. These four facial expressions are recognized by people in cultures all over the world.

The primary emotions would include:

Anger: annoyed; cross; peeved; cranky; crabby; critical; cold; displeased; mad; offended; arrogant; affronted; incensed; fury; outrage; resentment; wrath; exasperation; indignation; vexation; acrimony; animosity; annoyance; irritability; hostility; hatred; livid; seething; vicious.

Disgust: contempt; disdain; scorn; abhorrence; aversion; distaste; revulsion.

Fear: anxiety; apprehension; nervousness; concern; consternation; misgiving; wariness; qualm; edginess; dread; fright; terror; panic.

Happiness: upbeat; peaceful; calm; open; friendly; hopeful; inspired; jovial; glad; optimistic; cheerful; rejuvenated; pleased; excited; gleeful; merry; playful; elated; enthralled; jubilant; ecstatic; overjoyed; encouraged; joy; relief; contentment; bliss; delight; amusement; pride; thrill; rapture; gratification; satisfaction; euphoria; whimsy; mania.

Jealousy and Envy: suspicious; insecure; distrustful; protective; jealous; envious; threatened; greedy; possessive; resentful; avaricious; gluttonous; green with envy.

Love: acceptance; friendliness; trust; kindness; affinity; devotion; adoration; infatuation.

Sadness: regret; disappointment; mournful; grief; sorrow; gloom; melancholy; self-pity; loneliness; dejection; despair; depression; discouraged; bleak; despondent; anguished; hopeless; inconsolable; heartbroken; morose; bereaved.

Shame: guilt; embarrassment; chagrin; remorse; humiliation; regret; mortification; contrition; self-conscious; flushed; speechless; discomfited; awkward; humble; reticent; abashed; flustered; withdrawn; ashamed; intimidated; penitent; culpable; rueful; guilt-ridden; guilt-stricken; disgraced; stigmatized; demeaned; degraded; shamefaced; belittled; ostracized; self-condemning.

Surprise: shock; astonishment; amazement; wonder.

Even within a well-planned and thoughtful discussion, statements can be made, and tones of voice used, that will cause emotional responses of anger, confusion, hurt, fear, surprise, or embarrassment. Such moments are called “triggers.” Responses to triggers may include:

Avoidance: Avoiding future encounters and withdrawing emotionally from people or situations that trigger us.

Silence: Not responding to the situation, although it is upsetting, not saying or doing anything.

Misinterpreting: Feeling on guard and expecting to be triggered, we misinterpret something said and are triggered by our misinterpretation, not the words.

Attacking: Responding with the intent to lash back or hurt whoever has triggered us.

Laughing: Being overcome by awkwardness or tension and bursting out in laughter, which can be misinterpreted.

Launching asides or side conversations: Being unable to suppress commentary.

Internalizing: Accepting the trigger, believing it to be true.

Being confused: Feeling angry, hurt, or offended, while unsure why we feel that way or what to do about it.

Naming: Identifying what is upsetting us to the triggering person or organization.

Confronting: Naming what is upsetting us to the triggering person or organization and demanding that the behavior or policy be changed.

Startling with surprise: Responding to the trigger in an unexpected way, such as reacting with constructive humor that names the trigger and makes people laugh.

Using discretion: Deciding not to address the trigger at the time, fearing physical retribution.

Emotions help you learn, decide, behave, interact, and relate to yourself and others. Your emotional awareness is a key aspect of your capacity to accurately identify and work with the emotions, thoughts, and intentions of others. Emotions are your empathetic entrée into understanding yourself and others more deeply. A list of sixteen emotional categories will give you a working vocabulary and set of tools to understand emotions emphatically, as nuanced and reliable action-requiring responses to very specific stimuli:

ANGER – Anger arises to address challenges to your positions, ideas, interpersonal boundaries, or self-image. The task is to restore your interpersonal boundaries without violating the boundaries of others.

Questions: What must be protected? What must be restored?

APATHY AND BOREDOM – Apathy or boredom is a protective mask for anger and arises in situations when you cannot or probably should not express your anger openly.

Questions: What is being avoided? What must be made conscious?

GUILT AND SHAME – Shame arises to help moderate your behavior and ensure that you do not hurt, embarrass, or dehumanize yourself or others.

Questions: Who has been hurt? What must be made right?

HATRED – Hatred is a very powerful emotion that arises when there are things you cannot accept in yourself and demonize in others.

Questions: What is unacceptable? What must be done?

FEAR – Fear arises to orient you to change, novelty, or possible hazards, and focuses on the present moment and your immediate surroundings.

Question: What action should be taken?

WORRY AND ANXIETY – Worry and anxiety arise to help you organize, plan for, and complete your tasks.

Questions: What triggered this feeling? What really needs to get done?

CONFUSION – Confusion is a mask for fear and anxiety, and it arises when you are overwhelmed by change, novelty, or too many tasks.

Questions: What is my intention? What action should be taken?

JEALOUSY – Jealousy arises in response to challenges that may destabilize your connection to love, mate retention, or loyalty, and can come from external sources, from an internal lack of self-worth, or both.

Questions: What has been betrayed? What must be healed and restored?

ENVY – Envy arises in response to challenges that may destabilize your connection to material security, resources, or recognition, and can come from external sources, from an internal lack of self-worth, or both.

Questions: What has been betrayed? What must be made right?

PANIC AND TERROR – Panic and terror arises when your life is directly and immediately threatened, and you can fight, flee, or freeze. During the emergency the best response is to listen to your body. Do not think; just react to your instincts.

Questions (for post-traumatic stress disorder) – What has been frozen in time? What healing action must be taken?

SADNESS – Sadness arises when it is time to let go of something that is not working anyway.

Questions: What must be released? What must be rejuvenated?

GRIEF – Grief arises when something has been irretrievably lost or when someone has died.

Questions: What must be mourned? What must be released completely?

SITUATIONAL DEPRESSION – Situational depression arises when some aspect of your life is already unworkable or dysfunctional.

Questions: Where has my energy gone? Why was it sent away?

HAPPINESS – Happiness arises to help you look forward to the future with hope and delight.

CONTENTMENT – Contentment arises to help you look toward yourself with pride and satisfaction.

JOY – Joy arises to help you feel a blissful sense of expansiveness and connection to others, to ideas, or to experiences.

When you know what emotions you are dealing with, it is much easier to communicate with people and be truly empathic. Remember that emotions are always true because they are always responding to emotionally evocative stimuli. But they are not always right, because the stimuli may not be valid. If you act on an emotion evoked by stimuli that are not valid, you might do something misguided or injurious. For example, you might think your neighbor is intentionally being noisy to annoy you, and you yell. It may turn out that the neighbor was yelling for another reason. A better approach when dealing with an emotionally evocative stimulus is to identify the emotion and feeling it invokes, act on the information the emotion provides, or decide not to act because the stimulus is invalid.

