The Social Origins and Maintenance of Gender: Communication Styles,Personality Types and Grid-Group Theory

Starting from the distinctive communication styles that Deborah Tannen associates with men and women, we probe for the bases of gender differences. We suggest that these contrasting communication styles, which contribute to systematic miscommunication between women and men, are indices of deeper differences that serve the more fundamental purpose of providing individuals with the benefits of multiple distinctive world views, thus improving their chances for dealing successfully with the range of contingencies with which life confronts them. In essence, our argument runs that the imperfect empirical associations between communication styles and gender that have attracted Tannen's attention are consequences of the constellations of basic personality characteristics that form Carl Jung's personality types. Various gender-associated personality types are, in turn, socially cultivated by disparate organizations faithful to the principles of the rival cultures that constitute Mary Douglas' grid-group theory. These distinctive ways of life are thus crucial to the social maintenance of evolutionarily constructive cultural diversity among human groupings as small as mating pairs.