Attitudes

This paper reports a study of the characteristics of the social interaction of single sex and mixed groups. Two all male groups, two all female groups, and two mixed groups were studied over five 90-minute sessions. Interaction data was gathered by two observers who recorded each time a member spoke.and to whom he/she spoke. Group meetings were tape recorded and a sample of 70,000 words was analyzed by the General Inquirer, a computer aideg content analysis system. The results indicate connections between societal sex role requirements and small group behavior. The who-to-whom scoring and content analysis similarlyreflect the themes of intimacy and interpersonal relations for women, and themes of competition and status for men. The findings also indicate that men and women express different parts of themselves in the content and structurelof their groups when interacting with members of the same.and the opposit