The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT™) evaluates Emotional Intelligence (EI) through a series of objective and impersonal questions. It tests the person’s ability to perceive, use, understand, and regulate emotions. Based on scenarios typical of everyday life, the MSCEIT measures how well people perform tasks and solve emotional problems, rather than having them provide their own subjective assessment of their emotional skills.

The MSCEIT considers Four Branches of Emotional Intelligence:

Perceiving Emotions: The ability to perceive emotions in oneself and others as well as in objects, art, stories, music, and other stimuli.

Facilitating Thought: The ability to generate, use, and feel emotion as necessary to communicate feelings or employ them in other cognitive processes.

Understanding Emotions: The ability to understand emotional information, to understand how emotions combine and progress through relationship transitions, and to appreciate such emotional meanings.

Managing Emotions: The ability to be open to feelings, and to modulate them in oneself and others so as to promote personal understanding and growth.

Culture is one of the most powerful forces that influences our behavior. Culture is a learned behavior, which can be defined as all the accepted and patterned ways of behavior that a group of people follow. Many of us assume that our way of doing things is the right way, the best way, or the only way. When you have people from different cultures, you can have serious conflicts. What is important in one culture may not be important in a different culture. Cultures have different sets of values that may make resolving conflicts more difficult. Communicating across cultures is challenging. Each culture has set rules that its members take for granted. Few of us are aware of our own cultural biases because cultural imprinting begins at a very early age. While some of a culture’s knowledge, rules, beliefs, values, phobias, and anxieties are taught explicitly, most of the information is absorbed subconsciously.

One’s own culture provides the “lens” through which we view the world; the “logic” by which we order it; and the “grammar” by which it makes sense. Culture is central to what we see, how we make sense of what we see, and how we express ourselves.

When people from different cultural backgrounds work together, cultural values sometimes conflict. We can misunderstand each other, and react in ways that can hinder promising relationships. We are not aware that culture may be affecting us. We are not even aware that we have cultural values or assumptions that are different from other people.

A method of communication, which is proper and correct in one culture, may be ineffective or even offensive in another. In reality, no culture is right or wrong, better or worse—just different. There is no single best approach to communicating with one another. The key to cross-cultural success is to develop an understanding of, and a deep respect for, the differences.

Even two people belonging to the same culture may not respond in exactly the same way. Generalizations are valid to the extent that they provide clues on what you will most likely encounter when dealing with members of a particular culture.

High-Context vs. Low-Context

International communication is influenced by cultural differences. The choice of communication medium can have cultural overtones. The determining factor may not be the degree of industrialization, but rather whether the particular country falls into a high-context or low-context culture. High-context cultures (Mediterranean, Slav, Central European, Latin American, African, Arab, Asian, American-Indian) leave much of the message unspecified, to be understood through context, nonverbal cues, and between-the-lines interpretation of what is actually said. By contrast, low-context cultures (most Germanic and English-speaking countries) expect messages to be explicit and specific.

Sequential vs. Synchronic

Some cultures think of time sequentially, as a linear commodity to “spend,” “save,” or “waste.” Other cultures view time synchronically, as a constant flow to be experienced in the moment, and as a force that cannot be contained or controlled. In sequential cultures (like North American, English, German, Swedish, and Dutch), businesspeople give full attention to one agenda item after another. In synchronic cultures (including South America, southern Europe and Asia) the flow of time is viewed as a sort of circle, with the past, present, and future all interrelated. This viewpoint influences how an organization in those cultures acts concerning deadlines, strategic thinking, investments, developing talent from within, and “long-term” planning.

Orientation to the past, present, and future is another aspect of time in which cultures differ. Americans believe that the individual can influence the future by personal effort, but since there are too many variables in the distant future, they favor a short-term view. Synchronistic cultures’ context is to understand the present and prepare for the future. Any important relationship is a durable bond that goes back and forward in time, making it disloyal not to favor friends and relatives in business dealings.

Affective vs. Neutral

Both reason and emotion play a role in international business practices. The dominant role depends on whether we are affective (readily showing emotions) or emotionally neutral in our approach. Members of neutral cultures do not telegraph their feelings, but keep them carefully controlled and subdued. In cultures with high affect, people show their feelings openly by laughing, smiling, scowling, crying, shouting, or walking out of the room. This does not mean that people in neutral cultures are cold or unfeeling, but in the course of normal business activities, neutral cultures are more careful to monitor the amount of emotion they display. Emotional reactions were found to be least acceptable in Japan, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Norway, and the Netherlands, and most accepted in Italy, France, the United States, and Singapore.

The six fundamental patterns of cultural differences - which vary from one another, are described below. The descriptions highlight some of the recurring causes of cross-cultural communication difficulties. As you enter into multicultural dialogue or collaboration, keep these generalized differences in mind. Next time you find yourself in a confusing situation, and you suspect that cross-cultural differences are at play, review this list. Ask yourself how culture may shape your own reactions. Try to see the world from someone else’s point of view.

Different Communication Styles

Communication styles vary widely between and within cultures. The use of language is one aspect of communication style. Across cultures, some words and phrases are used differently. Even in countries that share the English language, the meaning of “yes” varies from “maybe,” “I’ll consider it” to “definitely so,” with many shades in between.

Another major aspect of communication style is the relative importance of non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication includes not only facial expressions and gestures, but also seating arrangements, personal distance, and sense of time. Different norms regarding the appropriate degree of assertiveness in communicating can add to cultural misunderstandings. For example, some white Americans consider raised voices to be a sign that a fight has begun, while some black, Jewish, and Italian Americans often feel that a raised voice is a sign of an exciting conversation among friends. As a result, some white Americans may react with greater alarm to a loud discussion than would members of some American ethnic or non-white racial groups.

Different Attitudes Toward Conflict

Some cultures view conflict as a positive thing, while others view it as something to be avoided. In the United States, conflict is not usually desirable; but people often are encouraged to deal directly with conflicts that do arise. Face-to-face meetings customarily are recommended as the way to work through whatever problems exist. In contrast, in many Eastern countries, open conflict is experienced as embarrassing or demeaning; as a rule, differences are best worked out quietly. A written exchange might be the favored means to address the conflict.

Different Approaches to Completing Tasks

From culture to culture, there are different ways that people move toward completing tasks. Some reasons include different access to resources, different judgments of the rewards associated with task completion, different notions of time, and varied ideas about how relationship-building and task-oriented work should go together.

When working together effectively on a task, cultures differ with respect to the importance placed on establishing relationships early on in the collaboration. A case in point, Asian and Hispanic cultures tend to attach more value to developing relationships at the beginning of a shared project and more emphasis on task completion toward the end as compared with Europeans and Americans. Europeans and Americans tend to focus immediately on the task at hand, and let relationships develop as they work on the task. This does not mean that people from any one of these cultural backgrounds are more or less committed to accomplishing the task, or value relationships more or less; it means they may pursue them differently.

