Is hostility linked with affiliation among males and with achievement among females? A critique of Pollak and Gilligan.

Attempted to replicate and to clarify methodologically an investigation by S. Pollak and C. Gilligan (see record 1982-23594-001). Those investigators reported sex differences in violence imagery to TAT pictures depicting affiliation and achievement situations. Pollak and Gilligan concluded that men perceive danger in situations of affiliation whereas women perceive danger in situations of achievement. The present study demonstrated that Pollak and Gilligan incorrectly classified TAT cards into motivational categories, which may have resulted in incorrect inferences. In addition, their findings could not be replicated when 4 different systems for classifying TAT cards into motivational categories were used with 204 undergraduates. Other potential sources of error in their research, including a restrictive scoring scheme for hostility, unusual instructions, and failure to control for sex role in the TAT pictures, did not influence the results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)