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J. A. Hobson
Small-group Interaction and Gender
When people interact together in groups that are small
enough to allow person-to-person contact (2 to 20
people), regular patterns of behavior develop that
organize their relations. The study of gender in this
context examines how these patterns of behavior are
affected by members’ social locations as men or women
and the consequences this has for beliefs about gender
differences and for gender inequality in society.
1. The Emergence of the Field
The systematic, empirical study of small group in-
teraction and gender (hereafter, gender and inter-
action) developed during the 1940s and 1950s out of
the confluence of a general social scientific interest in
small groups and structural-functionalist theorizing
about the origin of differentiated gender roles for men
and women. Parsons and Bales (1955) argued that
small groups, like all social systems, must manage
instrumental functions of adaptation and goal at-
tainment while also attending to expressive functions
of group integration and the well-being of members.
Differentiated instrumental and expressive gender
roles develop to solve this problem in the small group
system of the family. Children internalize these func-
tionally specialized roles as personality traits that
shape their behavior in all groups.
Although eventually discredited on logical and
empirical grounds, the functional account of gender
roles stimulated broader empirical attention to gender
and interaction, not only within the family but also in
task-oriented groups such as committees and work
groups. Evidence accumulated that gender’s effects on
interaction are complex and quite context specific (see
Aries 1996; Deaux and LaFrance 1998). This evidence
is inconsistent with the view that gender is best
understood as stable individual traits that affect men
and women’s behavior in a consistent manner across
situations.
These findings on interaction contributed to a
gradual transformation of social scientific approaches
to gender. From an earlier view of gender as a matter
of individual personality and family relations, social
science has increasingly approached gender as a broad
system of social difference and inequality that is best
studied as part of social stratification as well as
individual development and family organization.
Considering gender in a broader context draws
attention to how the interactional patterns it entails
are both similar to and different from those that
characterize other systems of difference and inequality
such as those based on race, ethnicity, or wealth.
While interaction occurs between the advantaged and
the disadvantaged on each of these forms of social
difference, the rate of interaction across the gender
divide is distinctively high. Gender divides the popu-
lation into social categories of nearly equal size; it
cross-cuts kin and households and is central for
reproduction. Each of these factors increases the
frequency with which men and women interact and the
intimacy of the terms on which they do so. Fur-
thermore, research on social cognition has shown that
people automatically sex categorize (i.e., label as male
or female) any concrete person with whom they
interact. As a consequence, gender is potentially at
play in all interaction and interactional events are
likely to be important for the maintenance or change
of a society’s cultural beliefs and practices about
gender. West and Zimmerman (1987) argue that for
gender to persist as a social phenomenon, people must
continually ‘do gender’ by presenting themselves in
ways that allow others to relate to them as men or
women as that is culturally defined by society.
Recognition of these distinctive aspects of gender
has increased attention to the role that gendered
patterns of interaction play in gender inequality.
Interaction mediates the process by which people form
social bonds, are socially evaluated by others, gain
influence, and are directed towards or away from
positions of power and valued social rewards. Inter-
action also provides the contexts in which people
develop identities of competence and sociality. To the
extent that gender moderates these interaction pro-
cesses, it shapes the outcomes of men and women as
well as shared beliefs about gender.
2. Current Theories
Four theoretical approaches predominate. Two, social
role theory and expectation states theory, single out a
society’s cultural beliefs about the nature and social
value of men’s and women’s traits and competencies
as primary factors that create gendered patterns of
interaction in that society. The theories conceptualize
these beliefs in slightly different terms (i.e., as gender
stereotypes or gender status beliefs) but are in sub-
stantial agreement about their explanatory impact on
interaction through the expectations for behavior that
develop when these beliefs are evoked by the group
situation. The remaining theories take somewhat
different approaches.