Different Decision-Making Styles

The roles individuals play in decision-making vary widely from culture to culture. For example, in the United States, decisions are frequently delegated - that is, an official assigns responsibility for a particular matter to a subordinate. In many Southern European and Latin American countries, there is a strong value placed on holding decision-making responsibilities oneself. When decisions are made by groups of people, majority rule is a common approach in the United States; in Japan consensus is the preferred mode. Be aware that individuals’ expectations about their own roles in shaping a decision may be influenced by their cultural frame of reference.

Different Attitudes Toward Disclosure

In some cultures, it is not appropriate to be frank about emotions, about the reasons behind a conflict or a misunderstanding, or about personal information. Keep this in mind when you are in a dialogue or when you are working with others. When you are dealing with a conflict, be mindful that people may differ in what they feel comfortable revealing. Questions that may seem natural to you - What was the conflict about? What was your role in the conflict? What was the sequence of events? The variation among cultures in attitudes toward disclosure is also something to consider before you conclude that you have an accurate reading of the views, experiences, and goals of the people with whom you are working.

Different Approaches to Knowing

Notable differences occur among cultural groups when it comes to epistemologies - that is, the ways people come to know things. European cultures tend to consider information acquired through cognitive means, such as counting and measuring, more valid than other ways of coming to know things. Compare that to African cultures’ preference for affective ways of knowing, including symbolic imagery and rhythm. Asian cultures’ epistemologies emphasize the validity of knowledge gained through striving toward transcendence.

These different approaches to knowing could affect ways of analyzing a community problem or finding ways to resolve it. Some members of your group may prefer library research to better understand a shared problem and identify possible solutions. Others may prefer to visit places and people who have experienced similar challenges to get a feel for what has worked elsewhere.

Respecting Our Differences and Working Together

In addition to helping us to understand our own cultural frames of reference, and ourselves knowledge of these six patterns of cultural difference can help us to understand people who are different from us. An appreciation of patterns of cultural difference can assist us in processing differences in ways that are respectful of others, not faultfinding or damaging.

Anthropologists Avruch and Black have noted that, when faced by an interaction that we do not understand, people tend to interpret the others involved as “abnormal,” “weird,” or “wrong.” This tendency can lead to prejudice. If this propensity is either consciously or unconsciously integrated into organizational structures, then prejudice takes root in our institutions - in the structures, laws, policies, and procedures that shape our lives. Consequently, it is vital that we learn to control the human tendency to translate “different from me” into “less than me.” We can learn to do this.

We can learn to collaborate across cultural lines as individuals and as a society. Awareness of cultural differences does not have to divide us. It does not have to paralyze us either, for fear of not saying the “right thing.” In fact, becoming more aware of our cultural differences, as well as exploring our similarities, can help us communicate with each other more effectively. Recognizing where cultural differences are at work is the first step toward understanding and respecting each other.

Learning about different ways that people communicate can enrich our lives. People’s different communication styles reflect deeper philosophies and worldviews that are the foundation of their culture. Understanding these deeper philosophies gives us a broader picture of what the world has to offer us.

The age of the persons seeking to resolve their differences can significantly impact on how conflicts get resolved. We look at conflicts differently at age 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60. Be aware of these differences.

Maslow and Kohlberg describe six stages of human growth and development.[1] All ages are considered psychological, not chronological age, as developmental lag (not acting your age) is a universal phenomenon. Below is a synopsis of each of the six stages of development:

Level One (pre-adult). Dependency: How do I survive?

Few adults live at level one, as this is a state of high dependency. A level one adult cannot care for himself well, cannot keep a job, and has little social skill. People at level one are most concerned with what is happening today. They do not plan for the future. They are not proactive. The key word that applies to them is extreme dependency.

Level Two (age 20-30). Personal Power: How do I establish myself in the world?

Most adults start out at level two. Their primary concerns are establishing themselves in the world, i.e., getting ahead, getting an education, making money, making connections, and competing for a place in society.

Because of the need for certainty and viability, level two people are concerned with power, self and other control, right and wrong, and winning/losing. This is a high anxiety time in life. Most personal empowerment books and seminars are designed, consciously or unconsciously, to address level two needs.

Level Three (age 30-35). Belonging: Where do I fit in?

Once the need for viability in the world is met, we tend to focus on more social needs, like belonging. We tend to reach out and get involved in the community. We may be raising a family at this point, so we want to be more involved. Since we are less concerned with money and competition, we want to reach out to others and find out where we belong. We may tend to seek others’ approval or catering to social expectations. We find our place in the world through the back and forth process of reaching out to others and receiving feedback.

Level Four (ages 35-45). Deep Self-Awareness: What is really important to me?

Once we are viable in the world and know where we belong, we are ready to explore our identify at a deeper level. We are free to begin to question what is really important in life. This leads us to discover our values. Our values may differ from our parents’ values, or they may be the same. We may find we value things that our friends do not value. This is often a period of introspection. We have worked hard. We have joined in and played the game. Now, we want to know what is really important to us. We have lived half of our lives. For what? What really matters?

Discovering what is really important to us sets us apart from the crowd. At level four, we become less concerned about what other people think. Our identity finally becomes clear. We know what we value, even if it does not comply with social expectations. As a result, as we progress, we become more selective in how we socialize.

Level Five (age 45-65). Life Mission: What is my purpose?

After a longer period of mature introspection and values clarification, we are prepared to fully comprehend and embrace the purpose of our life. At this point, we are viable, comfortable with where we belong, and we know what is most important in life. This is an ideal situation in which to identify and expand our mission. We are filled with the kind of purpose that can only come from years of paying our dues.

Level Six (age 65+). Self-Acceptance: How did I do?

Having met so many critical developmental milestones over the course of a lifetime, we now enter into a rare, self-actualized state of being in which we basically are at peace with ourselves. We feel at home with our bodies, comfortable in our own skin. We are beyond internal strife and conflict, beyond any need for social approval and content with our lot in life. We enjoy who we have become and are able to express ourselves genuinely and honestly. In spite of our acceptance and enjoyment of life, we understand and accept our ultimate passing.

In seeking to reach common ground in resolving conflicts, be mindful of age differences.

[1] Abraham H. Maslow was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Lawrence Kohlberg was an American psychologist best known for his theory of stages of moral development.

Hidden bias has emerged as an important clue to the disparity between public opinion, as expressed by America’s creed and social goals, and the amount of discrimination that still exists.

A cognitive bias is a mistake in reasoning, evaluating, remembering, or other cognitive process, often occurring as a result of holding onto one’s preferences and beliefs regardless of contrary information. People create their own subjective social reality from their own perceptions; their view of the world may dictate their behavior. Cognitive biases may lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Some cognitive biases are taken to be adaptive and may lead to success in the appropriate situation. Cognitive biases may allow speedier choices when speed is more valuable than precision. Other cognitive biases are a “by-product” of human processing limitations due to an absence of appropriate mental mechanisms, or just from human limitations in information processing.

