Sex Roles最新文献

When experiencing depressive symptoms, many people delay or avoid seeking professional help. We investigate whether misperceptions of other’s willingness to seek help can be a potential barrier for help-seeking by examining pluralistic ignorance (i.e., when members of a group mistakenly believe that others’ cognitions or behaviors differ systematically from their own) in men and women’s perceptions of others’ help-seeking willingness. Experiment 1 (N = 2042) demonstrated that both men and women underestimate men’s willingness to seek formal help but showed no evidence of pluralistic ignorance in women’s perceptions of “most women’s” help-seeking. For both men and women, self-rated willingness to seek help was strongly associated with the perception that other men/women would seek help. Based on these results, we proposed that a lower willingness to disclose help-seeking for depressive symptoms among men could be a source of misperceptions of men’s help-seeking willingness. Experiment 2 (N = 1528) showed that men were less willing than women to disclose help-seeking for depression to friends and colleagues, which could contribute to misperceptions of men’s help-seeking willingness. We argue that pluralistic ignorance can be a barrier for men’s mental health help-seeking and discuss implications for interventions to increase the number of men who seek help when experiencing depressive symptoms.

Gender-based collective action is essential to close widespread gender gaps in the workplace and pursue gender equality. To understand the processes underlying engagement in different forms of action, this research focused on women’s relative deprivation arising from the perception of unjust disparity between women’s and men’s conditions at work. Across one correlational (Study 1; N = 455) and one experimental study (Study 2; N = 320) conducted in Italy, we tested a serial mediational model linking perceived relative deprivation in the workplace to women’s engagement in collective action through resentment about gender inequalities at work and moral conviction to address gender inequality in the workplace. Two forms of collective action were considered: traditional collective action (i.e., organized action, such as signing a petition) and small acts in the workplace (i.e., more informal behaviors for gender equality). Results of the serial mediation model showed that perceiving relative deprivation was associated with a greater willingness to engage in collective action, and this association was explained through resentment and moral conviction. These findings suggest that raising awareness of gender discrimination in the work domain is a critical step toward increasing women’s mobilization to act for gender equality.

Miscitation of research findings is a common problem as evidenced by 19% of citations in top psychology journals being in error (Cobb et al., American Psychologist, 79:299–311, 2024). Such errors interfere with the orderly cumulation of knowledge. Providing a case study, this research examines the citations of a recent and highly cited article on gender stereotypes (Eagly et al., American Psychologist, 75:301–315, 2020), which found that communion, agency, and competence stereotypes each showed a distinctive trend over time. Analysis of the 751 documents that cited this article’s findings showed that overall, 59% of citations were accurate and 9% somewhat accurate, yet a surprisingly high rate of 32% were inaccurate. These inaccuracies most often misrepresented findings on agency with 37% of the citing articles being inaccurate, and among these inaccurate citations, 21% directly contradicted the findings by erroneously stating that the tendency to ascribe agency more to men than women had faded over time. Miscitations for the two other stereotype domains were less egregious. Of the communion citations, 25% ignored that the tendency to ascribe communion more to women than men has become stronger over time. Of the competence citations, 18% ignored that most people in recent years believe that women and men are equally competent. The discussion considers possible reasons for misciting findings on gender stereotypes, particularly for the agency stereotype that has favored men over women ever since the 1940s. We further expound on the feminist theme of the fragility of scientific knowledge, especially when research findings compete with preconceptions that people, including researchers, may have about the phenomena of gender.

This study compares Philippine television advertisements in 2010 and 2020 to examine possible differences in gender representation. We conducted a content analysis of 254 primetime TV ads from 2010 and 226 from 2020 using established variables, including the gender of the primary character, setting, degree of dress, voiceover, and product category. In terms of differences between 2010 and 2020, men predominated in work settings and women in home settings in 2010, whereas no significant gender differences in settings were observed in 2020. However, men and women continued to be represented stereotypically across several other variables in both 2010 and 2020: Women were more often portrayed as scantily dressed, indicating their sexualization, men were used for voiceovers, reinforcing their role as the “voice of authority,” and cosmetics/toiletries were associated with female primary characters, showing the strong association between women and beauty. Exposure to such representations might affect audiences who learn from these depictions and reinforce existing stereotypes.

Men are vastly underrepresented in early childhood education and care, particularly in childcare work. To uncover stereotypes that motivate or hinder support for men in childcare in society, we employed a representative sample (N = 280) from Czechia, which has one of the lowest percentages of men working in childcare in the EU. We identified and contrasted descriptive, prescriptive, and proscriptive stereotypes about men, women, or childcare workers without a specified gender. Next, we examined the link between convergence of descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes about men in childcare and support for men working in childcare. In both open responses and trait ratings, men working in childcare were less often perceived or expected to be warm than women working in childcare. In the trait ratings, men working in childcare were less often expected to be moral and competent than women working in childcare. Yet, the overall stereotypical profiles of men converged with childcare workers with no gender information. Greater convergence between descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes about men working in childcare was associated with higher support for them. These findings highlight the specific role that normative beliefs play in support for men in childcare in the larger social environment.

