The effects of social category norms and stereotypes on explanations for intergroup differences.

A 2-stage model of the construction of explanations for differences between groups is presented. Category norms affect which of 2 groups becomes "the effect to be explained," and stereotypes shape attributions about that group. In 3 experiments, 288 participants wrote explanations for differences between gay and straight men. Explanations focused on gay men who were also judged to have more mutable attributes. However, these effects were not correlated. Participants focused explanations on straight men when explicitly instructed to do so (Experiment 1). Explanations focused on both groups equally when the gay men constituted the numerically larger sample, when gay men were more typical of the overarching category (i.e., people with AMS) than straight men, or when more straight men were described as performing the behavior (Experiment 2). Stereotype-consistent information prompted more essentialist references and fewer reconstructive references to gay men than did stereotype-inconsistent information (Experiment 3). The relevance of this model for theories of norms, stereotypes, and for the conduct of social science is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexuality and the commission of physical violence to partners and non-partners by men and women.

In 2 studies of physical violence and sexuality among college students, more than 75% of men and more than 60% of women reported committing physical violence in the past year, including more women to partners and more men to non-partners. More than 90% of men who committed violence to partners were also violent to non-partners. In Study 1, among 193 men and 203 women, people who committed violence had higher scores on sexual depression and general depression than did people who were not violent. People violent to non-partners had more sexual preoccupation and more alcohol use problems than did other people. In Study 2, among 160 college men and 138 college women, people in 4 violence groups did not differ in total sexual fantasies or sexual functioning. The findings support the importance of differentiating between violence toward partners and toward non-partners among both men and women and suggest a role of depression in partner violence and antisocial features in violence toward non-partners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and the effects of different doses of nicotine gum on tobacco withdrawal symptoms.

Women and men were compared on the extent to which 2-mg (n?=?40), 4-mg (n?=?41), and 4-mg then 2-mg (n?=?47) nicotine gum prescribed over an 8-week period relieved cigarette withdrawal symptoms. Gender differences for nicotine gum withdrawal symptoms across doses were also examined. Results showed that women assigned to 2-mg nicotine gum experienced more severe cigarette withdrawal symptoms than those assigned to the other gum conditions. In general, no differences for nicotine gum dose in relieving cigarette withdrawal symptoms were observed in men. Women experienced more severe cigarette withdrawal symptoms than men, predominantly in the 2-mg nicotine gum condition. Women also experienced greater withdrawal symptoms from nicotine gum compared with men. For both genders, those assigned to the 4-mg nicotine gum group throughout treatment experienced more severe nicotine gum withdrawal than those assigned to the other nicotine gum conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Power displays between women and men in discussions of gender-linked tasks: A multichannel study.

Conducted a multichannel investigation of how gender-based familiarity moderates verbal and nonverbal behaviors between men and women. Undergraduates in 24 mixed-sex dyads discussed masculine, feminine, and non-gender-linked topics. The primary dependent variables were verbal and nonverbal behaviors related to social power. The verbal behaviors examined were speech initiations and total amount of speech; the nonverbal behaviors studied were visual behavior (while speaking and while listening), gesturing, chin thrusts, and smiling. Systematic differences in the behaviors of men and women emerged on the gender-linked tasks. On the masculine task men displayed more verbal and nonverbal power-related behavior than did women. On the feminine task women exhibited more power than men on most of the verbal and nonverbal measures. On the non-gender-linked task men displayed greater power both verbally and nonverbally than did women. There were 2 exceptions to this overall pattern. Across all conditions, women smiled more often than did men, and men had a higher frequency of chin thrusts than did women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is all sexual harassment viewed the same? Mock juror decisions in same- and cross-gender cases.

Given recent court decisions, there is a need to investigate less common forms of sexual harassment, including women harassing men and same-gender harassment. The present study was a 2 (harasser gender)?×?2 (target gender)?×?2 (participant gender) factorial design in which 408 mock jurors made decisions in a hostile work environment case. Women harassing men were more likely to be found guilty than were men harassing women, and harassers in same-gender cases were more likely to be found guilty and were perceived more negatively than harassers in cross-gender cases. Participant gender differences were found in cross-gender, but not same-gender, conditions. Results suggest that the gender composition of the harasser and target may be an extralegal factor influencing managerial and juror decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Education, occupation and health status of people of age five years or more living in a high density urban area in Zimbabwe

