FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Troubled by the mean and often demeaning ways young college women treat one another, graduate student Kristen Norwood decided to conduct an in-depth study of women’s “cattiness” toward other women who are complete strangers. What she discovered was a complex blend of jealousy, competition and insecurity.

Her master’s thesis on the subject won her the 2006 Outstanding Thesis Award from the national Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender. Norwood will travel to St. Louis in October to attend the annual conference, where she will receive her award.

“I often come in contact with women I don’t know who behave in ways that I and the participants in my study call 'catty,’” said Norwood. “I am troubled by the way women treat one another and was interested in the phenomenon in terms of motivation for interpersonal conflict. I found it interesting that I was observing conflict behaviors between women who had no relationship and therefore no obvious issues to quarrel over.”

She structured her study by separating 38 participants into seven focus groups, guiding conversations on the subject. She videotaped their discussions, during which she asked four questions: What are the perceived causes of conflict between women who are strangers? What behaviors are used to convey this conflict? What are the motivations for escalating or de-escalating conflict? How common are such conflicts?

The participants freely admitted that they often feel other women are being "catty" or spiteful in a petty way toward them and admitted that they behaved the same way. They cited several reasons, the most common being jealousy over physical attractiveness and attention from men. Other reasons included competition and jealousy resulting from self-esteem issues and from perceived similarities or differences with other women.

The women said the most common ways they conveyed negative feelings were through dirty looks, staring, eye rolling and body language, such as hands on hips or head shaking to show disapproval. They said they had experienced the potential for conflict with strangers frequently.

“It was no surprise to find competition for men as a source of conflict, but what was newsworthy was the fact that the women reported experiencing potential for conflict with another woman, whatever the reason, multiple times in a single day,” said Norwood.

To avoid conflict, the women said they usually smiled, ignored the behavior or simply left the scene.

Several participants across the focus groups recognized media and society as indirect causes of such conflicts. They talked about images of women in magazines and movies and on television that offer young girls and women unrealistic standards for physical appearance. In particular, they examined how such images affect women’s self-esteem and encourage women to look and dress in certain ways to get attention from men and other women.

Twenty of the 38 participants were in a sorority. They reported that sorority rush and sorority membership carry with them a larger number of these conflicts. Two African American women said that women with lighter skins were often targeted by women with darker skins because men generally found the lighter-skinned women more attractive.

“Since this is the first communication study on this topic, there is no evidence yet about whether or not this phenomenon is isolated in the female sex,” said Norwood. “Some participants believe that it does not happen to men the same way it does to women and that it happens with older women too, but usually for different reasons. I am interested in when and how men experience this kind of communication, and also in how men perceive 'cattiness’ between women, since they seem to play an important, if not intended, role in the motivation for conflict.”

Lynne Webb in the communications department in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences was Norwood’s primary thesis advisor. Norwood is currently studying other aspects of the issue in her doctoral work at the University of Iowa.