Transgender people often experience discrimination and prejudice and these experiences have increased in recent years in countries such as the United States (e.g., increases in anti-transgender bills targeting gender affirming care). Past research has examined interventions to decrease transgender prejudice. In the current meta-analysis, we aimed to better understand the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing transgender prejudice, both overall and by intervention types (e.g., education, contact). We separated analyses based on research designs – i.e., pretest/posttest single group (PPSG) as well as pretest/posttest with control (PPWC) and posttest only with control designs (POWC). After screening, 35 PPSG studies with a total of 3,331 participants met the criteria and were included in the analyses. Additionally, 35 PPWC/POWC studies were combined and there was a total of 8,359 participants who met the criteria and were included in the analyses. We also conducted subgroup analyses on intervention types when there were at least five studies. We found that implementing interventions reduced transgender prejudice both compared to other conditions (via PPWC/POWC designs) and between time-points (via PPSG designs). Across both study design types, contact interventions were the only intervention type that significantly decreased transgender prejudice. These results suggest that interventions should continue to be implemented to reduce transgender prejudice and that researchers should aim to include some form of contact into their interventions.

Female breadwinner relationships (FBRs) occur when a woman earns more money than her male romantic partner. In four studies, we used diverse methods to document the threat that FBRs pose to heterosexual scripts (i.e., social conventions for heterosexual romance). First, a reflexive thematic analysis of 94 newspaper and magazine articles about FBRs identified themes concerning social stigma and feelings of gender threat (i.e., co-occurring feelings of gender nonconformity and inadequacy) that undermine well-being for FBRs, alongside themes concerning hope for a more egalitarian future. Next, two pre-registered experiments (Ns = 880 and 1612) revealed stigmatizing attitudes towards FBRs, which were perceived to be less desirable, worse quality, and less stable than male-breadwinner relationships. Finally, a cross-sectional study of married women and men (N = 511) affirmed that feelings of gender threat partially explained FBRs’ poor relationship outcomes. Across all four studies, and consistent with theories of fragile masculinity, men suffered worse gender threat than women in FBRs. These findings offer novel insight into heterosexual scripts and the punishing social consequences for people who violate those scripts and suggest that social stigma about FBRs may pose a barrier to gender equality in close relationships and in society.

The current study examined associations between the length of paternity leave taken by new fathers and maternal gatekeeping behavior and attitudes (i.e., mothers’ encouragement or discouragement of fathers’ involvement in parenting). Survey data on fathers’ and mothers’ leave length, maternal gatekeeping behavior and attitudes, and psychological and demographic covariates were drawn from a longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood among a sample of 130 dual-earner, different-sex couples in the U.S. Path analysis indicated that longer paternity leave time was associated with lower maternal gateclosing behaviors and attitudes. Paternity leave length was not related to maternal gateopening behavior. Mothers’ leave time was not related to maternal gatekeeping. The use of paternity leave may benefit the coparenting relationship between mothers and fathers by reducing maternal gateclosing behaviors and attitudes, making space for fathers to be more independent and involved parents and for mothers and fathers to adopt more egalitarian parental roles.

Despite dramatic changes since the 1970s, gender and educational gaps in gender egalitarian attitudes have persisted while the racial gap (with Blacks leading) has narrowed. We apply interest-based and socialization mechanisms to predict the differential influences of labor market influences on changing gender attitudes for different races, genders, and educational groups. Using 21 waves of the General Social Survey, 1977–2018 (N = 27,662), and cross-classified age-period-cohort models, we examine the effects of two known labor market dynamics that shifted Americans’ gender attitudes, gender equality in the labor force and men’s overwork, on egalitarian gender attitudes among different racial, gender, and educational groups. The findings indicate that rising labor force gender equality is associated with stronger shifts toward gender egalitarianism among whites, bringing their attitudes more in line with Blacks and closing the racial gap. The rise of men’s overwork in the mid-1990s coincided with the “stalled gender revolution” and is associated with rising conservatism among whites and the college-educated. The gender gap in attitudes has persisted in the last four decades and neither of these labor market dynamics has exerted any impact. Results align with the socialization perspective that individuals respond to labor market dynamics more in accordance with their socially prescribed roles than their self-interests.

Ethical sexual regret refers to regret for acts during a sexual experience that questions one’s ethical behavior and may be an important concept in understanding and preventing sexual assault. Although sexual regret is relevant to discussions of consent and unwanted/coerced sex, few researchers have explored the concept, even fewer have explored the phenomenon in men, and none in queer men. In this discourse analytic study, we focused on male-identifying participants who were asked to write about a sexual experience about which they felt ethical regret. Discourses were categorized into five themes that informed the analysis. Several discourses revealed that heteronormative gendered social norms may offer men a way to position themselves as good men who had lapses of judgment rather than men who disregard their own morals for sexual advantage. When men were on the receiving end of sex that was uncaring, unfair, coercive or otherwise unethical, they positioned themselves as responsible for the harm, perhaps indicating a lack of availability of a victim discourse. We also noted an absence of a discourse that focused on care for the sexual partner. We discuss how examples of ethical sexual regret may guide future work related to facilitating sexually ethical encounters for men across sexual and gender identities.