Psychology of Women Quarterly

Forty females and 40 males were shown slides of masculine and feminine phrases controlled for social desirability, sex-linked content, syllable length, and negative semantic construction to evaluate schematic processing on the dimensions of masculinity and femininity. Their responses to the phrases were timed. The BSRI, PAQ, and SSRIQ administered subsequent to the slide presentation were used to categorize subjects into groups of masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated. Comparisons between the groups evaluated by the different scales indicated that the PAQ was the best predictor of schematic processing and that the SSRIQ and gender were not predictors of schematic processing. Correlations between the SSRIQ and the masculine and feminine scales of the BSRI and PAQ provided evidence partially supportive of Storms's (1979) theory that sex-role identity influences the development of same-sex-typed attributes but does not influence opposite-sex-typed attributes.

It was hypothesized that an organization's climate could inhibit or encourage discriminatory behavior, and that subjects' need for approval would interact with climate to influence their decisions. One hundred and sixty-one male business students read one of two sets of materials intended to manipulate company climate, and then evaluated a fictitious resume of a male or female applicant for a managerial position within the company. Decisions regarding hire, salary, applicant fit with the company, and anticipated longevity were dependent measures. The hypothesis regarding organizational climate received partial support. In a discriminatory climate women applicants were evaluated less favorably than men in terms of likelihood of hire and degree of fit between the applicant and the organization. Although not statistically significant, a similar pattern of results was obtained on the salary measure and on the measure of applicant predicted longevity. Contrary to expectations, approval motivation was not related to the dependent measures.

The hypothesis that the title Ms. elicits a stereotype was tested in two separate experiments. In both cases, university students of both sexes were presented with a brief description of a stimulus person whose title of address was varied (i.e., Ms., Mrs., Miss, or Mr.). In Experiment I, subjects conveyed their impressions on semantic differential ratings and life outcome ratings. Experiment II employed a larger pool of semantic differential ratings and explored the impact of the Ms. stimulus person's marital status and the female respondents' attitude toward women on the Ms. stereotype. The two experiments were consistent in showing that a woman who prefers the title Ms. gives the impression of being more achievement oriented, socially assertive and dynamic, but less interpersonally warm, relative to her counterparts with traditional titles of address. Some implications of the Ms. stereotype were discussed.

This study was designed to test Gilligan's (1982) claim that men and women differ in moral judgments. One hundred and one college students read four traditional moral dilemmas and rated the importance of 12 considerations for deciding how the protagonist should respond. Six of the statements were derived from the description by Kohlberg et al. (1978) of post-conventional moral reasoning, and six were derived from Gilligan's description of women's style of moral reasoning. Subjects also rated themselves on a measure of sex-typed personality attributes. There were no reliable sex differences on either of the types of moral reasoning, and confidence intervals allowed the rejection of all but negligible differences in the directions predicted by Gilligan's model. Furthermore, men and women showed highly similar rank orders of the items for each dilemma. The personality measures also failed to predict individual differences in moral judgments.

Attitudes toward and beliefs about women have been studied but investigations of behavior directed toward women in simple interpersonal situations have been relatively infrequent, in this study, ten previously unacquainted pairs of men, ten pairs of women, and twenty mixed-gender pairs were observed during a 10-minute task in which each pair constructed a domino structure for a contest. Under these laboratory conditions in which sexual arousal and nurturance cues were minimal it was predicted that men would behave differently toward women partners than toward men partners by manifesting avoidance or distancing behavior more frequently, but that women's responses to other—gender and same—gender partners would not be reliably different. Dependent measures were obtained by self—report and by ratings of observers who watched the dyadic interaction behind a one-way vision screen. As predicted, women in mixed-gender pairs did not differ significantly from those in same-gender pairs on any measure, but men were found to distance themselves from a woman partner (as compared to a man) by turning their faces or bodies away and making negative comments, by not following advice, and by placing dominoes closer to themselves.

Two components of gender stereotypes were examined in order to determine their influence on judgments of gender-related characteristics. Male and female subjects were presented with photographs of female stimulus persons who differed in somatic appearance and were given information about traits. Subjects were asked to estimate the probability that the stimulus person possessed other gender-related traits and engaged in gender-related behaviors. Results provide support for a multiple-component construction of stereotypes, with physical appearance being the most potent component. An unfavorable image of low attractive women was also indicated.

This study examined the extent to which sex-role identity as defined by Bem's typology is related to occupational attainment, self-esteem, and work satisfaction for 161 employed Asian American women. Three major hypotheses were tested: (a) Masculine and androgynous Asian American women have a higher level of occupational attainment than those with feminine and undifferentiated sex-role identity; (b) androgynous Asian American women have a higher level of self-esteem and a greater degree of work satisfaction than those with other types of sex-role identity; and (c) the higher the level of occupational attainment secured by Asian American women, the greater their work satisfaction and the higher their self-esteem. As predicted, sex-role identity was significantly related to occupational attainment. Androgynous Asian American women and those with a high level of occupational attainment had a higher level of self-esteem and a greater degree of work satisfaction than those with other types of sex-role identity. The implications of these findings for Bem's formulation of androgyny, its relation to occupational achievement, and its consequences for psychological health and work outcomes are discussed.

Beliefs about the characteristics of male and female homosexuals and heterosexuals were assessed to determine the degree to which stereotypes of homosexuals are consistent with the inversion model proposed by Freud (1905) and others, i.e., the assumption that homosexuals are similar to the opposite-sex heterosexual. Results showed that people do subscribe to an implicit inversion theory wherein male homosexuals are believed to be similar to female heterosexuals, and female homosexuals are believed to be similar to male heterosexuals. These results offer additional support for a bipolar model of gender stereotyping, in which masculinity and femininity are assumed to be in opposition.

A national survey was conducted to compare the background and career characteristics of men and women engineers differing in the number of years since they completed their BS degrees (0–5, 6–10, 11–15, and 16–20 years). The parents of women engineers were more likely to have college degrees and to be employed in professional positions than were the parents of men engineers. Women engineers were less likely to be married and were more likely to be childless than were the men. Both men and women were influenced by courses and work-related factors in their decisions to pursue engineering, but men made their career decisions sooner than women. Although men and women reported comparable levels of technical responsibility in their present jobs, gender differences favoring men were found for supervisory responsibility and salary among those with more than five years of experience, with the gap between men and women increasing with experience. Men with 16–20 years of experience and all four degree cohorts of women endorsed the opinion that there are better opportunities for men than women in engineering.

Twelve sentence pairs representing Lakoff's “women's language” and corresponding “masculine” styles were developed in order to examine gender stereotyping as a function of linguistic pattern usage. College students (77 women and 74 men) read the sentences as transcribed from an interview with a hypothetical male, female, or sex-unknown client, and evaluated the speaker on 31 bipolar adjective scales. Ratings on the masculinity-femininity dimension confirmed Lakoff's “feminine” speech style as a gender stereotype. Factor analysis and subsequent multivariate analyses of variance on factor scores revealed that participants rated the nonfeminine linguistic style significantly higher in competence, but lower in social warmth, than the feminine style. Author gender did not contribute significantly to speaker evaluations. Implications of this importance of style over gender in person perception are discussed.

Sixty faculty and staff women at a mid-sized university were surveyed to determine the extent to which they perceived sex discrimination. Faculty women perceived sex discrimination more than did staff women and were less likely to believe that academia was a meritocracy. Differences in perception of sex discrimination were also found based upon the gender composition of the departments. Women in departments that were male-dominated were less likely to perceive sex discrimination and more accepting of the meritocracy notion than were women in departments that were not male-dominated.