Gender Flashcards
Negative media reaction to trans people
Suggests many people take gender roles v seriously & get worked up about this
People think they can prescribe gender to other people that is counter to what those individuals want
Gender stereotypes; Eagley (2008)
Men stereotyped as higher on agentic traits; intelligence, physical power, capability & dominance
Women stereotyped as higher on communal traits; others before self, warmth, kindness & cooperation
Types of sexism
Benevolent; not directly aversive views of women that promote inequality e.g. women need to be protected by men
Patronising, associated with gender roles & less willingness to hire women
Hostile; more clear, direct, negative views of women
Ambivalent; mixed valence stereotyped about women that both serve to promote gender inequality
Stereotype content model
Groups of people are stereotyped on 2 primary dimensions; warmth & competence
Women are evaluated as higher in warmth but lower in competence
This stereotype associated with pity/sympathy, patronising
Men evaluated as lower in warmth but high in competence
Women at work
Rudman & Glick (2001); asked pp who they would hire
One woman described as talented & capable & friendly
Another described as kind & friendly
When job called for kindness & friendliness, woman described as talented & capable less likely to get it
Stereotypes of women at work
Parks-Stamm (2008); women described as successful at work later regarded as less friendly & kind (by other women), resulted in the raters having high levels of self-esteem
Similar results not found for men
Precarious manhood
Manhood is tenous & requires constant social approval
Thus, men are motivated to maintain their sense of masculinity, especially when it comes under question
Masculinity associated with agentic/power qualities & lack of feminine traits
Tendency to distance from traits of opposite gender stronger in men
Precarious manhood; vandello & Bosson (2013)
Elevated risk taking on gambling task
Increased likelihood of man choosing to display aggression
Increased force with which they show aggression
Increased prejudice towards effeminate men
Increased anxiety & stress levels particularly for men who do not identify as high in masculinity
More discomfort with hypothetical partner making more money than them
Gender non-conformity
Evidence that homosexuality elicits disgust more readily than heterosexual sex, particularly towards receiver guy & gay male sex
Evidence that women with hairy armpits/legs elicit more disgust than hairless women
Transgender people face more prejudice than gay & bisexual people
Social consensus; Heflick & Ferguson
Men & women saw woman on screen with hairy legs
Told either 73% or 37% think image is disgusting
When people thought others thought image was disgusting, rated women worse on warmth & competency
Social consensus determined views
Aggression & social perception; Vandello (2009)
Asked hundreds of university students to rate men’s behaviour in which they displayed various levels of aggression or peacekeeping
Men rated how they thought women would rate
Men thought aggression was more attractive to women than it is
Gender & emotional expression
Women evaluated more negatively for expressing anger
In identical contexts, anger is attributed to more to internal traits about women than with men
Sadness more socially acceptable for women
In all cultures, men viewed as less emotional
Smiling; LaFrance & Hecht (2003)
Women smile more often than men
Lower status power/groups tend to have stricter rules in how they can be emotionally
Hence, women typically having less power/status, are more likely to smile as a social expectation as opposed to sign of joy
Grieving
Men tend to grieve loss of spouse more intensely & chronically
Due to lack of social support as well as norms urging men to be strong & not express emotions associated with lack of control/dominance
Women tend to grieve loss of new born child & miscarriage more intensely than men do
Gender & altruism & reading emotion
Women tend to be more accurate at interpreting facial cues & emotion in voices
Possibly evolved as means of physical protection
Women also score higher on empathy
Women are more altruistic in private scenarios & in long term scenarios
Men more altruistic in situations where they can be perceived as heroic & strong
Voice usage
Men speak more loudly on average Women tend to interrupt less Women swear less Women use more indirect speech instead of instruction Men tend to use more assertive language
Objectification theory
Women more likely to have their worth equated to their physical appearance than men
Rules regarding female appearance are stricter
So, women tend to internalise the importance of their own appearance to their overall worth
Eating disorders, low body self-esteem, high body surveillance, more body shame etc are all more common among women
Self-objectification
When shown images of women in advertisements or when focusing on their own appearance or when imagining men focusing on their appearance, women show;
-reduced cognitive performance, increased body dissatisfaction, reduced physical movement, reduced amount of time talking, reduced desire to protest for women’s rights
Interpersonal objectification
How people perceive other people & in particular women, depends on what they are focusing on
Focusing on appearance vs personality
Heflick & Goldenberg (2009)
Sarah Palin rated as higher on traits perceived to be more ‘object-like’ when people had been assigned to focus on her appearance
People also less likely to intend to vote for her
Heflick et al (2011)
Women viewed as less warm, competence & moral by women when they focused on her appearance
Loughman et al (2013)
When people dressed more sexually, viewed as less having less emotional & mental traits
Women more likely to be blamed for rape & sexual harassment against them when dressed in more revealing way, even when outfit not worn during hypothetical crime
Cikara & Fiske (2011)
Men viewed naked women in fMRI machine
Men who scored high in hostile sexism had higher level of activation in brain areas associated with tool usage & object manipulation
Bernard et al (2012)
Pp shown series of images depicting women in swimsuits/lingerie, no skin showing or men wearing these attires
Cognitive effect; people better at recognising human but not objects when right side up
This pattern happened with women in lingerie/swimwear but not men or women fully dressed
Haslam et al (2013)
PETA adverts that used sexualised imagery lead to more negative views of peta
Caused by people perceiving the women in these adverts as more animalistic
Sex & mating
Buss & evolutionary psychology
Women; reproduction lasts longer, women focus on traits when mating that signal the man can take care of & protect children (money, status, power)
Men; can reproduce everywhere if they wanted, so men can focus more on things like attractiveness & youth
Eagly & social roles
Evolutionary psychology more pronounced in cultures that have huge income inequality become men & women
Wealthier women & cultures with less income inequality, weaker gender differences
Culture/society reduces/shapes the evolved tendencies, these are a product of past cultures more so than evolution
Sexual attraction
Rieger et al (2015)
Used pupil dilation & other measurements
Women tend to be more attracted to both men & women on physical level, doesn’t matter as much to women what sexual orientation women report
Most heterosexual men show strong preference for what women in terms of attraction
Most gay men show strong preferance for men
Homophobia & arousal
Men rated on their prejudice towards gay men then viewed gay male porn
Men who were the most anti-gay in the self report measure had the most sexual arousal to the gay male porn
Could just be that men who were most homophobic were most easily aroused by any porn or more bisexual
Small link between testosterone & anti-gay male attitudes