2.1 Social Role Theory
Eagly’s (1987) social role theory argues that widely
shared gender stereotypes develop from the gender
14185
Small-group Interaction and Gender
division of labor that characterizes a society. In
western societies, men’s greater participation in paid
positions of higher power and status and the dis-
proportionate assignment of nurturant roles to women
have created stereotypes that associate agency with
men and communion with women. In addition, the
gendered division of labor gives men and women
differentiated skills. When gender stereotypes are
salient in a group because of a mixed sex membership
or a task or context that is culturally associated with
one gender, stereotypes shape behavior directly
through the expectations members form for one
another’s behavior. When group members enact social
roles that are more tightly linked to the context than
gender, such as manager and employee in the work-
place, these more proximate roles control their beha-
vior rather than gender stereotypes. Even in situations
where gender stereotypes do not control behavior,
however, men and women may still act slightly
differently due to their gender differentiated skills.
Social role theory has a broad scope that applies to
interaction in all contexts and addresses assertive,
power related behaviors as well as supportive or feeling
related behaviors (called socioemotional behaviors).
The explanations offered by the theory are not highly
specific or detailed, however. The theory predicts that
women will generally act more communally and less
instrumentally than men in the same context, that
these differences will be greatest when gender is highly
salient in the situation, and that gender differences will
be weak or absent when people enact formal, institu-
tional roles.
2.2 Expectations States Theory
Another major approach, Berger and co-worker’s
expectation states theory, offers more detailed ex-
planations within a narrower scope. The theory
addresses the hierarchies of influence and esteem that
develop among group members in goal-oriented con-
texts and makes predictions about when and how
gender will shape these hierarchies due to the status
value gender carries in society (see Ridgeway 1993;
Wagner and Berger 1997). It does not address socio-
emotional behavior. Gender status beliefs are cultural
beliefs that one gender (men) is more status worthy
and generally more competent than the other (women)
in addition to each having gender specific competen-
cies. When gender status beliefs become salient due to
the group’s mixed sex or gender associated context,
they create implicit expectations in both men and
women about the likely competence of goal oriented
suggestions from a man compared to those from a
similar woman. These often unconscious expectations
shape men and women’s propensity to offer their ideas
to the group, to stick with those ideas when others
disagree, to positively evaluate the ideas of others, and
14186
to accept or resist influence from others, creating a
behavioral influence hierarchy that usually advantages
men over women in the group.
In mixed sex groups with a gender-neutral task, the
theory predicts that men will participate more asser-
tively and be more influential than women. If the
group task or context is culturally linked to men, their
influence advantage over women will be stronger. If
the task or context is associated with women’s cultur-
ally expected competencies, however, the theory pre-
dicts that women will be somewhat more assertive and
influential than men. There should be no gender
differences in assertive influence behavior between
men and women in same sex groups with a gender-
neutral task, since gender status beliefs should not be
salient.
2.3 Structural Identity Theories
A set of symbolic interactionist theories, including
Heise and Smith-Lovin’s affect control theory and
Burke’s identity theory forms the structural identity
approach (see Ridgeway and Smith-Lovin (1999) for a
review). It, too, emphasizes shared cultural meanings
about gender but focuses on the identity standards
those beliefs create for individuals in groups. People
learn cultural meanings about what it is to be
masculine or feminine and these meanings become a
personal gender identity standard that they seek to
maintain through their actions. Identity standards act
like control systems that shape behavior. If the context
of interaction causes a person to seem more masculine
or feminine than his or her gender identity standard,
the person reacts with compensatory behaviors (e.g.,
warm behaviors to correct a too masculine impres-
sion). Consequently, different actions serve to express
and maintain gender identities in different situational
contexts.
Since people automatically sex categorize one an-
other, this approach assumes that gender identity
standards affect behavior in all interaction, although
the extent of their impact varies with gender’s salience
in the context. Gender is often a background identity
that modifies other, more situationally prominent
identities, such as woman judge. Unlike the other
theories, the predictions of structural identity theories
focus primarily on the behavioral reactions gender
produces to events in small groups.
2.4 Two-cultures Theory
Maltz and Borker’s (1982) two cultures theory, popu-
larized by Tannen (1990), takes a different approach.
It limits its scope to informal, friendly interaction.
