THE SOCIAL ORIGINS AND MAINTENANCE OF GENDER - COMMUNICATION STYLES, PERSONALITY-TYPES AND GRID-GROUP THEORY

Starting from the distinctive communication styles that Deborah Tannen associates with men and women, we probe for the bases of gender diffe rences. We suggest that these contrasting communication styles, which contribute to systematic miscommunication between women and men, are i ndices of deeper differences that serve the more fundamental purpose o f providing individuals with the benefits of multiple distinctive woul d views, thus improving their chances for dealing successfully with th e range of contingencies with which life confronts them. In essence, o ur argument runs that the imperfect empirical associations between com munication styles and gender that have attracted Tannen's attention ar e consequences of the constellations of basic personality characterist ics that form Carl Jung's personality types. Various gender-associated personality types are, in turn, socially cultivated by disparate orga nizations faithful to the principles of the rival cultures that consti tute Mary Douglas' grid-group theory. These distinctive ways of life a re thus crucial to the social maintenance of evolutionarily constructi ve cultural diversity among human groupings as small as mating pairs.