Perspectives on self and other: Male-female differences in perceptions of communication behavior

Two studies were conducted to examine male-female differences in perceptions of subjects' own and their best-liked others' communication behavior. The results of the first study indicated that males and females hold relatively stereotypical views of their own communication behavior. Males perceived themselves as more controlling and detached, while females saw themselves as more nurturant and more dependent. The results from the second study indicated that the discriminating dimensions for the same-sex friendships of both males and females were attention-seeking and self-dramatizing communication behaviors. In an opposite-sex relationship, however, the discriminating communication behaviors for males and females were nurturance and dependency. The implications of these findings are discussed.Both authors would like to thank Edmund Kaminski, currently a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University, for his valuable assistance on this project.     

Gender differences in causal attributions by college students of performance on course examinations

Gender differences in causal attributions and emotions for imagined success and failure on examinations were investigated. Males made stronger ability attributions for success than females, whereas females emphasized the importance of studying and paying attention. Males more than females attributed failure to a lack of studying and low interest, but females were more likely than males to blame an F on a lack of ability. Females experienced stronger emotions than did males; they felt happier than males did after success but felt more like a failure than did males after imagining receiving an F on an examination. Some of the gender differences in causal attributions, especially for ability attributions, depended on the gender-type of the subject matter of the examinations. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Gender differences in causal attributions by college students of performance on course examinations

Gender differences in causal attributions and emotions for imagined success and failure on examinations were investigated. Males made stronger ability attributions for success than females, whereas females emphasized the importance of studying and paying attention. Males more than females attributed failure to a lack of studying and low interest, but females were more likely than males to blame an F on a lack of ability. Females experienced stronger emotions than did males; they felt happier than males did after success but felt more like a failure than did males after imagining receiving an F on an examination. Some of the gender differences in causal attributions, especially for ability attributions, depended on the gender-type of the subject matter of the examinations. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Sex differences in aggressive behavior in a marsupial,the gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica)

In male and female gray short-tailed opossums (Monodelphis domestica), same-sex interactions were characterized by high levels of threat behavior (open-mouth postures and screeching vocalizations). Actual fighting behavior (biting, locking, and tumbling) was seen almost exclusively in male-male interactions. In male-female interactions, females showed high levels of threat behavior and males showed little aggressive behavior of any kind. Clicking vocalizations, submissive behavior in marsupials, were displayed almost exclusively by males. These findings are discussed with respect to the uses of auditory and olfactory communication in marsupials.     

Implications of sex and gender differences for self: Perceived advantages and disadvantages of being the other gender

Undergraduate students (34 females and 28 males/44 Caucasian, 16 African-American, 2 Asian) were asked to list the advantages and the disadvantages that they imagined they would experience if they were the other gender. A separate group of undergraduate raters then classified each of the statements into one of four categories designed to reflect social (social roles or social appearance) or physical differences (sexual or non-sexual physical differences) between the sexes. The number of responses each participant generated within each category served as the dependent variable. By far the largest number of responses pertained to the social roles category, and there were no participant gender differences for that category. Participant gender differences were observed in the social appearance and sexual physical difference categories, indicating males and females agreement that males have more advantages. Overall, females listed more advantages to a change in gender, while males indicated more disadvantages. Results are interpreted as providing insights into the personal and practical implications of differences between males and females.The authors would like to acknowledge Tiffany Capers and Millard McCluney for their assistance in collecting the data.     

Embodied cognition and health persuasion: Facilitating intention-behavior consistency via motor manipulations

The present research examines health persuasion from an embodied cognition perspective by proposing that engaging the motor system during health persuasion will lead individuals to engage in healthier behavior and have greater consistency between their intentions and behavior. In two studies, participants watched a health video while either imaging themselves performing the behavior or imaging themselves performing the behavior while also engaging their motor systems with minimal, relevant behaviors. In Study 1, after watching a flossing video, females (but not males) flossed more times in the following week after touching a floss and in Study 2, all participants (males and females) exercised more in the week after watching an exercise video while walking in place. In both experiments, participants who engaged the motor system had stronger intention-behavior consistency than those who merely imagined themselves performing the health behavior. Implications of the findings are discussed for theories of embodied cognition, intention-behavior consistency, and health persuasion.     

