Female and male managers' and professionals' criticism giving - Differences in language use and effects

Study 1 investigated differences in the language used by 86 female and male middle managers and career professionals during role plays of criticism th at they had recently voiced to a colleague. Discriminant analysis revealed significant differences in language use, permitting 72% accurate gender rec lassification. The language features more indicative of men were number of words, negations questions, judgmental adjectives, references to emotion, a nd oppositions Those more predictive of women were intensive adverbs longer mean length sentences, hedges, directives, dependent clauses, and sentence initial adverbials. However, nearly one half of these gender indicators ha d been found in previous research to be predictive of the opposite gender. In Study 2, effects of these language differences on third-party observers' judgments were assessed. Contrary to earlier research in nonorganizational settings, no differences were found on Socio-Intellectual Status, Aestheti c Quality, or Dynamism. Results indicated a gender-differentiating, but cou nterstereotypical, language use of female and male managers and career prof essionals in criticism giving.