Human conversational behavior

Abstract

Observational studies of human conversations in relaxed social settings suggest that these consist predominantly of exchanges of social information (mostly concerning personal relationships and experiences). Most of these exchanges involve information about the speaker or third parties, and very few involve critical comments or the soliciting or giving of advice. Although a policing function may still be important (e.g., for controlling social cheats), it seems that this does not often involve overt criticism of other individuals' behavior. The few significant differences between the sexes in the proportion of conversation time devoted to particular topics are interpreted as reflecting females' concerns with networking and males' concerns with self-display in what amount to a conventional mating lek.

Powering up with indirect reciprocity in a large-scale field experiment

“…Most indirect reciprocity models, however, rely on individuals communicating information about the observed actions of others (21). Fortunately, we are more than happy to talk about how others have behaved: gossip is a central element of human communication (85,86). However, why did we come to have this predilection for gossiping about the previous behavior of others?…”

Women Gossip and Men Brag: Perceived Gender Differences in the Use of Humor by Romanian Older Women

“…(woman, 67, higher education) "For everyone, even if you go to the market, something always happens to give you a reason to laugh, and when you meet other [women] you start to tell them, «hey, look at what soand-so did», or «listen to what someone said», and everyone starts to laugh and enjoy themselves, or there are also family problems, someone will say «listen to what my child said to me», it really is surprising how clever children are these days". (woman, 83, primary education) One other finding regarding gender differences is the degree to which women reported discussing topics related to family and children, topics which previous studies found to be very present in the conversations of women, but less so in those of men (Dunbar et al, 1997). Gender roles have arguably changed in recent times, allowing us to speculate that, for younger adults, the topics of conversation and humor production could no longer be clearly deliniated.…”

“…Studies that deal with the phenomenon of gossip suggest that it plays an important role in the social group, contributing to its functionality and to group cohesion by creating social bonding (Dunbar, 2004). One study found that only less than 3-4% of conversations classified as gossip were malicious, but that gossip in the form of exchange of social information can take up to 65% of dialogue time (Dunbar et al, 1997).…”

“…For example, a study by Kuhn and Villeval (2015) found women to be more focused on cooperation, while Gneezy and colleagues found that women were more likely to avoid competitive activities (Gneezy, Niederle, & Rustichini, 2003;Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007). Research by Dunbar and colleagues suggests that the conversations of women are directed in a manner that builds bonds and social networks, while the conversations of men are based primarily on "self-promotion" (Dunbar, Duncan, & Marriott, 1997).…”

An attempt at a proxemic description of politeness from the ethological-evolutionary persepctive

“…It is interesting to note that Dunbar marries the phylogentic argument about the role verbal grooming played in the emergence of language (in his view, verbal grooming substituted manual grooming as a more effective means of bonding in the growing hominid groups) with the statement on the nature of language which regards gossip, the contemporary manifestation of verbal grooming, as the essential characteristic of linguistic communication (see e.g. Dunbar et al 1997).…”