People learn rules for friendly conversation from peers
in childhood, it argues. Since these peer groups tend to

be sex-segregated and because children exaggerate
gender differences in the process of learning gender
roles, boys and girls groups develop separate cultures
that are gender-typed. Girls learn to use language to
form bonds of closeness and equality, to criticize in
nonchallenging ways, and to accurately interpret the
intentions of others. Boys learn to use speech to
compete for attention and assert positions of domi-
nance. In adult mixed sex groups, these rules can cause
miscommunication because men and women have
learned to attribute different meanings to the same
behavior. Men and women’s efforts to accommodate
each other in mixed-sex interaction, however, modifies
their behavior slightly, reducing gender differences. In
same sex interaction, gendered styles of interaction are
reinforced. Thus, two cultures theory predicts greater
gender differences in behavior between men and
women in same-sex groups than in mixed sex groups.
The theory has been criticized for ignoring status and
power differences between men and women and
oversimplifying childhood interaction patterns (see
Aries 1996).
3. Research Findings
The body of systematic evidence about men and
women’s behaviors in small group interaction is large
and growing. Several methodological concerns must
be kept in mind in order to interpret this evidence and
infer general patterns.
3.1 Methodological Issues
Interaction in small groups is an inherently local
phenomenon that is embedded within larger socio-
cultural structures and affected by many aspects of
those structures besides gender. Three methodological
problems result. First, care is required to ascertain that
behavioral differences between men and women in a
situation are indeed due to their gender and not to
differences in their other roles, power, or statuses in
the situation. Second, reasonably large samples of
specific interactional behaviors are necessary to infer
gendered patterns in their use. Third, attention must
be paid to the specific cultural context within in which
the group is interacting. At present, almost all sys-
tematic research has been based on small groups in the
US composed predominately of white, middle class
people. Since several theories emphasize the import-
ance of cultural beliefs about gender in shaping
interaction, researchers must be alert to subcultural
and cross-cultural variations in these beliefs and
appropriately condition their empirical generaliza-
tions about gendered patterns of interaction. The
available studies that compare US populations such
African–Americans whose gender beliefs are less
Small-group Interaction and Gender
polarized than the dominant beliefs find that gender
differences in interaction are also less for these
populations (Filardo 1996).
3.2 Empirical Patterns in North American Groups
Taking these methodological concerns into account,
narrative and meta-analytic reviews of research sug-
gest several provisional conclusions about gender and
interaction in groups governed by the dominant
culture of North American society. Aries (1996),
Deaux and La France (1998), and Ridgeway and
Smith-Lovin (1999 provide reviews of the research on
which these conclusions are based.
Gender differences in behavior do not always occur
in small groups and vary greatly by context. Beha-
vioral expectations associated with the specific focus
and institutional context of the small group (e.g., the
workplace, a committee, a friendship group, a student
group) generally are more powerful determinants of
both men’s and women’s behavior than gender. When
gender differences occur, they tend to be small or
moderate in effect size, meaning that there is usually at
least a 70 percent overlap in the distributions of men’s
and women’s behavior.
When men and women are in formal, prescribed
roles with the same power and status, there are few if
any differences in their behavior. Research has shown
that men and women in equivalent leadership or
managerial roles interact similarly with subordinates
of either sex. On the other hand, when women are
gender atypical occupants of positions of power, they
are sometimes perceived by others as less legitimate in
those roles and elicit more negative evaluations when
they behave in a highly directive, autocratic way than
do equivalent men. These findings are in accord with
the predictions of social role theory and expectations
states theory.
Influence over others and assertive, goal-directed
behavior such as participation rates, task suggestions,
and assertive patterns of gestures and eye gaze are
associated with power and leadership in small groups.
In mixed sex groups with a gender-neutral task, men
have moderately higher rates of assertive behaviors
and influence than do women who are otherwise their
peers. When the group task or context is culturally
linked to men, this gender difference increases. When
the task or context is one associated with women,
however, women’s rates of assertive behaviors and
influence are slightly higher than men’s. When per-
formance information clearly demonstrates that
women in a mixed sex group are as competent as the
men, gender differences in assertiveness and influence
disappear. In same sex groups, there are no differences
between men’s and women’s rates of assertive beha-
viors or influence levels. These patterns closely match
the predictions of expectations states theory, are
14187
Small-group Interaction and Gender
consistent with social role theory, and inconsistent
with two cultures theory. They suggest that gender
status beliefs in society and the expectations for
competence in the situation that they create are an
important determinant of gender differences in power
and assertiveness in groups, independent of men and
women’s personalities or skills. They indicate as well
that both men and women act assertively or deferen-
tially depending on the situational context.
