Exam 1 (Chapter 1-4)

Benevolent Sexism vs. Hostile Sexism

B: Seemingly positive feelings towards women, but are traditional and serve to control women's behavior and opportunities -- women are put on a traditional pedestal (positively related to hostile sexism) (positive attitudes toward women) H: Mean have structural power that gives them higher status and therefore they want to maintain higher power and leads to unfavorable attitudes toward woman (Positively correlated with inequality)(women are seen with negative attitudes and as seductrissness - use sex to gain men)

What Influences a Hypothesis

Biases & Stereotypes Biased: Men are more aggressive than women Unbiased: What is the relationship between masculinity and aggression

Sex

Biological categories of female and male (genes, chromosomes, internal/external genitalia)

How can stereotypes be inaccurate? Central Tendency Inaccuracy Variability Inaccuracy

CTI: overestimate or underestimate groups standing on attribute VI: overestimate or underestimate group's variability around central tendency

Research Difficulties with Gender

Cannot use gender as a IV because gender cannot be manipulated Many things are confounded with gender... status/power & socialization history

History (late 1960s)

Categorizing Gender Differences into... Helping behavior Learning Assertiveness Susceptibility to social influences

Why there is disconnect in confrontational issues

Cost - Benefit Ratio: without an assertive response, your benefits will outweigh the costs including social aspects Situational Factors: Hard to be assertive when the perpetrator has higher power or status than you Individual Difference: Don't seem to matter and the CB analysis is more powerful than ID

Gender Role

Expectations that go along with being male/female (i.e. male - masculine and female - feminine)

Gender Role Stereotypes

Features we assign to men and women in our society, not assigned due to biological sex BUT due to social roles that men and women hold (cognitive component) (descriptive -what like & prescriptive - what should be like)

STUDY- Bergen & Williams (Stereotypes Across Time) Compared stereotypes in 1972 with those in 1988

Finding: +.9 correlation over time

STUDY: Martel - Computer simulation of discrimination in a company

Finding: 1% Bias- 15% reduction in # of woman at the top of the company 5% Bias- 31% reduction in # of woman at the top of the company

STUDY: Johns & Schmader 3 conditions and participants were told they were going to be taking a test involving one of the following: 1. Problem-Solving Ability 2. Standard Stereotype Threat 3. Teaching Intervention - wrote about stereotype threat

Finding: 1. Men and women did equally well 2. Men did better 3. Equally well

STUDY: Swim & Hyers (Excuse Me What Did You Say?) - Group decision making task and male confederate also participating that would say 3 sexist/non-sexist suggestions

Finding: 16% Responded to comments 46% Expressed Displeasure 81% Imagined they would confront but there was a disconnect

STUDY: Steele & Ambady - Primed women with the concept that female or male before completing measure of arts/math attitudes

Finding: After being primed with female - more stereotypical tendencies

STUDY: Woodzicka & LaFrance (The Sexist Job Interview) - Looking at real versus imagine responses to job interview and the male job interviewer would ask 3 sexist questions to female interviewees

Finding: Everyone answered all the questions in actual study although they imagined they would refuse to answer

STUDY: Sinclair - Primed gender or ethnic identity in women and men

Finding: Gender - Primed with female & showed more stereotypical tendencies Ethnicity: Irrelevant - showed no difference in men/women

STUDY - William & Best (Stereotypes Across Culture) Looked at 30 different countries and 42% Variance across countries was shared

Finding: Women are seen as passive, weak, deferent, nurturing & relationship-oriented Men are seen as strong, active, dominant, autonomous & achievement-oriented

STUDY- Swim (How often do people experience sexism) - Asked college kids how many sexist event they experience

Findings: 1. Women experienced more sexual objectification 2. Gender Roles at self - Women experienced more (too emotional because you're a woman) 3. Gender roles (all men/woman are______) Equal

STUDY: Maccoby & Jacklin- First comprehensive review of sex differences

Findings: Revealed sex difference in only 4 domains - Verbal, Spatial, Math, and Aggression

STUDY: Swim (Dimensions of Everyday Sexism) - Had women keep track of incidents for 2 weeks of events that happened to them ( Diary)

Findings: Two Themes 1. Traditional Roles/Stereotypes - "you're too emotional because you're a woman" 2. Unwanted and objectifying sexual behaviors/comments - Catcalling Themes have not changed much since initial study

File Drawer Problem

- Unpublished studies aren't found - Studies that show no differences - get thrown away

Main Scales to Measure Gender Role Ideology

1. ATW - Attitudes Toward Women 2. LFAIS - Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale

Six Steps in Research Process

1. Develop Hypothesis 2. Design Study 3. Collect Data 4. Analyze Data 5. Interpret Results 6. Publish Results

Types of Sexism

1. Everyday - Subjective Experience of sexism; What is it like to experience this everyday?; Want to see if dealing with sexism is a part of everyday life and if it seems commonplace 2. Modern 3. Ambivalent

Collecting Data - Expectancies

1. Experimenter Expectancies - expectations may unknowingly influence how we treat participants which will influence the results (ex. Bobo doll) 2. Observer/Rater Expectancies- (Ex. Jack-in-the-box : they assumed men would act with more aggression than females when he pooped out of the box 3. Participant Expectancies- Participant wants to meet experimenter expectations

History of Gender Psychology (1940s to 1980s)

1. Focused on measuring masculinity and femininity (Unipolar [independence] and Bipolar [masculinity and femininity - interdependent] conceptualizations)

IAT - Implicit Association Task

1. Measures strength of associations between two concepts in our minds 2. Will do tasks more accurate/faster if it makes sense in our minds 3. Can predict SAT math & verbal scores, political behavior

