How Gender Personality Traits Influence Communication

Abstract

Personality differences and their effect on gender communication Personality differences and their effect on gender communication Introduction It has always been perceived that men and women are full of differences. It is evidently clear that men and women differ in physical differences but on the other hand, the issue of psychological differences between the two arises more questions than answers. The genders are thought to be so unlike each other and they are perceived as if they are from different spheres. Psychologists have not been able to answer whether the causes are innate, cultural, or social. In other words, are the differences between the genders a result of birth or is it the society that shapes them to be what they seem. Concerning this, people have different personalities and this extends more as far as both genders are involved. Personality could be defined as the way an individual behaves, thinks, feels, and reacts to different emotions and circumstances. This essay aims at discussing how Personality dictates one's moods, attitudes, and opinions which are further expressed in interactions with the other gender, and its effect on communication as far as gender is concerned. People tend to confuse sex and gender but in the real sense, there is a line between the two. Sex is just a label of being either male or female. It could be defined as the label one is given by the doctor or midwife at the birth. Sex is based on the genitals one was born with and the chromosomes one has. It is the label on the birth certificate that brands one as being a male or a female (Goldman, 2017). On the other hand, gender is more complex than just sex. Gender is the social status and the set of societal expectations as far as behaviors, characteristics, and thoughts are concerned. In this respect, therefore, each culture has its standards about how people should behave based on their gender, which also entails being male or female. It is attributed to how one should behave based on one’s sex. In a general outlook, people have traits that align with each other. These may include extraversion, agreeableness, or neuroticism. But on a closer examination and scaling down from the general outlook, there could be specific aspects of these broad factors in that one can ascertain that some traits are more dominant in males than they are in females (Li et al., 2022). On the other hand, some traits score higher in males whereas others score higher in females, therefore, canceling the differences. The cancelation insinuates the appearance that sex differences in personality do not exist but in reality, these differences exist (Coffman and Marques, 2021). Males are expected to be more assertive, tough-minded, open to abstract ideas, dominant, and even more attracted to thrill-seeking. As far as communication is concerned, males are more inclined to use more assertive speech. The dominance of males could be the reason why they tend to interrupt people more often than females. On the other hand, females are expected to be more sensitive, warm, sociable, self-doubting, more open to aesthetics, anxious, polite, and compassionate. As opposed to men, women tend to be more interested in intimate which makes them more interested in intimate and cooperative kind of relationships. In relationships, women tend to be more indirect and less openly confrontational in cases where aggression arises. Additionally, females tend to display better communication skills as well as being keen to decode any form of nonverbal behavior exhibited by other people. On the same, females display higher levels of verbal ability as compared to their males. counterparts. Where language is concerned, women tend to use more affiliated and tentative speech leading them to be more expressive in both body language and facial expressions. Men on the other hand tend to be more expansive where they use more open gestures. Besides the things that seem normal between the two genders, research has in one way or another other upheld the basic observations or argued otherwise on the same. For instance, research has shown that women are generally warmer, friendlier, sensitive to their feelings, and more anxious than men. On the other hand, men were deemed to be more assertive and open to new ideas and challenges. The observation and analysis make women be regarded as being more agreeable and neurotic while their male counterparts make them more extroverted and in a position to embrace new experiences (Plug et al., 2021). Such kind of personalities tends to define careers whereby men tend to take more practical careers and women tend to be on the soft ladder. Another research showed that the personality differences between the genders had a direct impact on the self-esteem of both parties, either positively or negatively (Schmitt et al., 2017). In other words, the research showed that men tend to have higher self-esteem than women Traits like self-esteem are developed from the early stages of life. For instance, a boy is brought up being told that boys should not cry when hurt, or bleeding. They are encouraged to man up...