Sex Differences in Conversational Interruptions by Preschool

Abstract

Interruptions of a conversational partner was assessed in both same-sex and cross-sex dyads of preschoolers; half of the children were 3 years old and the remainder were 4 years old. Each child was successively paired in counterbalanced order with a same-sex
and an opposite-sex peer of the same age, and frequency of interruptions was tabulated. In same-sex pairings, both boys and girls interrupted each other equivalently. However, in cross-sex pairings, boys significantly increased and girls significantly decreased interruption frequency; this was equally true for both ages. Thus, children learn at least some aspects of sex-differentiated conversational patterns at a very early age •