OBJECTIVE: To find out the education, occupation and health status of people aged five years or more living in a high density urban area in Zimbabwe. DESIGN: Cross sectional. SETTING: Households in Chitungwiza. SUBJECTS: Persons of age five years or more available in a household at the time of the survey. In 1990 and 1993, 822 and 1,023 people were surveyed, respectively. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Educational level, employment, rate of smoking, nutritional status, blood pressure level, and rate of disability. RESULTS: After the age of 24 years, more males than females were observed in both periods. A much higher proportion (x2 = 20.34, df = 1, p < 0.001) of women were in informal employment in 1993 (28.6%) than in 1990 (12.9%). Meanwhile, about an equal proportion of men were in the informal sector in both periods (12.0% and 10.4% in 1990 and 1993, respectively). For females of age 15 years or more, fewer (40.8%) had attained secondary education than males (76.4%) in 1990 (x2 = 50.2, df = 1, p < 0.001). Overall, 208 (36.1%) men and eight (1.3%) women of age 15 years or more smoked. Raised blood pressure for both sexes increased significantly with age (x2 for linear trend = 20.21 for men and 65.81 for women, df = 1, p < 0.001 for both sexes). More women of age 45 years or more had raised blood pressure than men (x2 = 4.67, df = 1, p = 0.031). Many more women (8.0%) than men (0.7%) had a Ponderal Index of greater than 27 (x2 = 19.33, df = 1, p < 0.001). A total of 12 (1.5%) persons were disabled. CONCLUSION: Raised blood pressure and obesity mainly affected women and interventions to improve their health is recommended.     

The recognition of vowels produced by men, women, boys, and girls by cochlear implant patients using a six-channel CIS processor

Five patients who used a six-channel, continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) cochlear implant were presented vowels, in two experiments, from a large sample of men, women, boys, and girls for identification. At issue in the first experiment was whether vowels from one speaker group, i.e., men, were more identifiable than vowels from other speaker groups. At issue in the second experiment was the role of the fifth and sixth channels in the identification of vowels from the different speaker groups. It was found in experiment 1 that (i) the vowels produced by men were easier to identify than vowels produced by any of the other speaker groups, (ii) vowels from women and boys were more difficult to identify than vowels from men but less difficult than vowels from girls, and (iii) vowels from girls were more difficult to identify than vowels from all other groups. In experiment 2 removal of channels 5 and 6 from the processor impaired the identification of vowels produced by women, boys and girls but did not impair the identification of vowels produced by men. The results of experiment 1 demonstrate that scores on tests of vowels produced by men overestimate the ability of patients to recognize vowels in the broader context of multi-talker communication. The results of experiment 2 demonstrate that channels 5 and 6 become more important for vowel recognition as the second formants of the speakers increase in frequency.     

The relationship between a freshmen testing program and counseling center usage.

Evaluated college counseling center usage for 217 women and 593 men who had been encouraged to return to the counseling center for feedback on their freshmen tests. Students who initially approached the counseling center to request feedback on their tests were more likely to obtain counseling for non-test-related problems than were students who never requested their test results, although the mean number of counseling sessions did not differ for the 2 groups. There was a slight tendency for more men than women to request feedback prior to requesting counseling even though there were no sex differences in mean number of sessions. However, a larger proportion of men than women returned for counseling during the same semester in which they received their freshmen test results, and these men, on the average, remained longer in counseling. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and the relationship between perceived fairness of pay or promotion and job satisfaction.

J. Brockner and L. Adsit (1986) found that satisfaction with an exchange relationship was more strongly related to perceptions of equity among men than women. A. Kahn (1972) reported that men were more likely than women to distribute outcomes to individuals in direct proportion to their input. The authors evaluated potential gender differences among 12,979 personnel in 30 different organizational systems in (1) correlations between fairness and job satisfaction scores and (2) standardized group differences in the perceived amounts of pay and promotion fairness and expressed levels of facet and global job satisfaction. The fairness–satisfaction relationship was not higher for men, and there were no practical differences in fairness perceptions and job satisfaction between men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dominance, prosocial orientation, and female preferences: Do nice guys really finish last?

