He Describes the Forest, She Describes the Trees: The Effect of Gender on Communicative Abstraction
Exploring gender differences in communication, we suggest that men and women vary in the
extent to which they communicate abstractly and that this divergence has important downstream
consequences. In particular, we argue that women speak more concretely than men in interpersonal
contexts and find that this influences their success in entrepreneurial pitch competitions. Our findingsboth
add to our understanding of basic differences in how men and women use language, and establish the
organizational relevance of such differences.
Gender and Abstraction
Prior research suggests several key differences in how men and women use language (for a
review, see Mulac, Bradac, & Gibbons, 2001). For example, while men tend to use language to convey
information, women are increasingly likely to use language for social purposes(e.g., Brownlow,
Rosamon, & Parker, 2003). Women and men also differ in particular word (Newman et al., 2008) and
phrase (Lakoff, 1975) usages; for example, women are more likely to use hedges and ‘tag questions’ than
are men (Lakoff, 1975; Mulac&Lundell, 1986).
We draw on Construal Level Theory (CLT; Trope &Liberman, 2010) to argue that women’s
experience of interpersonal closeness results in them adopting a more concrete communication style
relative to men. CLTdistinguishes between abstract and concrete ways of representing and
communicating information. Abstract messages are relatively decontextualized, focusing on a message’s
gist. Concrete messages are contextualized, specific, and local, focusing on more incidental features. Prior
findings suggest people use more abstract messages to communicate with a distant audience (Joshi &
Wakslak, 2014; Joshi, Wakslak, Raj, & Trope, in press); this is because communicating with a distant
audience requires an individual to be both relevant and relatable, making de-contextualized, abstract
messages particularly effective.
Historically, women’s social roles have largely placed them in small group contexts, leading them
to develop a tendency to seek intimacy and social connection (Eagly, Wood, &Diekmann, 2000). Indeed,
women continue to be more relational than men (Cross, Morris, & Gore, 2003), experiencing greater
feelings of connection andcloseness with those with whom they interact. Given that closeness to an
He Describes the Forest, She Describes the Trees: The Effect of Gender on Communicative Abstraction
audience leads to concrete communication, this suggests that women will tend to adopt a more concrete
communication style than men. Such differences may have important downstream consequences.
Speakers who communicate concretely tend to be perceived as less powerful and having less status than
those who communicate abstractly (Wakslak, Smith, & Han, 2014; Reyt, Wiesenfeld, & Trope, 2015). A
tendency for women to speak concretely may therefore hinder their relative success in contexts that
require people to portray themselves as confident and powerful, such as an entrepreneurial pitch
competition.
To summarize, women’s proclivity to feel close to others may cause women to speak more
concretely than men, even in contexts such as entrepreneurial pitches that would benefit from speech
abstraction. We examine this idea in the three studies described below.
Study 1: We began by conducting a meta-analysis of 11 prior studies we have conducted on
linguistic abstraction in communication (Joshi & Wakslak, 2014; Joshi et al, in press). These studies
examined the effects of psychological distance on linguistic abstraction, finding that people communicate
abstractly with distant others and concretely with near others. We expect women to communicate less
abstractly than men in contexts where they feel closely connected to their audience. Because women
experience greater interpersonal intimacy in relational settings, we expected women to speak more
concretely than men in psychologically near communication contexts, but not necessarily in
psychologically distant ones. Results revealed a main effect of gender on linguistic abstraction, with men
speaking more abstractly than women, d=.19, 95% CI=[.05, .33]. The gender effect was strongwhen
participants were communicating with a close other, d=.40; 95% CI=[.20,.59], but disappeared when the
audience was psychologically distant, d=.03; 95% CI= [-.17,.21]. Results thus suggest a gender effect on
communicative abstraction in contexts involving proximal communication.
Study 2:Next, to support our relational argument, we wanted to show that men and women differ
only in the extent to which they communicate abstractly, but not in the extent to which they mentally
represent information abstractly more generally. One hundred participants completed two measures: in an
initial prescreening session they completed a modified version of the Behavior Identification Form, a
He Describes the Forest, She Describes the Trees: The Effect of Gender on Communicative Abstraction
commonly used measure of abstract cognition. Then, in a study session several weeks later they
completed a modified communication version of this same measure (i.e., instead of asking them to
identify the presented behaviors, we asked them to describe the behaviors to another student (a
psychologically close audience)). As expected, women (M=4.70, SD=1.59) and men (M=4.49, SD=1.75)
did not differ in the extent to which they mentally represented information abstractly, as measured by
their responses to the prescreen. However, womencommunicated the same behaviors more concretely
(4.20, SD=1.81) than did men (M=4.86; SD= 1.51), F(1,99)=5.77, p=.02.
Study 3:In our final study, we wanted to examine the implications of gender differences in
communication on women’s likelihood of success in entrepreneurial pitch competitions. A wide gender
gap exists in entrepreneurship, with men being more likely than women to engage in innovative
entrepreneurial activity and find success in obtaining venture capital (Fairlie& Marion, 2012, Ahl, 2006).
We suggest that because speech abstraction is associated with perceptions of power and status (Wakslak
et al, 2014; Reyt et al., 2015), women may be penalized in interpersonal contexts that require them to
present themselves as confident and powerful such as entrepreneurial pitch competitions. We obtained
entrepreneurial pitches from a student pitch competition at a large business school in the United States
and coded these speeches for abstraction using the linguistic categorization model (Semin& Fielder,
1991). We also obtained ratings given by venture capitalists in these competitions on three dimensions:
‘general assessment,’‘profitability,’ and ‘communication skills.’ As expected, men (M=2.96, SD=.27)
presented their entrepreneurial ideas more abstractly than women (M=2.84, SD=.25), t=2.38, p=.02.
Furthermore, speech abstraction predicted overall assessment of the entrepreneur, B=.73, SEB=.26,
t=2.84, p=.005. Finally, we conducted mediation analyses to examine a potential indirect effect of gender
on entrepreneur assessment through speech abstraction: results revealed this significant mediated pathway
(bootstrapped 95% CI: LL=-.02, UL=-.23). These findings suggest a) that gender differences in
communication persist even in high-stakes communication contexts and b) that these differences have
important consequences for critical organizational outcomes.
He Describes the Forest, She Describes the Trees: The Effect of Gender on Communicative Abstraction
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