Abstract
Recent research has demonstrated that successful performance on a masculine task will be judged more deservingly if the actor is a woman than a man. This contradicts other studies showing penalties for out-of-sex-role behavior by either sex. The present experiment examined these propositions using a task with obvious social desirability. Females and males presented themselves as either competent or incompetent about automobiles to a used-car dealer. Results indicated that whereas incompetent females were not penalized for incompetence, the incompetent males were. Sexstereotyped expectations of competence at sex-appropriate activities may therefore have negative ramifications, as expectations of incompetence do.
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