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University of Indianapolis

Differences in the Verbal Communication of

Male and Female Children

Jessica Hoover

Gender and Communication

Darryl Clark

16 April 2017
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It is no question that adults can have very distinct conversation styles, varying from

feminine communication to masculine communication and everything in between. Adults from

feminine speech communities tend to “regard communication as a primary way to establish and

maintain relationships with others.” They also tend to connect with, support, and understand

others. Adults from masculine speech communities are likely to “accomplish concrete goals,

exert control, preserve independence, entertain, and enhance status.” Masculine adults usually

prove themselves and negotiate in conversations (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 112-114). There are

obvious gender differences in the conversations of adults, but how early on does this start? This

paper will discuss the differences in verbal communication of male and female children in ages

ranging from three to four, four to five, five to seven, and seven to ten years old.

Starting at the first stages of learning to communicate, a study in 1978 was conducted

with children who were close to turning three years old. 90 unacquainted children were paired up

in either same-sex or mixed-sex pairs, and each pair was given a toy horse, wagon, nerf trucks,

toy telephone, paper and crayons, merry-go-round, and ferris wheel one toy at a time. An

interesting finding in this study was that the same-sex pairs were very similar in behavior, but the

mixed-sex pairs showed lower amounts of socialization. Girls in particular tended to withdraw

and become more passive when in a pair with boys. The authors said that the reason for this was

that the girls felt less in control when interacting with a boy rather than a girl. When a girl issued

a prohibition (“no” or “don’t”) to a girl partner, the partner withdraws, but when issuing a

prohibition to a male partner, the male does not listen. The authors’ hypothesis for this was that

the girls may have talked tentatively or in a softer voice, causing the girls’ prohibitions to be less

effective (Jacklin & Maccoby, 559-560, 567-568). These findings directly coincide with the
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common use of tentativeness in adult feminine speech communities (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz,

113).

In a different study a year later, 40 children between the ages of three and four were

divided into three groups: an all-male group, an all-female group, and a mixed-sex group. The

author audio-taped the groups’ conversations looking for “interruptions, overlaps, lapses, gaps,

and number of initiated unit-types.” The results showed that boys tended to interrupt girls in the

same way that men interrupt women, but in fewer instances. What differed this study from the

previous is that the girls did not show signs of passive behavior or become silent, even when

interrupted by boys. This may have something to do with being in larger groups rather than in

pairs. Also, contrary to popular belief, there were no differences in the amount of conversation

whether it was a boy or girl (Esposito, 213, 215, 218-219).

Later on, a study in 1990 recorded conflicts between three year olds in same-sex groups,

and the results were consistent with conflict strategies for male and female adults. The girls’

conflict was full of negotiations and worked to respond to the others’ needs and find a solution to

the conflict (Sheldon, 28). This correlates with a feminine adult’s need to maintain relationships

and support others (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 112). The boys in the study had much longer conflict

that focused on trying to get their way (Sheldon, 28). This finding reiterates the independence

and control of adult masculine communication (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 114).

In the four to five year old age group, children are just starting to enter school and their

speech has developed a bit more, prompting there to be studies for this particular age range. In a

study conducted in 1987, four to five year olds were put in same sex problem solving groups of

four children each. They were given the task to watch a cartoon movie on a television, but in

order to keep the TV running one child had to turn a crank, one had to push a light, one was in a
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bystander position, and one watched the movie. The results showed that the girls and boys had

equal success in viewing the movie, but girls used more verbal behavior and boys used more

physical behavior (pushing, shoving) in order to do so (Charlesworth & Dzur, 191, 198). This

goes back to the tendency of women to focus on the importance of communication and men to

use communication much less (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 112-115).

In 1993, a psychology group at the University of Sussex recorded four to five year old

children in their classrooms in the beginning and end of the school year to analyze their use of

commands during pretend play. In stark contrast to what one would think, the girls were actually

found to use more commands than the boys in both the beginning of the year and the end. Men

usually use more commands and attempt to exert control more than women (Wood & Fixmer-

Oraiz, 114-115). Interestingly, the use of commands did not change at all when the children were

in same-sex and mixed-sex groups (Lloyd & Goodwin, 122, 128). This differs directly with the

first mentioned study in 1978 where the girls were found to act passively and feel less in control

when paired with boys (Jacklin & Maccoby, 567-568). One distinct difference between the two

studies that could have skewed the results was that the children in the 1978 study were in a very

controlled setting while the children in the 1993 study were in a natural setting and most likely

felt more comfortable. Of course, there was also a couple years age difference between the two

sets of children.

138 children between the ages of five and seven were paired up with either partners of the

same sex or opposite sex in a study conducted in 1991. The pairs were instructed to play with

puppets together for ten minutes, and the researchers looked for collaborative, controlling,

obliging, or withdrawing speech. Coinciding with most research, the most common speech in all

of the pairs was collaborative and cooperative, but the older female pairs use those two types of
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speech more than any other pair. Controlling and domineering speech was more common among

male pairs, also consistent with the research of verbal communication of children and adults

(Leaper, 797, 806). Control is one of the most prominent features of masculine communication

in adults (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 114).