Men, like women, show higher rates of socioemo-
tional behaviors when they are in subordinate rather
than superordinate positions in groups. These are
verbal and nonverbal behaviors that support the
speech of others, express solidarity, and show active,
attentive listenership. In mixed sex groups, women
engage in slightly more socioemotional behavior than
men. However, women engage in the highest rates of
socioemotional behaviors, and men the lowest, in
same sex groups. The latter findings are the only ones
in partial accord with the two-cultures theory. That
theory, however, does not account for the partial
association of socioemotional behaviors with lower
status positions.
Status factors alone, however, do not explain
women’s increased socioemotional behaviors in fe-
male groups. Assertive, instrumental behaviors appear
to reflect power, competence, and status equally for
men and women and, thus, do not reliably mark
gender identity for the actor. To the extent that people
signal gender identity consistently across interaction
contexts, they appear to do so primarily through
socioemotional behaviors that are less associated with
instrumental outcomes.
4. Conclusions
Both the gender division of labor and gender in-
equality in a society depend on its cultural beliefs
about the nature and social value of gender differences
in competencies and traits. Such taken for granted
beliefs allow actors to be reliably categorized as men
and women in all contexts and understood as more or
less appropriate candidates for different roles and
positions in society. For such cultural beliefs to persist,
people’s everyday interactions must be organized to
support them. The empirical evidence from North
America suggests that unequal role and status rela-
tionships produce many differences in interactional
behavior that are commonly attributed to gender.
Network research suggests that most interactions
between men and women actually occur within the
structural context of unequal role or status relations
(see Ridgeway and Smith-Lovin 1999). These points
together may account for the fact that people perceive
gender differences to be pervasive in interaction, while
studies of actual interaction show few behavioral
differences between men and women of equal status
14188
and power. Small group interaction is an arena in
which the appearance of gender differences is con-
tinually constructed through power and status rela-
tions and identity marking in the socioemotional
realm.
Theory and research on gender and interaction have
focused on the way cultural beliefs about gender and
structural roles shape interaction in ways that confirm
the cultural beliefs. New approaches investigate the
ways that interactional processes may perpetuate or
undermine gender inequality in a society as that society
undergoes economic change. If the cultural beliefs
about gender that shape interaction change more
slowly than economic arrangements, people inter-
acting in gendered ways may rewrite gender inequality
into newly emerging forms of socioeconomic organi-
zation in society. On the other hand, rapidly changing
socioeconomic conditions may change the constraints
on interaction between men and women in many
contexts so that people’s experiences undermine con-
sensual beliefs about gender and alter them over time.
See also: Androgyny; Cultural Variations in Inter-
personal Relationships; Feminist Theory; Gender
and Feminist Studies in Psychology; Gender and
Feminist Studies in Sociology; Gender and Language:
Cultural Concerns; Gender Differences in Persona-
lity and Social Behavior; Gender Ideology: Cross-
cultural Aspects; Gender-related Development;
Groups, Sociology of; Interactionism: Symbolic;
Interpersonal Attraction, Psychology of; Language
and Gender; Male Dominance; Masculinities and
Femininities; Social Networks and Gender; Social
Psychology: Sociological; Social Psychology, Theories
of; Social Relationships in Adulthood; Stereotypes,
Social Psychology of
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Role Interpretation. Earlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ
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white adolescents’ social interactions in same-race, mixed-sex
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C. L. Ridgeway
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Smith, Adam (1723–90)
Adam Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in the County of
Fife, and baptized on June 5, 1723 (the date of birth is
unknown). He was the son of Adam Smith, Clerk to
the Court-Martial, later Comptroller of Customs in
the town, and of Margaret Douglas of Strathendry.