Some of the more common cognitive biases may be grouped in the following ways:

Social Cognition Biases:

Correspondence Bias: The tendency to infer that people’s behavior corresponds to their disposition (personality).

Actor/Observer Difference: The tendency to see other people’s behavior as dispositionally caused but focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one’s own behavior.

Self-Serving Attributions: Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors may be distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem.

Belief in a Just World: The assumption that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people.

Reciprocity Bias: When people feel a sense of obligation after they receive something.

Own-Race Bias: People are better at recognizing faces of their own race than those of other races.

Ultimate Attribution Error: The tendency to make dispositional attributions about an entire group of people.

In-group bias: The tendency to reserve positive feelings and special treatment to people we have defined as being part of our in-group (the group of which a person identifies and of which he or she feels a member), and negative feelings and unfair treatment to people we have defined as being part of our out-group (groups which an individual does not identify with).

Out-group homogeneity bias: The perception that those in the out-group are more similar (homogenous) to each other than they really are, as well as more similar than the members of the in-group are (i.e., the belief that “they are all alike”).

Illusory Correlation: The tendency to see relationships, or correlations, between events that are actually unrelated; this is one-way stereotypes form and endure.

False Consensus Effect: The tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others agree with them.

Bandwagon Effect: The tendency to follow the actions or beliefs of others because individuals prefer to conform, or because individuals derive information from others.

Reasoning Biases:

Anchoring: The common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions.

Representativeness Heuristic: The tendency for people to use similarity or representativeness as a proxy for probabilistic thinking; this can lead to base-rate neglect, the tendency for people to insufficiently take into account the overall frequency (base rate) of an event in a population.

Commitment and Consistency Bias: A pattern of behavior in which an individual or group will continue to rationalize their decisions, actions, and investments when faced with increasingly negative outcomes rather than alter their course of behavior.

Hindsight Bias: The tendency for people to exaggerate how much they could have predicted an outcome after knowing that it occurred.

Projection Bias: The tendency for people to exaggerate the degree to which their future tastes will resemble their current tastes.

Impact Bias: The tendency to overestimate the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions to future negative events.

Bias Blind Spot: Recognizing the impact of biases on the judgment of others, while failing to see the impact of biases on one’s own judgment.

Conjunction Fallacy: The tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.

Gambler’s Fallacy: The false belief that in a sequence of independent draws from a distribution, an outcome that has not occurred for a while is more likely to come up on the next draw.

Hot-Hand Fallacy: The false or exaggerated belief that a person’s performance varies systematically over the short run.

Availability Heuristic: The tendency for people to assess the frequency of a class or the probability of an event by the ease with which instances or occurrences can be brought to mind.

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: The tendency for people to answer a question by starting at some first-pass guess based on memory or the environment, and adjust that guess until they are satisfied with the answer.

Curse of Knowledge: If you know something, you cannot appreciate what it is like not to know it.

Confirmation Bias: Tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, causing people to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their beliefs, and ignore or under weigh evidence that could disconfirm their beliefs. A form of Confirmation Bias where the impression is positive is called the Halo Effect. If the impression is negative, it may be referred to as a Demonizing Effect. An observer’s overall impression of a person, company, brand, or product influences the observer’s feelings and thoughts about that entity’s character or properties.

Memory Biases:

Primacy Effect: Tendency to weigh initial events more than subsequent events. People tend to recall items that were at the beginning of a list rather than items that were in the middle of a list.

Recency Effect: Tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events. People tend to recall items that were at the end of a list rather than items that were in the middle of a list.

To resolve conflicts peacefully, you need to be aware of these biases and prejudices. If people are aware of their hidden biases, they can monitor and attempt to ameliorate hidden attitudes before they are expressed through behavior. This can include attention to language, body language, and to the stigmatization felt by target groups. A change in behavior can modify beliefs and attitudes. A conscious decision to be egalitarian might lead one to widen one’s circle of friends and knowledge of other groups. Such efforts may, over time, reduce the strength of unconscious biases.

Economic disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income can lead to conflicts. Horizontal inequalities can occur between different ethnic, religious, or regional groups. Economic inequalities include access to and ownership of financial, human, natural resource-based and social assets. They also include inequalities in income levels and employment opportunities.

A country may have a highly equal distribution of income overall, but it may be divided very unevenly between particular cultural groups. Focusing on inequalities between different groups draws attention to discriminatory relationships between groups in a society. Conflicts are more likely to occur where there are large inequalities between different groups. One of the major reasons there is economic inequality within modern market economies is because wages are determined by a market, and are influenced by supply and demand A job where there are many willing workers (high supply) but only a small number of positions (low demand) will result in a low wage for that job. This is because competition between workers drives down the wage. An example of this would be low-skill jobs such as dish-washing or customer service. These jobs require very little skill, which results in a high supply of willing workers. Competition amongst workers would tend to drive down the wage, since if any one worker demands a higher wage, the employer can simply hire another employee at an equally low wage. A job where there are few willing workers (low supply), but a high demand for the skills these workers have will result in high wages for that job. This is because competition between employers will drive up the wage. An example of this would be high-skill jobs such as data scientists or capable CEOs. Competition amongst employers tend to drive up wages, since if any one employer demands a low wage, the worker can simply quit and easily find a new job at a higher wage.

While the above examples tend to identify skill with high demand and wages, this is not necessarily the case. For example, highly skilled computer programmers in western countries have seen their wages suppressed by competition from computer programmers in India who are willing to accept a lower wage. The final results amongst these supply and demand interactions is a gradation of different wages representing income inequality within society. There are many reasons for economic differences between people and countries. Richard Lynn and Tatu VanHanen, in their book, IQ and the Wealth of Nations, opine that the most significant factor is IQ.[1]

One important factor in the creation of inequality is the variable ability of individuals to get an education. Education, especially education in an area where there is a high demand for workers, creates high wages for those with this education. Those who are unable to afford an education generally receive much lower wages. Many economists believe that a major reason the world has experienced increasing levels of inequality since the 1980s is because of an increase in the demand for highly skilled workers in high-tech industries. This has resulted in an increase in wages for those with an education, but has not increased the wages of those without an education, leading to greater inequality.

The existence of different genders, cultures, and religions within a society can contribute to economic differences. The idea of the gender gap explains the reasons there are different levels of income for different genders. Culture and religion can play a role in creating inequality by either encouraging or discouraging wealth-acquiring behavior and providing a basis for discrimination. Individuals belonging to certain racial and ethnic minorities are found more often among the poor than others.

Wealth condensation is a process by which, in certain conditions, newly-created wealth tends to become concentrated in the possession of already-wealthy individuals or entities. According to this theory, those who already hold wealth have the means to invest in new sources of creating wealth or to otherwise leverage the accumulation of wealth and are the beneficiaries of the new wealth. Over time, wealth condensation can significantly contribute to the persistence of inequality within society. As an example of wealth condensation, truck drivers who own their own trucks consistently make more money than those who do not since the owner of a truck can escape the rent charged to drivers by owners (Even taking into account maintenance and other costs). Hence, a truck driver who has wealth to begin with can afford to buy his own truck in order to make more money. A truck driver who does not own his own truck makes a lesser wage and is therefore unable to buy his own truck to increase his income.

