Abstract
An attempt was made to determine how dating couples widely discrepant in age are perceived. In the first study, 40 male and 40 female college students were asked to read a vignette where the older protagonists were described as either wealthy or had an average income. Sex was also manipulated so that the male was older in half (he conditions and younger for the other half. A second study with 30 older females as subjects utilized two vignettes with the older protagonists being male in half the conditions and female in the other half. Results indicated that sex and age of subjects were significantly related to how age-discrepant couples are perceived by these two groups. Role salience and role identification are influential.
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