Gender, interpersonal power, and social influence

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 1999 by Linda L. Carli

The gender of the target of influence also affects reported influence strategy. Given women's lower expert and legitimate power, one might expect both males and females to employ more direct or assertive strategies when attempting to influence a woman than a man. In fact, self-report research suggests that this is true. Among heterosexual and homosexual couples, men report that their romantic partners used strategies such as hinting, flattering, pleading, and crying more than women report their partners to use (Howard, Blumstein, & Schwartz, 1986). Moreover, adolescents in sixth through twelfth grade report using more direct and negative influence strategies with their mothers than with their fathers (Cowan, Drinkard, & MacGavin, 1984).

However, not all self-report studies have found effects of gender on use of direct influence strategies. Nonsignificant findings have been reported in research on college students (Steil & Hillman, 1993), couples (Aida & Falbo, 1991), and employees (Dreher, Dougherty, & Whitely, 1989) and managers in work settings (Kipnis, Schmidt, & Wilkinson, 1980). Moreover, some studies have revealed mixed results. For example, Offermann and Schrier (1985) found that undergraduate men reported a preference for using some indirect strategies, such as hinting or manipulation, whereas women reported a preference for other indirect strategies, such as dependency or smiling. Belk reported that women's greater use of indirect strategies was more pronounced in Mexican than American couples (Belk et al., 1988).

The inconsistency in results may be due to variability among men and women in their perceived levels of power. That is, regardless of gender, people use more direct or assertive forms of influence when they feel relatively powerful (Cowan et al., 1984; Hirokawa et al., 1990; Hirokawa et al., 1991; Howard et al., 1986; Sagrestano, 1992; Steil & Hillman, 1993). Gender differences in influence strategy are mediated by gender differences in power. Therefore, gender differences in influence strategies should be reduced or eliminated when women feel that they have relatively high power compared with men, such as when a woman boss interacts with her male subordinate. In general, people consider power to be more predictive of influence strategy than gender (Steffen & Eagly, 1985).

Unfortunately, findings based on self-reports are somewhat limited in their utility because subjects may not report their behavior accurately. In the case of research on gender differences in influence strategy, men may exaggerate their use of direct forms of influence and women their use of indirect forms, especially because some of the strategies (e.g., crying, demanding) are highly gender-typed and subjects may want to appear to behave in a gender-appropriate manner. In addition, subjects may not be aware of the strategies they actually use and so end up guessing how they might behave. Ideally, evidence for gender differences in influence strategy should include observations of actual behavior. Finally, it is difficult to summarize the results of many of the studies employing self-reports because of differences between them. First, not all studies of gender differences in influence strategy have included strategies that can be easily classified as direct or indirect. Second, even when the studies include behaviors reflecting direct or indirect strategies, the particular behaviors presumed to reflect directness or indirectness are often quite different between studies. For example, Offermann and Schrier (1985) classified hinting as an indirect strategy but Aida and Falbo (1991), although including hinting as a influence strategy, did not classify it as indirect. Finally, behaviors are often combined into categories of influence before gender differences are assessed, but the categories sometimes combine behaviors that are direct and assertive with others that that seem much less so. For example, when White and Roufail (1989) combined strategies based on a cluster analysis, one category, negative emotion, contained the strategies demand, a direct strategy, along with cry and sulk, indirect strategies.