Related to wealth condensation are the effects of inter-generational inequality. The rich tend to provide their offspring with a better education, increasing their chances of achieving a high amount of income. Furthermore, the wealthy often leave their offspring with a hefty inheritance, jump starting the process of wealth condensation for the next generation.

There are many factors that tend to constrain the amount of economic inequality within society. Progressive taxation, where the rich are taxed more than poor, is effective at reducing the amount of income inequality in society. The Nationalization or subsidization of essential goods and services, such as food, healthcare, education, and housing can reduce the amount of inequality in society by providing goods and services that everyone needs cheaply or free. Governments can thereby effectively increase the disposable income of the poorer members of society.

There is a correlation between income inequality and social cohesion. In more equal societies, people are much more likely to trust each other, engage in greater community activities, and have lower crime rates. There is also a correlation between socioeconomic status and health. It is not only the poor who tend to be sick when everyone else is healthy, but there is a continual gradient, from the top to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, relating status to health. This is referred to as the “SES (socio-economic status) Gradient.”[2] The SES Gradient is a composite measure of an individual’s economic and sociological standing. It is a complex assessment measured in a variety of ways that account for a person’s work experience and economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation. Socioeconomic status has been a powerful determinant of health.

Some of the metrics of socioeconomic status include: (1) highest level of education attained; (2) education of parents; (3) current occupation; (4) net income; (5) household income; (6) wealth (assets, capital). People are usually separated into groups based on these metrics, from least advantaged to most advantaged, or low, medium, or high SES. There are many complex factors in the relationship between socioeconomic status and health. People with relatively few resources may not have very good access to health care services, or even transportation to get health care. They may not have the time to focus on their health, or have sufficient education to realize the impact that certain elements have on their health. Priorities can also vary; one person might be trying to maintain good health, while another person is a single mother trying to maintain a family with a minimum wage job. The stress related to a person’s socioeconomic status alone may impact his or her health. Regardless of the mechanism, there is a strong association between SES and health. As a general rule, wealthy people tend to be in better health than people of poorer status.

There appears to be a significant impact of socioeconomic status on a multitude of diseases, including: (1) Cardiovascular disease; (2) respiratory disease; (3) mental health-related disorders. Lower socioeconomic status has been linked to chronic stress, heart disease, ulcers, type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, certain types of cancer, and premature aging. Economic inequality is bad for everyone's health.

Economic disparity reduces distributive efficiency within a society. Inequality reduces the sum total of personal utility because of the decreasing marginal utility of wealth. For example, a house may provide less utility to a single billionaire as a summer home than it would to a homeless family of five. The marginal utility of wealth is lowest among the richest. An additional dollar spent by a poor person will go to things providing a great deal of utility to that person, such as basic necessities like food, water, and healthcare. An additional dollar spent by a much richer person will most likely go to things providing relatively less utility to that person, such as luxury items. From this standpoint, for any given amount of wealth in society, a society with more equality will have higher aggregate utility. In societies where inequality is lower, population wide satisfaction and happiness tend to be higher.

There are various schools of thought regarding economic inequality. Marxism favors an eventual communist society where distribution is based on an individual's needs rather than his ability to produce, social class, inheritance, or other factors. In such a system inequality would be low or non-existent assuming everyone had the same “needs.” Classical liberals and libertarians generally do not take a stance on wealth inequality, but believe in equality under the law regardless of whether it leads to unequal wealth distribution. In most western democracies, the desire to eliminate or reduce economic inequality is generally associated with the political left. The main practical argument in favor of reduction is the idea that economic inequality reduces social cohesion and increases social unrest, thereby weakening the society.

The main disagreement between the western democratic left and right, is basically a disagreement on the importance of each effect, and where the proper balance point should be. Both sides generally agree that the causes of economic inequality based on non-economic differences (race, gender, etc.) should be minimized. There is strong disagreement on how this minimization should be achieved. The acceptance of economic inequality is generally associated with the political right.

One argument in favor of the acceptance of economic inequality is that, as long as the cause is mainly due to differences in behavior, the inequality provides incentives that push the society towards economically healthy and efficient behavior, and is therefore beneficial. In addition, capitalists see orderly competition and individual initiative as crucial to economic prosperity and accordingly believe that economic freedom are more important than economic equality.

Another argument is that more inequality does not necessarily mean more poverty, and that although poverty is bad, inequality is not bad in itself. A policy can be considered good if it makes some wealthy people wealthier without making anyone poorer, although it increases the total amount of inequality.

A third argument is that capitalism, especially free market capitalism, results in voluntary transactions among parties. Since the transactions are voluntary, each party at least believes that they are better off after the transaction. According to the subjective theory of value, both parties will indeed be better off after the transaction (assuming there is no fraud or extortion involved).

Economic inequality has existed in a wide range of societies and historical periods; its nature, cause and importance are open to broad debate. A country's economic structure or system (such as capitalism, socialism, and everything in between), ongoing or past wars, and individuals’ different abilities to create wealth are all involved in the creation of economic inequality. Economic inequality among different individuals or social groups is best measured within a single country. This is due to the fact that country-specific factors tend to obscure inter-country comparisons of individuals’ incomes. A single nation will have more or less inequality depending on the social and economic structure of that country.

[1] Lynn, Richard and Vanhanen, Tatu. IQ and the Wealth of Nations (Praeger Publications, 2002).

[2] Keating, Daniel P. and Hertzman, Clyde, Eds. Development Health and the Wealth of Nations (The Guilford Press, 1999).

Power is a person’s ability to exert influence and control. Power dynamics describes how power affects a relationship between two or more people. There are seven main types of power:

Coercive power: The ability to offer punishments to deter certain actions. For example, a police officer can arrest a person thought to be committing a crime.

Reward power: The ability to give out rewards for desired behavior. For example, a parent may reward his or her child with a cookie in exchange for doing chores.

Formal power: Also called legitimate or titular power. This power comes from having an official position. For example, CEOs of companies can fire workers below them.

Connection power: The ability to offer access to certain people or resources. For example, an agent can introduce an actor to a film producer.

Referent power: Influence that comes from being liked by others. For example, a popular, charismatic student may create a new fashion trend at school.

Informational power: Influence that comes from knowledge and information. For example, a spy may know the location of an enemy base.

Expert power: Influence that comes from having exceptional skills. For example, a talented doctor may have a lot of power where medical treatment is needed.

