Eavesdropping on Communication Patterns in Two Token Teams

In a national research project we assessed gender-related communicative patterns in 20 teams from diverse organizations. The sub-sample for this study consisted of two teams with one gender token each: a female token in an industrial team of eleven persons and a male token in a kindergarten team of eight persons. We focused on dominance and support-related behaviour in verbal and nonverbal communication. More specifically, we assessed patterns of talking times, back channelling, gaze behaviour, affect display, and movement qualities. Results suggest patterns within and between verbal and nonverbal codes. In the selected sequences, where tasks are negotiated with some underlying conflict potential, we observed that independent of status and token position, women used more nonverbal communication, regarding dominance, support and defensive behaviour. Defensive behaviour is used when the self image of a person is threatened. This seems to apply not only to the female gender-token in the male-dominated team situation, but to a certain degree also to the female leader when interacting with the male gender-token. Selfand other ratings of gender-tokens were biased toward stereotypic perception. Our case studies support and exemplify research findings that gender-token status frequently has negative consequences for women only.