1. Early Years
Smith entered Glasgow University in 1737—at the not
uncommon age of 14. He was fortunate in his mother’s
choice of University and in the period of his at-
tendance. The old, nonspecialised, system of ‘regent-
ing’ had been replaced in the late 1720s by a new
arrangement whereby individuals professed a single
subject. There is little doubt that Smith benefited from
the teaching of Alexander Dunlop (Greek) and of
Robert Dick (Physics).
But two men in particular are worthy of note in view
of Smith’s later interests. The first is Robert Simson
(1687–1768) whom Smith later described as one of the
‘greatest mathematicians that I have ever had the
honour to be known to, and I believe one of the two
greatest that have lived in my time’ (TMS, III.2.20).
Smith could well have acquired from Simson and
Matthew Stewart (father of Dugald) his early and
continuing interest in mathematics. Dugald Stewart
recalled in his memoir (Stewart 1977) that Smith’s
favorite pursuits while at university were mathematics
and natural philosophy.
Campbell and Skinner noted that ‘Simson’s interests
were shared generally in Scotland. From their stress
on Greek geometry the Scots built up a reputation for
their philosophical elucidation of Newtonian fluxions,
notably in the Treatise on Fluxions (1724) by Colin
Maclaurin (1698–1746), another pupil of Simson’s
who held chairs of mathematics in Aberdeen and
Edinburgh (1982, p. 20).
But important as it undoubtedly was Simson’s
influence upon Smith pales by comparison with that
exerted by Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746). A student
of Gerschom Carmichael, the first Professor of Moral
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
Smith, Adam (1723–90)
Philosophy, Hutcheson succeeded him in 1729. A
great stylist, Hutcheson lectured in English (rather
than Latin) 3 days a week on classical sources and 5
days on Natural Religion, Morals, Jurisprudence, and
Government. As Dugald Stewart was to observe,
Hutcheson’s lectures contributed to diffuse, in
Scotland, the taste for analytical discussion, and a
spirit of liberal enquiry.
It is believed that Smith graduated from Glasgow in
1740 and known that he was elected to the Snell
Exhibition (scholarship) in the same year. He matric-
ulated in Balliol College on July 7, and did not return
to Scotland until 1746—the year that ended the
Jacobite Rebellion and saw the death of Hutcheson.
The 6 years spent in Oxford were often unhappy.
Smith had a retiring personality, his health was poor,
and the College was pro-Jacobite and ‘anti-Scottish.’
Some members were also ‘unenlightened’; a fact
confirmed by the confiscation by one tutor of David
Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature.
And yet Smith was to write to the Principal of
Glasgow University (Archibald Davidson), on the
occasion of his election as Lord Rector (letter 274,
dated November 16, 1787):
No man can owe greater obligations than I do to the
University of Glasgow. They educated me, they sent me to
Oxford, soon after my return to Scotland they elected me one
of their members, and afterwards preferred me to another
office, to which the abilities and virtues of the never to be
forgotten Dr Hutcheson had given a superior degree of
illustration.
The reference to Oxford was no gilded memory.
Balliol had one of the best libraries in Oxford.
Smith’s occasional ill-health may be explained by his
enthusiastic pursuit of its riches. It has been assumed
that Smith developed an interest in Rhetoric and
Belles Lettres during this period, although it now
seems likely, in view of his later career, that he also
further developed longer standing interests in litera-
ture, science, ethics, and jurisprudence.
2. Professor in Glasgow
Smith returned to Kirkcaldy in 1746 without any fixed
plan. But his wide-ranging interests must have been
known to his friends, three of whom arranged a
program of public lectures which were delivered in
Edinburgh between 1748 and 1751. The three friends
were Robert Craigie of Glendoick, James Oswald of
Dunnikier, and Henry Home, Lord Kames.
The lectures were of an extramural nature and
delivered to a ‘respectable auditory.’ They probably
also included material on the history of science
(astronomy), jurisprudence, and economics.
The success of Smith’s courses in Edinburgh no
doubt led to his appointment to the Glasgow Chair of
Logic and Rhetoric in 1751—where once again he
14189
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7