These types of power may overlap in some situations. It is common for an individual to have multiple types of power. Power dynamics are present in nearly every human social interaction - between workers and managers, parents and children, romantic partners, and friends. Power affects all aspects of social life, from the workplace to the home. Power is not inherently negative. For example, the ability of a parent to influence his toddler’s actions can help keep him out of harm’s way. But if a person abuses his power, it has the capacity to do great harm. In most conflict situations, one party may have more power than the other party. When the power differential is substantial, this usually has a significant effect on both the substance and process of the dispute. If one side is far more powerful than the other one, they are likely to simply impose their solution on the other side, who will be forced to accept it, because they have no other choice.

Alternatively, the high power parties may simply refuse to enter into a negotiation, because they have no need to. They can get what they want without compromising, or in any way giving in to the other side. They pursue their alternative to negotiation, which usually involves persuasion and/or force.

Another possibility is that the low-power parties will refuse to negotiate, because they fear they will be co-opted or otherwise forced to make compromises they do not want to make. Low power parties often engage in advocacy and violent or nonviolent direct action in an effort to build their power before they are willing to enter into a negotiation process.

Power relationships do not only, however, derive from our formal powers. Members of particular groups, which have consistently experienced disempowerment within the society in which they are based, may feel distrustful and disempowered in all relationships with people outside those groups, regardless of the “official” power balance; conversely, individual members of such groups may have developed considerable personal strength and confidence through challenging such disempowerment. Individuals also vary considerably in their personal confidence and sense of power; an aggressive, or even particularly self-confident and charismatic, individual may wield great power over a less assertive individual in an apparently more powerful position.

Many of us will try to avoid conflict situations or try to placate the people concerned, but this does not always work. Strategies for dealing with this type of situation can be useful. All of us have experienced difficult situations at some times in our lives. In any difficult situation, there is often a power imbalance. In any relationship, there is power involved. By this we mean who holds the power in a relationship and in communication. If two people are involved in a conversation and they both hold equal power, then there is no imbalance, but this is rare. Power may be influenced by a number of factors:

Gender: can influence the power in a relationship. A male arguing with a female may have more power in some situations. In other situations, the female may have more power.

Intelligence: in some situations, one person in an argument may have a higher level of intelligence than the other person, so may use that intelligence to intimidate the other person.

Size: a large man towering above a shorter man can be intimidating for the shorter man and thereby empower the larger man.

Age: being older can give power. An older man talking about his experiences to a younger person and sharing his knowledge can give greater power to the older person. But in other situations, a younger person may have more power. For example, a younger person coming into an industry may have more up to date knowledge and more useful skills than an older person, so there can be a power imbalance.

Experience: our experience of the world, in a job, or in a particular area of life can give us power over another.

Qualifications: a person’s qualifications can sometimes give them more power.

Knowledge: of a particular topic can create power, as one person may know more than another.

Although gross power imbalances are a problem for conflict resolution, so too is equality of power. It is has been argued that wars or other deep-rooted international or ethnic conflicts cannot be resolved until they become “ripe.” A variety of factors contribute to “ripeness,” but one of the most commonly agreed-upon factors is that a conflict has reached a hurting stalemate when it becomes clear to both sides that neither side can ever win, and the costs of continuing the struggle are far higher than the costs of ending it. While it takes equality of power to reach this point, the losses entailed in so doing are extremely severe. Thus, both power equality and power inequality pose challenges and problems for dispute resolution.

Power struggles frequently make their way into our personal interactions and cause conflict. Trying to one-up someone or put them down is never constructive, just as allowing someone to devalue you or overpower you is never constructive. These destructive behaviors can lead to downward spirals both in our relationships and our ability to resolve conflicts. Instead of engaging in a power struggle, try to balance power relationships, so that each person comes out with his or her values and self-respect intact.

We all operate, for much of the time, within relationships in which the power balance is uneven. Such power imbalances can affect communication in a variety of ways. If we feel ourselves to have relatively less power, we may be fearful of saying what we really think, of asking for explanations, or of asking for what we need. We may be inclined to be uncritical of what we are told, or, conversely, angry and distrustful, depending on the quality of the relationship. If we have the greater power within a relationship, we may be more likely to set the agenda, make assumptions, and be unaware of other people’s opinions or feelings. Conversely, we may worry that what we are hearing is what the other person thinks we want to hear.

Power imbalances can interfere significantly with communication, by setting the terms of debate and closing down some avenues of discussion. They also can arouse strong emotions, and these in themselves can interfere with open and accurate communication. Power imbalances can also be conveyed through communication, through the words we use, our tone of voice, and very strongly through body language.

Conversation is the key in any sort of power balancing situation. Be clear about what you want and what the other person wants. Stick to facts and avoid insinuating or stating that the other person is wrong or that they are causing a problem. Always focus on the matter, desired behavior, or outcome, and not on personal traits. Stated another way, focus on the conflict that needs to be resolved, not on the parties.

Try to talk face to face and not through text messages, emails, or phone conversations. Facial and body language are an important source of clarification and humanizes the interaction, while technology tends to distance us. It is far easier to forget how we can harm others with a barb or insult through the interface of the computer, whereas seeing someone’s reaction in front of us clarifies this instantly.

Avoid getting defensive or speaking in negative tones. As soon as you sound whining, victimized, or angry, the emotions start to get the better of the conversation.

Be sure to listen carefully and to get clarification when necessary. Do not be afraid to ask questions. They are a great way to get more insight into the other person and their thoughts. You can never learn anything while you are talking. You can only learn when you listen.

Bear in mind that both of you might have a valid perspective of a conflict regardless of the power imbalance. This can be confronting for both of you, but it is also empowering, as potentially you have a range of solutions available provided you can accept that both sides have valid perspectives. It would be unusual if there were only one right way to achieve most things.

Define the conflict as a mutual matter, a problem you must solve together. Focus on shared interests. From the outset, the person holding the position of more power may be inclined to state the problem as being one caused by the person with less power. This needs to be challenged immediately by defining the problem as a mutual issue.

If you are the person holding the high power position, you can limit your own power rather than using it to gain an upper hand. Refrain from continued destructive patterns, either by speech or action. Be aware of your own behavior and regulate yourself. Look for opportunities to find options that will benefit both sides.

If you find yourself in the low power position, emphasize the interdependence that you and the other person have between each other. High power individuals will likely avoid this and minimize any recognition of interdependence. Point out emotional, behavioral, economic, or other dependence on each other. This is especially important in close or intimate relationships. Focus should not be put on the amount of power or influence that each person has over the other, but on achieving the balance between the parties and drawing each other into mutual understanding.

Significant change in power relations rarely comes from radical or aggressive confrontation. Careful and thoughtful understanding and planning will likely lead to small but important changes. Work toward an issue in common, even if it is on a very basic issue in the conflict. The more things you can find in common the more likely you are to reach a resolution of the conflict.

Stay actively engaged. Remember that no power position is a permanent condition. Be sure to speak your mind but also stick to providing the “big picture” and balanced ideas. Stay connected to your values and the outcome that you perceive as worthy throughout times of intensity or difficulty in your dialog with the other person.

