Gaining turns and achieving high influence ranking in small conversational groups*

Abstract

Unacquainted subjects, in groups of four or five, viewed and then discussed a television programme on the topic of homosexuality. Afterwards, they ranked each group member in terms of how influential the member had been during the discussion. High‐ranking members, compared to low‐ranking members, had a greater proportion of aggregate speaking turns, thus replicating Brooke & Ng's (1986) finding. Aggregate turns were then divided into turns gained by interruptive or non‐interruptive means; and the two turn types were used to predict influence ranking in an attempt to test the idea that turns were a resource for achieving influence regardless of how they were gained. Supportive results were found: interruption‐turns, like non‐interruption‐turns, reliably predicted influence ranking. For reasons yet to be tested, interruption‐turns were in fact superior to non‐interruption‐turns for predicting influence ranking.