Gender schematicity, identity salience, and -linked language use
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times) where social interpersonal cues are reduced making language a primary means for gaining
information about others (Postmes, Spears, Lea, 1998; Walther, 1996). Given that gender-linked
language use carries with it different judgmental outcomes for speakers (i.e., the gender-linked
language effect), those contextual features of CMC affecting one’s GIS are critical to determine what
types of language use patterns will emerge for men and women in CMC. Expanding on the basic
premises of SCT, scholars have examined anonymity in CMC and how it can lead to either an
enhanced or diminished depersonalized view of the self (Postmes, Spears, Lea, & Reicher, 2000;
Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995). Alterations in various types of anonymity could affect GIS by
either increasing or decreasing the tendency for an individual to categorize his or her self as male or
female, respectively (e.g., Spears, Lea, & Postmes, 2000).
Understanding which conditions of CMC lead to a salient gender identity and which
conditions do not and the effects this has on men and women’s adoption of normative gender-linked
language is valuable at present times when the recreational use of CMC is rapidly increasing
(Morgan Stanley, 1996; Flanagin & Metzger, 2001), organizations are using CMC more and more
(Fulk & Collins-Jarvis, 2001; Scott, 1999), and current organizational forms are evolving in such
ways that make the employment of CMC favorable (DeSanctis, & Poole, 1997; Heckscher, 1994;
Miles et al., 1997; Monge & Fulk, 1999; Nohria, & Berkley, 1994). For example, if a women wishes
to be perceived as dynamic to a work group communicating via CMC then having a salient gender
identity (similar to that of the current study) could be counteractive to such perceptions from her
co-workers, as she likely would be perceived as more socio-intellectual and aesthetically pleasing,
due to her use of prototypical female language. The occasions in CMC when one is likely to be
thinking in terms of gender are important to recognize considering the results this can have on
language use and, more importantly, impression formation of communicators using gender-linked
language via this medium. Furthermore, if gender identity is salient in such a way that power
differentials are pertinent, then this also can have adverse outcomes for one gender group compared
Convention