Men and women participated in groups in which they were either the only member of their sex or in the majority. Participants rated themselves along gender-stereotypic traits and then made judgments of a gender-ambiguous target person. Results for both measures supported social-identity theory, suggesting that men's consciousness of their sex made them aware of their high social status in relation to women and activated concepts about them-selves that confirmed their membership in this high-status category. In contrast, women's consciousness of their sex made them aware of their low social status relative to men and motivated them to view themselves in terms of concepts that distinguished them from other members of this low-status category.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abrams, D. , Thomas, J., & Hogg, M. A. (1990). Numerical distinctiveness, social identity and gender salience. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 87-92.
2.
Aries, E. (1976). Interaction patterns and themes of male, female and mixed groups. Small Group Behavior, 7, 7-18.
3.
Attneave, F. (1959). Applications of information theory to psychology. New York: Holt.
4.
Bargh, J. A. (1984). Automatic and conscious processing of social information. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (Vol. 3, pp. 143). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
5.
Bargh, J. A. (1994). The four horsemen of automaticity: Awareness, intention, efficiency and control in social cognition. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 1-40). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6.
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162.
7.
Bem, S. L. (1981). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review, 88, 354-364.
8.
Bem, S. L. (1994). The lenses of gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
9.
Broverman, I. K. , Vogel, S. R., Broverman, D. M., Clarkson, F. E., & Rosenkrantz, P. S. (1972). Sex-role stereotypes: A current appraisal. Journal of Social Issues, 28, 59-78.
10.
Cota, A. A. , & Dion, K. L. (1986). Salience of gender and sex composition of ad hoc groups: An experimental test of distinctiveness theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 770-776.
11.
Crocker, J. , & McGraw, K. (1984). What's good for the goose is not good for the gander. American Behavioral Scientist, 27, 357-369.
12.
Deshpande, R. , & Stayman, D. (1994). A tale of two cities: Distinctiveness theory and advertising effectiveness. Journal of Marketing Research, 31, 57-64.
13.
Ellemers, N. (1993). The influence of socio-structural variables on identity-management strategies. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 27-57). New York: John Wiley.
14.
Higgins, E. T. , & King, G. (1981). Accessibility of social constructs: Information processing consequences of individual and contextual variability. In N. Cantor & J. Kihlstrom (Eds.), Personality, cognition, and social interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
15.
Hogg, M. A. (1985). Masculine and feminine speech in dyads and groups: A study of speech style and gender salience. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 4, 99-112.
16.
Hogg, M. A. (1996a). Intragroup processes, group structure and social identity. In W. P. Robinson (Ed.), Social groups and identities: Developing the legacy of Henri Taffel (pp. 65-93). Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann.
17.
Hogg, M. A. (1996b). Social identity, self-categorization, and the small group. In E. H. Witte & J. H. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior: Vol 2. Small group Processes and interpersonal relations (pp. 227-253). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
18.
Hogg, M. A. , & Abrams, D. (1988). Social identfilcations: A social psychology of intergroup relations and group processes. London: Routledge.
19.
Hogg, M. A. , & Turner, J. C. (1987). Intergroup behavior, self-stereotyping and the salience of social categories. British Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 325-340.
20.
Johnson, R. , & Schulman, G. (1989). Gender-role composition and role entrapment in decision-making groups. Gender and Society, 3, 355-372.
21.
Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.
22.
Martin, P. Y. , & Shanahan, K. A. (1983). Transcending the effects of sex composition in small groups. Social Work With Groups, 6, 19-32.
23.
McGuire, W. J. (1984). Search for the self: Going beyond self-esteem and the reactive self. In R. A. Zucker, J. Aronoff, & A. I. Rabin (Eds.), Personality and the prediction of behavior (pp. 73-120). New York: Academic Press.
24.
McGuire, W. J. , & McGuire, C. V. (1981). The spontaneous self-concept as affected by personal distinctiveness. In M. D. Lynch, A. Norem-Hebeisen, & K. Gergen (Eds.), Self-concept: Advances in theory and research (pp. 147-171). New York: Ballinger.
25.
McGuire, W. J. , McGuire, C. V., Child, P., & Fujioka, T. (1978). Salience of ethnicity in the spontaneous self-concept as a function of one's ethnic distinctiveness in the social environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 511-520.
26.
McGuire, W. J. , McGuire, C. V., & Winton, W. (1979). Effects of household sex composition on the salience of one's gender in the spontaneous self-concept. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 15, 77-90.
27.
McGuire, W. J. , & Padawer-Singer, A. (1976). Trait salience in the spontaneous self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 743-754.
28.
Piliavin, J. A. , & Martin, R. R. (1978). The effects of the sex composition of groups on styles of social interaction. Sex Roles, 4, 281-296.
29.
Ross, L. , Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The "false consensus effect": An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279-301.
30.
Ruble, D. N. , & Higgins, E. T. (1976). Effects of group sex composition on self-presentation and sex-typing. Journal of Social Issues, 32125-132.
31.
Sherman, S. J. , & Gorkin, L. (1980). Attitude bolstering when behavior is inconsistent with central attitudes. Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, 16, 388-403.
32.
Shomer, R. , & Centers, R. (1970). Differences in attitudinal responses under conditions of implicitly manipulated group salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15, 125-132.
33.
Spence, J. T. , & Helmreich, R. L. (1981). Theoretical notes: Androgyny versus gender schema: A comment on Bem's gender schema theory. Psychological Reiew, 88, 365-368.
34.
Tajfel, H. , & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin and S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
35.
Tajfel, H. , & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7-24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
36.
Turner, J. C. , Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Ox-ford, UK: Blackwell.
37.
Williams, J. A. , & Giles, H. (1978). The changing status of women in society: An intergroup perspective. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 431-446). London: Academic Press.
38.
Wyer, R. S. , & Srull, T. K. (1989). Memory and cognition in its social context. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
39.
Yoder, J. D. (1991). Rethinking tokenism: Looking beyond numbers. Gender and Society, 5, 178-192.