A conflict should only be avoided or ignored where it is trivial or unimportant. Otherwise, it needs to be dealt with, whatever your power relationship. An ignored minor conflict can quickly escalate into a major problem. Seek third party intervention when you have reached an impasse. Seeking outside help to resolve a conflict is not a sign of weakness. Any fool can make war. It requires great strength to make peace. A power imbalance becomes a problem when it affects self-determination. There are many forms of imbalance. An example of informational imbalance would be when a spouse does not disclose a hidden asset in divorce mediation. Self-determination is in jeopardy because your choice of outcomes is not real. The imbalance could be emotional where one party is overpowering or taking advantage of a meeker or less confident participant. Or a party might have better self-control in difficult situations. The imbalance could be intellectual, verbal, or an imbalance of experience. The imbalance could be simply between the numbers of parties at the table. For example, it is not unusual for a Special Education mediation case to have many people on the side representing the school system, and only one or two on the parent’s side of the table.

Power imbalance can also manifest itself via information. One party may have more information or experience than the other. For example, one person in a marriage manages all of the finances for the home. If they are in divorce mediation, then an ability to make financial decisions may be out of balance. A way to balance self-determining power could be appealing to the use of outside resources.

The important question is not how much power does a party have, but rather does the party have enough power for self-determination. There may be circumstances where power imbalance is inevitable, even preferable. Even so, empowering a self-determination process could be of immense value in many relationships, organizations, and teams.

Power dynamics can and often do affect interpersonal relationships. In relationships that are strong and healthy, power is generally equal or close to equal. Partners may not have equivalent kinds of power: one partner may have more financial resources while the other has more social connections. However, influence is often reciprocal. Healthy partners often work together respectfully and each have a hand in decision-making.

A balanced relationship, one in which power is, for the most part, held equally, might be represented by some of the following elements: (1) both partners know their value; (2) partners listen to each other and make changes based on the feelings and interests of the other; (3) partners respect each other, even in times of disagreement; partners talk to each other, especially when issues develop or miscommunications occur.

Problems can develop when there is a power imbalance in the relationship. For example, if a person makes more money than his partner, she may begin to feel entitled to make all decisions about how the money is spent, rather than seeking her partner’s opinion. In cases of abuse, an individual may try to limit his partner’s power through isolation and threats so that he can have complete control. Meanwhile, the partner without power may grow resentful or feel taken for granted. She may withdraw from the relationship to protect her own self-esteem. For example, someone who considers herself the less attractive partner in a relationship may feel insecure and avoid intimacy.

Common power-related issues that come up in a professional environment include:

Salary and wage negotiation: Bargaining power comes into play when discussing salary at time of hire or during a review. In some cases, the employee has more bargaining power and may be able to negotiate a higher salary. This could happen if the employee has a unique skillset, has increased company revenue, or is needed by the company for a specific reason. In other cases, the company may have more bargaining power. This could happen in fields where there is a lot of competition for jobs.

Promotion and job assignments: An employee who has skills that are in demand in the marketplace can demand promotions or favorable job assignments. The bargaining power of the parties are always dependent on the supply and demand of the skillset of the employee.

Bullying or harassment: In workplace settings, bullying often goes unpunished because of imbalanced power dynamics. If a person with more power bullies another person in the company, the person being bullied may avoid telling anyone due to fear of retaliation. It is not always easy to find a new position, and a person who needs steady income may decide putting up with bullying is preferable to unemployment. People can also misuse power in the workplace by forcing others to complete menial tasks unrelated to their job (such as getting coffee) or to put up with harassment.

Attitude towards tasks vs. relationships: Women tend to be more relationship oriented and accomplish tasks by building relationships first. They then know whom to ask and are comfortable asking others to get things done. Men tend to be more task oriented and go straight to the task. They build their relationships when they are in the task or project.

Processing Information: When women have to make a decision they will often process and express options out loud while men tend to process internally until they come up with a solution. Women often think that the man is being unresponsive to suggestions because of their silence, and men often think that women are looking for approval when they process out loud or do not know what they are doing. Some men may think that a woman’s way of processing is a sign of weakness. It is not.

Leadership Style: Women are more relationship oriented, and they tend to lead by consensus. Men tend to be more hierarchical and will include only the people closest to them at their level when they think it is necessary.

Communication Styles: In non-verbal behavior, women will nod their head to show that they are listening. Men leave the conversation thinking that a head nod means agreement and will be surprised to find out that the woman did not agree. When a woman is speaking to a man and he does not say anything and stays in neutral body language to show that he is listening, a woman will interpret that as the man being bored or not understanding what she is saying. This posture can lead the woman to become very uncomfortable and repeat what she is saying or ask the man each time if he understands what she is saying. The man may then interpret the comments as a sign of insecurity, or talking too much. These thoughts can lead him to think she is not assertive or confident to be a leader. Women will use more direct eye contact in conversation to create relationships and connections, which men may take as a challenge to their power or position. Women will approach a man from the front while men often approach from the side at an angle, which is how each of them tends to stand or sit when talking to others. Men interpret the face to face as too personal, or aggressive, and women will interpret the talking side to side as though not being upfront or evasive.

Talk time: Men take up more time and space at meetings, while women try to aim for more equality in the room. Despite stereotypes to the contrary, studies have shown that men talk more than women. Men interrupt women and talk over them much more than women interrupt men. All of this can lead to the type of miscommunication based on assumptions of why members of the other sex are using certain verbal and non-verbal behaviors.

Women often try to get their point across by asking many types of questions: defiant, informational, and rhetorical. The questions may be designed to present an opposition or gather data. Men’s contributions to arguments are often simple and direct. Men are so straightforward in contrast to women’s questions that men might not realize there is a conflict. When both parties realize they are in disagreement, their communication styles may be impacted. Men are concerned with being right and less concerned about anyone else’s feelings. This perceived lack of compassion upsets women. Men dislike questions, interpreting them as censure, and they may react by closing down emotionally. This pattern leads women to become increasingly suspicious and wary.

From an early age, females learn to give compliments. Compliments are a way of reaching out to one another, an offer of affirmation and inclusion. Men are more likely to volunteer evaluations instead of giving compliments. Similarly, they will not seek out compliments because they want to avoid being critiqued themselves. These differing approaches complicate communication. If a woman asks a question with the hope of being praised or flattered, a man may see it as a way to offer advice, thereby affecting their relative power. The advice-giver is automatically shifted to a higher position, with the woman having lower status.

Women use apologies to try to create or maintain connections. Men, on the other hand, are concerned with what an apology might do. It might lower them to a subordinate position. After a male-female quarrel, gender differences can prolong negative feelings. While a man fears losing power and avoids apologizing, a woman might consider this insensitive behavior, and become offended and annoyed.