Three multimethod studies (total N?=?348) probed the hypothesis that women's attraction to men would be influenced by male prosocial orientation. In Study 1, prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive, socially desirable, and desirable as dates than were nonprosocial men. Dominant men were no more attractive than low-dominance men, and male dominance did not interact with male prosocial orientation in eliciting attraction from women. In Study 2, prosocial orientation was manipulated to avoid "personalism," but still affected attraction. Across all measures attraction was an interactive function of dominance and prosocial tendencies. Dominance alone did not increase any form of attraction measured. In Study 3, male prosocial tendencies and dominance interacted to affect women's attraction to men. Results are discussed in terms of the place of altruism and dominance in evolutionary approaches to human interpersonal attraction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and perceived pay entitlement: Testing for effects of experience with income.

This article reports on 2 studies where variations on a research design from the literature on gender and perceived pay entitlement were used to test for effects of past pay experience and salience of the pay experience for the participants. In Study 1 with 72 undergraduates, level of previous income was not a predictor of self-payment behavior for women or men, and men allocated more pay to themselves than did women. In Study 2 with 74 undergraduates, women and men did not differ on perceived entitlement when the income and work experience were made salient, but they did in the nonsalient condition, as in Study 1. Also, past income and self-pay were positively correlated for women in the salient condition. Further, when the data from Study 1 and Study 2 from the same condition (past income nonsalient) were combined, those with the higher previous income level paid themselves more than did others, among both men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of attitude stereotypes: The case of inferences based on gender.

Three studies were undertaken to assess the accuracy of people's estimates of the attitudes of men and women. In Exp 1, attitudes of male and female college students were assessed on a broad range of social and political issues. In Exp 2, 30 male and 30 female college students estimated the attitudes of typical males and females on the same statements. These estimates were used to select a set of stereotypic male statements and a set of stereotypic female statements. In Exp 3, 44 male and 53 female college students estimated the attitudes of male and female students on the 2 sets of statements. Results of the 1st 2 studies indicated that both men and women expected larger gender differences in attitudes than actually exist. In the 3rd study, this result was confirmed and it was found that people were least accurate in their estimates of the attitudes of men. Partial support was obtained for the hypothesis that in-group stereotypes would be more accurate than out-group stereotypes. Men were more accurate than women in estimating the attitudes of men but men and women were equally accurate in estimating the attitudes of women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between heart rate reactivity, emotionally aggressive behavior, and general violence in batterers.

This study examined the relationships among physiological responses during marital conflict, aggressive behavior, and violence in battering couples. As an index of physiological response, the authors used the male batterer's heart rate reactivity, assessed as the change from an eyes-closed baseline to the first 5 min of their marital conflict interaction. During marital interaction, violent husbands who lowered their heart rates below baseline levels were more verbally aggressive toward their wives. Wives responded to these men with anger, sadness, and defensiveness. The husbands were classified as Type 1 batterers. When compared to the remaining violent husbands (classified as Type 2 batterers), Type 1 men were also more violent toward others (friends, strangers, coworkers, and bosses), had more elevated scales reflecting antisocial behavior and sadistic aggression, and were lower on dependency than Type 2 men. The 2-year followup revealed a separation-divorce rate of 0 for marriages involving Type 1 men and a divorce rate of 27.5% for marriages involving Type 2 men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Demand and withdraw communication among couples experiencing husband violence.

Two studies compared marital communication behaviors of violent and nonviolent couples. In Study 1, violent distressed (VD) men reported more husband demand-wife withdraw than did nonviolent men. Distressed men reported less mutual constructive communication and more mutual blame and avoidance than did nondistressed men. Interactions of VD, violent nondistressed (VND), nonviolent distressed (NVD), and nonviolent nondistressed couples were coded in Study 2. VD spouses tended to engage in the most demand and withdraw and the least positive behavior; violent couples had the highest levels of contempt. On some codes, VND couples resembled NVD couples, suggesting that violence without distress may correlate differently with marital communication than violence in combination with distress and that severity of violence is important to consider. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Butch, femme, or straight acting? Partner preferences of gay men and lesbians.

On average, gay men are somewhat feminine and lesbians somewhat masculine, but there is variation within each group. The authors examined the consequences of this variation for gay men's and lesbians' desirability as romantic partners. In 2 studies the authors analyzed personal advertisements. Homosexual people were more likely than heterosexual people to mention traits related to sex typicality and more likely to request sex-typical than sex-atypical partners. In 2 studies the authors assessed partner preferences directly. On average, gay men preferred men who described themselves as masculine rather than feminine, but this preference was weaker among men who rated themselves as relatively feminine. Lesbians preferred women who described themselves as feminine looking but did not discriminate against women calling themselves masculine acting. The authors discuss implications of the results for theories of sexual orientation and the adjustment of sex-atypical homosexual people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, language, and influence.

