Conversational Planning and Self-Serving Utterances: The Manipulation of Topical and Functional Structures in Dyadic Interaction

Abstract

Thirty-two pairs of strangers were videotaped during a 15-minute interaction during which one of the pair, acting as a 'confederate' of the experimenters, inserted a pre-designated 'boast' into the conversation. Male and female confederates were observed to differ significantly on some aspects of their approach to the task: Women were significantly more likely to be calculating, top-down planners, while males were more likely to offer boasts as 'answers' to unprompted questions from their partners. Although there were trends for women to use more reciprocal questions and more topical control strategies than men, the obtained differences were not significant.