Men and women have very different ways of trying to get what they want, which can make it difficult to come to a resolution of any conflict. Women are typically in conversation mode; they are more likely to ask questions to get others to acquiesce through agreement. Men often interpret this approach as manipulation. They will make statements rather than suggestions. Their objective is to get their way directly and quickly. If that does not work, they will exit the discussion; they may either be angry or simply less passionate about the subject. These conversations may result in misunderstandings. Men may be resentful, believing women are trying to trick them. If men do not participate in back and forth negotiations, women may feel slighted. Men tend to focus on facts and seek immediate resolutions; action is the conversational goal. Women desire more extensive talk about problems, sharing feelings, and finding common experiences.

Different styles can lead to misunderstandings, which can impede conflict resolution. Do not use this information to stereotype all men or all women, as not everyone fits these generalizations. These are typical, and a large majority of men and women display some of these characteristics. Both men and women need to be aware of each other’s styles of communication both verbal and non-verbal in order to avoid miscommunication in resolving their differences. There may also be subconscious or unconscious stereotyping and biases that prevent resolution of conflicts.

There is enormous diversity in communication style and practices within each gender group. Most women and many men have at their disposal a variety of conversational and speech skill, which they may draw upon, depending on the situation, the purposes, the context, and the roles they are playing.

Who Talks the Most?

In mixed-gender groups, at public gatherings, and in many informal conversations, men spend more time talking than do women. In one experiment, the men with expertise talked longer than the women with expertise. Men initiate more interaction than do women.

Who Interrupts?

Men are more likely than women to interrupt people speaking. A study of faculty meetings revealed that women are more likely than men to be interrupted. Some interruptions that women experience come from other women. Women, who do interrupt, are more likely to interrupt other women than men. Women are more likely than men to allow an interruption of their talk to be successful. They do not resist the interruption as much as men do.

What About Gender Patterns in Formal Group Meetings?

In meetings, men gain the “floor” more often, and keep the floor for longer periods of time, regardless of their status in the organization. In professional conferences, women take a less active part in responding to papers. When women do ask a question, they take less time in asking it than do men. Women are less likely to ask multiple questions and are more likely to phrase their question in personal terms.

What are the Gender Patterns in Informal Group Meetings?

When the meeting is an informal, collaborative venture, women display a fuller range of language ability. In this setting, women excel, people jointly build an idea, operate on the same wavelengths, and have deep conversational overlaps.

Is There a “Women’s Language” Connoting Uncertainty and Deference?

The use of tag questions (“It’s really cold in here, isn’t it?”), disclaimers (“I may be wrong, but . . .”), and question statements (“Won’t you close the door?”) all decrease the perceived assertiveness of speech. However, research has not confirmed that women and men differ in the frequency of their use of these forms. Raters perceive those who use a deferential language style (super polite language, hedges, and hesitations) as having less power but more personal warmth.

Does it Matter who Talks More?

People who talk more are more likely to be perceived as dominant and controlling. Those who talk the most in decision-making groups also tend to become the leaders. “Task leadership behaviors,” such as asking questions, setting up structures and procedures for the groups, giving information and opinions, and identifying and solving problems are important. Interrupters are perceived as more successful and driving, but less socially acceptable, reliable, and companionable than the interrupted speaker. In a study of trial witnesses, undergraduate student observers saw both female and male witnesses who use powerful language as being more competent, intelligent, and trustworthy than those who use powerless language.

What are Some Ways Women are Affected by These Patterns?

When someone is interrupted often or her comments are ignored, she may believe that what she has to say is not important. Women are less likely than men to have confidence in their ability to make persuasive arguments. Many women feel inhibited in formal, mixed-gender groups. Some women create their own passive participation - by allowing interruptions, by not taking advantage of natural pauses in the conversation, or by asking questions without explaining the context out of which the question emerged. Some women, when they do gain the “floor,” talk too fast as though they know they are about to be interrupted.

Are Gender Differences in Communication Patterns Related to Power?

When people are strangers, they expect less competence from women than from men. If women are known to have prior experience or expertise related to the task, are assigned leadership roles, then women show greatly increased verbal behaviors in mixed-sex groups. A study of court witnesses found that educated professionals who have high social status were less likely to use “powerless language,” regardless of gender. Differences in communication patterns may be linked to power, and are context-specific. Differences are socially created and therefore may be socially altered. Other studies have found that talking time is related both to gender, i.e., men spend more time talking than women. In many organizations, the more powerful, usually men, spend more time talking than the less powerful.

Is Assertiveness in Women Viewed Negatively by Others?

In several controlled studies using undergraduate students, assertive behavior exhibited by females was evaluated as positively as the same behavior exhibited by males. The least-valued behavior is the self-effacing assertive. Subordinates prefer a supervisor to balance a task-orientated style with a relationship-oriented style. Research further suggests that the adoption of task behaviors, i.e., a focus on getting things done, enhances a woman’s adaptability in the organization. The healthiest and best-liked individuals, male or female, were assertive, decisive, and intellectual, rather than nurturing, responsive, and emotional. Therefore, women may want to focus on task and impression-management goals in their interactions.

Strategies for Women to Communicate more Effectively with Men

Learn to state exactly what you want and face the risk of being criticized. This may not be a “safe” position, but it is an honest one. Focus on stating your own position rather than how the other person is reacting to you. State your own needs and do not back down even if the immediate response is not acceptance. Stop self-limiting behaviors, such as allowing interruptions or laughing after making a serious statement. Practice taking risks and overcoming fear. Learn to focus on a task and regard it as at least as important as the relationship among the people doing the task. Stop turning anger and blame inward. Make positive statements about yourself. Do not be a victim. Support other women.

Nonverbal Communication

Examples of nonverbal communication are fingers tapping; eyes squinting; legs crossing; hands fluttering; heads nodding. Nonverbal communication involves varying levels of body expression, with women usually functioning at high intensity. Faces are animated and hands are in motion, often touching others. Men are more conservative in facial movement and body contact; however, they do tend to be unreserved in sitting styles, such as, sprawling, stretching, and spreading out. The intensity level for women drops when seated, as they tend to draw in by keeping arms and legs close to their bodies.

How does nonverbal communication impact male and female communication? Women’s actions focus on maintaining the relationship: providing attention and encouraging participation. The goal for men depends on the task. If they want to appear in charge, they use their bodies to control the discussion space. If they want to preserve calm and prevent emotional escalation, they are likely to be impassive.

One specific aspect of nonverbal communication is body orientation. If a man will not make eye contact or face his female conversational partner, she, who perceives conversation as integral to relationships, may interpret this as a lack of interest. He may become annoyed that she is rejecting his efforts. His relaxed body position is actually helping him concentrate. The differences in physical alignment can make it difficult for talkers to reconcile the two styles.

Imagine, a happy hour after work. On one side of the room, there is a group of women, deep in conversation. Their chairs are all turned toward each other, and they continually make eye contact. On the other side of the room, there is a group of men. Men sit at angles to each other. During much of their discussion, their eyes roam around the room, glancing at each other infrequently. Each cluster is engaged in their preferred style of talk. When group members are engaged with the other gender, these preferences may cause problems.