In a study conducted in 1994 by Lea Ausch, 80 children from the ages of five and six

years old were paired up in same-sex or mixed-sex dyads and were given a doll house or a G.I.

Joe Command Center. The pairs were asked to come to a decision on where to place the furniture

in the doll house and where to place the guns and tanks in the command center. It was expected

that the boys would use more aggravated interactions, while the girls would use more

cooperative and mitigating interactions, but that was not exactly the case. The two genders

actually ended up using the same proportion of aggravated interactions regardless of whether

they were playing with the doll house or the command center. However, the girls did show

higher levels of aggravated interactions when playing with the command center, while the boys

did not (Ausch, 225, 236-237). This study drew a very different result from the 1978 study

mentioned earlier that also had the children play with some gendered toys (Jacklin & Maccoby,

567-568). Once again, age can play a significant factor in the different socializations between the

children, and with the 1978 study being conducted on three year olds compared to five to six

year olds, the development of the children’s social skills varies quite a bit.

While the first two studies of children deal solely with gender, a study by the Open

University in 2006 brought a different consideration into the picture: whether the popularity

along with the gender of the child will affect the results. Using five to seven year olds, the

researchers paired up both an unpopular and popular child of the same sex to play a game

together. When looking at the use of questions, directives, and elaborations, popular girls used
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more of these forms of speech than unpopular girls. Popular and unpopular boys had no

difference in the amount of these forms of speech they used (Murphy & Faulkner, 82). This

study gives some insight into the factors other than gender that could contribute to the types of

speech children use, and judging by the results, popularity seems to have a larger impact on the

speech of girls than boys. More research needs to be done on whether popularity plays a part in

the communication between younger children.

A study conducted by Pete Blatchford, Ed Baines, and Anthony Pellegrini observed an

older group of children between the ages of seven and eight while they were playing at recess.

The boys were more likely to play ball games and the girls involved themselves in things like

conversation, jump-skipping, and verbal games, which is not surprising knowing that the adult

feminine style of speaking emphasizes the importance of verbal communication (Blatchford,

Baines, & Pellegrini, 481, 485). Looking at the assertiveness between children, a 1980 study

focused on multiple groups of children, with the groups ranging from five to six years old and

eight to ten years old. The results showed that while the younger girls were less assertive in the

five to six year old group, the assertiveness of girls increased in the groups of older children. In

the group of eight to ten year olds, the amount of assertiveness in girls actually equaled that of

boys (Sgan & Pickert, 928).

While much of the research done on the verbal communication of children was not

consistent, it still can be seen that as a child grows older he or she is more prone to use either

masculine or feminine styles of speaking. The inconsistencies of the studies could have been

because they were all using different children from all different walks of life. It also may have

had something to do with the environment that the study was conducted in. As said before, the

children that were in a more natural environment and may not have known that they were being
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watched could have far different reactions than the children in the controlled experiments. In the

future, the studies will need to focus more on giving the children more natural setting so the

results will be more accurate.

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Bibliography

Ausch, Lea. "Gender Comparisons of Young Children's Social Interaction in Cooperative Play

Activity." Sex Roles 31.3-4 (1994): 225-39. Web.

Blatchford, Peter, Ed Baines, and Anthony Pellegrini. "The Social Context of School Playground

Games: Sex and Ethnic Differences, and Changes over Time after Entry to Junior

School."British Journal of Developmental Psychology 21.4 (2003): 481-505. Web.

Charlesworth, William R., and Claire Dzur. "Gender Comparisons of Preschoolers' Behavior and

Resource Utilization in Group Problem Solving." Child Development 58.1 (1987): 191.

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Esposito, Anita. "Sex Differences in Children's Conversation." Language & Speech 22.3 (1979):

213-20. Web.

Jacklin, Carol Nagy, and Eleanor E. Maccoby. "Social Behavior at Thirty-Three Months in

Same-Sex and Mixed-Sex Dyads." Child Development 49.3 (1978): 557. Web.

Leaper, Campbell. "Influence and Involvement in Children's Discourse: Age, Gender, and

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Murphy, Suzanne M., and Dorothy Faulkner. "Gender Differences in Verbal Communication

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Development15.1 (2006): 82-108. Web.

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Sgan, Mabel L., and Sarah M. Pickert. "Cross-Sex and Same-Sex Assertive Bids in a

Cooperative Group Task." Child Development 51.3 (1980): 928. Web.

Sheldon, Amy. "Pickle Fights: Gendered Talk in Preschool Disputes." Discourse Processes 13.1

(1990): 5-31. Web.

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Culture. 12th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2015. Print.