History (1980s to present)

1. More articles and book on gender than ever 2. more complex theory and research 3. gender as a social category 4. more inter-disciplinary within psych 5. More interest in women of diverse ethnic, SES, national backgrounds 6. More interest in events unique to women 7. Explicit kick off of psych of men - explicit examination of men's roles

Altering Subtypes

1. Stereotypes are difficult to alter 2. When confronted with info that disconfirms a stereotype, we engage in a lot of cognitive work by... - making situational attributions - ignore stereotype inconsistent info - create a subtype - fail to recall stereotype inconsistent information

Publishing Results

1. Tend to publish statistically significant differences 2. explanations for gender differences may be post-hoc 3. People are going to remember stereotypes referring to themselves and sex differences sensationalized by media

Attitudes Toward Gender

1. Traditional 2. Egalitarian (men and women should be the same) 3. Transitional

History of Gender Psychology (Late 1800s - 1930s)

1. Women were not considered in research (samples = men and mice) 2. If women were used they were considered stereotypically and as deficient 3. Women seen as less intellectual than men (Research found mens brains to be larger than women's but no correlational value) 4. Edward Clark that education decreased women's reproductive ability

Sex-Related Behavior

Any behavior more associated with one gender than another (does not say anything about the origin of difference)

Responses to Sexism

Assertive: Confront person that made sexist joke Non-Assertive: Humour; Seek social support from friends after incident Psychological: Emotional: become angry which could prompt you to do either Cognitive: "This happened to me but it happens to every woman" People will say that they will respond more assertively than they actually do

Correlational Study (Design Study)

From knowing X can we predict Y? Correlation Coefficient: Ranges from -1 to +1 ( 0 correlation means there is no correlation between the two [ex. IQ and weight] ) + correlation: height and wieght - correlation: food restriction

Ambivalent Sexism

Gender relations are characterized by exploitative interdependence Ambivalence: Positive and Negative feelings towards something (hostile/benevolent)

Discrimination

How people behave (differently) toward men and women because of their gender (cognitive/behavioral component)

How Do Stereotypes Operate?

Implicitly- Automatic; ways we don't notice (IAT - Implicit Association Task)

Attribution to Stereotypes

Internal Dispositional Attribution: characteristic within the person is the reason they did what they did (ex. personality) External/Situational Attribution: Reason they did what they did is due to an external situation Male success attributed to ability and failure attributed to bad luck Female success attributed to situation or luck and failure attributed to lack of ability

Behavioral Component of Discrimination

Interpersonal: treating someone differently based on their gender (asking a man to do all the heavy lifting ) Institutional: Corporation, company, government, educational, practices in place that put one gender at a disadvantage (treatment, hiring, promotion, etc)

What happens if you go against the stereotype

Men: Seen as likable but aren't hired because thought to be less competent/hireable Women: Thought to be competent but are seen as unlikeable and deficient

Minimalist vs. Maximalist Approaches

Min: Few psych and behavioral difference between men and women (sex differences but few gender differences) Max: men and women are fundamentally different in psych and behavior (little overlap)

Backlash Effect

Penalty that is imposed on people for counter-stereotypical behavior (reason it is difficult to alter stereotypes)

Gender Role Ideology Over Time

Since the 1960s North America has become increasingly egalitarian

Gender

Social categories of females and males -- psychological characteristics that society has assigned to biological categories (ex. F: emotional, M: assertive)

Meta-Analysis

Statistical technique in which info from many studies is combine into one

Stereotype Influence - Personal Perception

Stereotypes automatically activated when we perceive others (simplify a complex world and allow us to preserve scarce cognitive resources)

STUDY: Davis - showed stereotype (sexist ads) or counter-stereotype ads 3/5 of commercials were sexist against women Measured wanting preference for math vs. verbal careers

Stereotypical Commercials: Men did better on math test and women reported wanting careers in arts over math Counter-Stereotypical Commercials: very little difference

Subtyping

Subcategories of gender-role stereotypes (can be beneficial because it detracts from the power of the overall stereotype) BUT subtyping can be a way to create an exception and leave the overall stereotype intact

Traditional vs. Modern Sexism

T: Endorsement of traditional roles of men and women (open disregard for women) M: Denial of existing discrimination toward women (not blatant disregardment)

How do we reduce the stereotype threat?

Teach People About it

Correlation does NOT equal causation

Three possibilities: A Caused B B Caused A a third variable C, is causing both A & B ex. TV and aggressiveness - 3rd variable could be permissive parents Exercise and Heart Disease - 3rd variable could be diet

Sexism

What people feel toward men and women (positive or negative)

Experimental Method

Where the causation is answered. Experimenter alters 1 variable to see what effect it has on another -- IV manipulated, DV - measured

Fundamental Way of Viewing People

Women - more positive (women are wonderful affect) Men - More Valued characteristics

Self-Protecting Strategy

Women don't step of the pedestal because consequences could be bad and will be more protected if they conform to traditional view

Gender Role Ideology Across Culture

Women in most countries show more egalitarian views than men Countries that tend to be more egalitarian show more economic development, # of women in universities, and # women working outside of the home

Stereotype Threat

idea that activating a stereotype may create a concern with confirming the stereotype and therefore interfere with performance (don't want their performance to show that the stereotype is correct so they get anxious and then it influences performance)

Shifting Standard

is the idea that we might have one standard for defining a behavior for one group, but another standard for defining the behavior in another group

Sex Typing

process by which sex appropriate preferences, behaviors, skills, and self-concept are acquired (Cross-sex typed - male behaves in feminine way and female behaves in masculine way; androgynous- behave in both ways)