Facts & artifacts in research: The case of communication medium, gender, and influence

Researchers have used status characteristics theory (SCT) to explain the relationship between gender beliefs and interactional disadvantages faced by women in mixed-sex task settings. Several recent studies raise questions about the theory’s findings concerning gender differences in influence, leading some to speculate that prestige differences between women and men are disappearing. We share the view that inconsistencies in sex-related differences are often explained by methodological dissimilarities. Possible changes in cultural beliefs about gender are confounded with protocol changes and also differences in communication medium across SCT studies, thereby making it difficult to determine whether recent findings reflect cultural changes or methodological artifacts. We conducted a laboratory experiment examining the effects of gender status and communication medium on influence, controlling for protocol details. The results suggest that gender is “alive and well” as a status characteristic and, most interestingly, that partner visibility appears to affect status processes by enhancing status differentiation. Our approach and the implications of our results are discussed with reference to the more general issue of the importance of systematic replication for theory growth in social science research.