Tentative female talk changes men's minds

Based on an item in New Scientist (Feb. 19th '92).

Linda Carli of Wellesley College in Massachusetts has shown through a series of videotape experiments that women who are tentative in their speech, speaking slowly but with warmth and gentle hand gestures, using 'wishy washy' phrases, and peppering their speech with hedges and disclaimers, are best able to change the mind of the males they are talking to. Men did not like the confident, assertive women. Carli concludes: 'This is a real tragedy for woman.'

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