Mixed- and same-sex dyads were observed to examine effects of gender composition on language and of language on gender differences in influence. Ss discussed a topic on which they disagreed. Women were more tentative than men, but only in mixed sex dyads. Women who spoke tentatively were more influential with men and less influential with women. Language had no effect on how influential men were. In a 2nd study, 120 Ss listened to an audiotape of identical persuasive messages presented either by a man or a woman, half of whom spoke tentatively. Female speakers who spoke tentatively were more influential with male Ss and less influential with female Ss than those who spoke assertively. Male speakers were equally influential in each condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hair whorl direction and sexual orientation in human males.

Hair whorl direction is a somatic feature that is organized early during neurodevelopment and unlikely to be influenced by social factors. This study aimed to replicate a widely reported association by A. J. S. Klar (2003) between counterclockwise hair whorl direction and homosexuality in men, using more objective methodology. The authors took digital photographs of parietal surface hair whorls from 100 heterosexual men and 100 homosexual men who were predominantly right-handed. These images were rated for clockwise and counterclockwise direction (for which no more than 1 hair whorl was present) by 2 raters unaware of sexual orientation. The authors found no significant difference between heterosexual and homosexual men in hair whorl direction, but the authors did replicate the fraternal birth order effect (more older brothers for homosexual men). Number of older sisters was positively correlated with counterclockwise hair whorls in heterosexual men. These data were discussed in relation to prenatal factors assumed to play a role in the neurodevelopment of male homosexuality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of orthopedic disability on conformity behavior.

An experiment was conducted to measure the effect of severe orthopedic disability upon conformity behavior. The purpose was to determine whether or not individuals who were disabled would yield more to unanimously incorrect confederate opinion than would able-bodied men. The Asch technique was employed with 2 control groups and 2 experimental groups. The control groups were exclusively able-bodied or disabled; the experimental groups employed confederates whose condition contrasted with that of the naive Ss. The data indicate disabled men yield less to able-bodied confederates than they do to disabled confederates. There was more conformity in homogeneous groups than nonhomogeneous groups. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The life satisfaction chart: perceptions of the course of subjective experience

The Life Satisfaction Chart is presented as a method for studying perceptions of the course and determinants of life satisfaction. Analyses of reports from forty-five men and forty-six women in the Oakland Growth Study indicated the following: (1) Early-maturing boys, particularly in the working class, recollected their early adolescence as more satisfying than did the late-maturing boys, while early-maturing girls remembered early adolescence as less satisfying. (2) Upward social mobility was associated with an increase in reported life satisfaction for both sexes, but at a statistically significant level for men only. Unexpectedly, both men and women who were upwardly mobile recollected their childhoods as less satisfying than did the downwardly mobile. (3) Women rated above the mean in physical attractiveness during high school did not recall their teen-age years as more satisfying than those below the mean. The top quartile, however, did recollect these years as more satisfying than the bottom quartile. (4) Both men and women rated high on use of the defense mechanism of denial reported higher levels of retrospective life satisfaction.     

Androgyny and leadership in mixed-sex groups.

An investigation of individual differences in psychological androgyny showed that they interacted with situational variables to alter the balance of leadership between 107 men and 107 women undergraduates in small-group discussions, as predicted. Each group was composed of either all androgynous or all sex-typed members. The 9 leadership measures represented process (e.g., minutes of speaking time), content (e.g., number of substantive suggestions), and peer impressions (e.g., leadership ratings). Results indicate that when dyads were reminded about their gender role beliefs before the discussion, androgynous men and women shared leadership more and sex-typed partners less than comparable dyads without reminder, in which men dominated regardless of androgyny. Providing social support by increasing group size from dyads to tetrads (2 men, 2 women) also increased leadership sharing between androgynous men and women and increased male dominance in sex-typed groups. Androgynous and sex-typed friends were more active than strangers but did not differ from comparable strangers in leadership-sharing patterns. Peer recognition of leadership followed behavior only roughly. Some behavioral differences were unrecognized; some differences that did not exist were reported. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)