Apology versus defense: Antecedents and consequences

Participants imagined themselves in face-threatening predicaments in two studies that examined the reproach and evaluation phases of predicament management. In Study 1, participants gave accounts of their behavior after receiving hypothetical reproaches that were mild/moderate or severe. Results showed that reproach severity influenced perpetrator accounts in opposite ways for females and males. Male perpetrators became more defensive under severe reproach, whereas females became less defensive. Expectations for a future relationship were more negative under severe reproach, and this was more pronounced when the victim was an acquaintance rather than a friend. Individuals high in Self-Determination were less defensive under mild/moderate reproach, but not under severe reproach. In Study 2, participants gave evaluations after receiving hypothetical accounts that varied in responsibility-taking. Results showed that greater responsibility-taking led to more positive victim evaluations and better expected future relationships. The advantage of responsibility-taking was especially pronounced when the perpetrator was a friend, suggesting that friends are forgiven more than acquaintances when they take responsibility and apologize, but not if they fail to do so. Results are interpreted in terms of reciprocal facework and thresholds for face threat.     

FRIENDLY OR UNFRIENDLY PERSUASION

Expectancy theory suggests that people develop normative expectations about appropriateness of communication behavior that differ for males and females. Support was found for an interaction hypothesis predicting that males would be expected to use more verbally aggressive persuasive message strategies and would negatively violate expectations and be less persuasive when they deviated from such strategies. Moreover, females are expected to be less verbally aggressive and use more prosocial message strategies and are penalized for deviations from such an expected strategy. Manipulation checks indicated that people have clear differences in expected strategy use by males and females and that neither the psychological sex role nor biological sex of receivers alters those expectations. Results are discussed in terms of similarity to prior language research, as an extension of expectancy theory and as added knowledge about the effects of specific compliance-gaining message strategies.     

Role of the ultrasonic vocalization of the female rat (Rattus norvegicus) in sexual behavior

Both male and female rats vocalize ultrasonically during mating. Whereas male calls are known to facilitate female proceptive behavior, the female mating call has not been studied beyond spectrographic analysis. In this article, a series of experiments were done to examine the effects of the female's mating call on rat mating behavior. In the first experiment, females copulated with intact males before and after surgical devocalization. In the second experiment, intact females copulated twice with a male: once when they were able to hear and once when they were temporarily deafened with a medical ear mold. In the third experiment, tape recorded ultrasounds were placed in the presence of devocalized females while they were copulating with intact males. In the control condition, tape hiss was presented. In each experiment, it was observed that the female darted more if communication were disrupted (i.e., female devocalized or male deafened). Playback partially reduced darting to control levels. No other behavior was affected consistently across all experiments. Female calls might facilitate self-regulation of mating behavior, or they might focus the male's attention on her proceptive behaviors. It is also possible that the female calls could alter the stimulus properties of the male's behavior, indirectly affecting her own behavior.     

Sexual experience and preference for males or females in the female rat

The influence of sexual experience on preference behavior was investigated in adult female rats. In the first experiment, preference behavior for sexually active males versus estrous females was investigated in female rats who were experienced with mounting behavior. Preference of these mount experienced females was compared to preference of females who were naive in this respect. Mount experience with estrous females induced a female-directed preference in ovariectomized female rats, irrespective of whether the females were treated with OIL or with testosterone-propionate (500 micrograms TP, injected once 48 h prior to testing). Sexually naive, OIL-treated females did not show a preference for males or females, but TP induced a preference for a male. Individual differences in mount frequency were not correlated with preference behavior. In the second experiment, the influence of experience with feminine sexual responses on preference behavior was investigated. OIL-treated and TP-treated females oriented equally toward males and females when they had been given the opportunity to copulate with males prior to the preference tests. The results strongly suggest that prior sexual experience is an important determinant of preference behavior. The female's behavior during sexual interactions was, however, not predictive of later preference.     

Early gender differences in the functional usage of language

Early male and female differences in the functional use of language were investigated by coding the verbal interactions of 32 preschool children during a 10-minute play session with same-sex peer. The speech of each child was classified into functional-motivational categories using the FIS-P scoring instrument. The findings were consistent with the literature on adult conversational styles, showing that males talk more and are more assertive in their social interactions than are females. The results of this study demonstrate the existence of early gender differences in the functional use of language and emphasize the importance of a developmental approach to the study of communication styles.     

The Role of Stimulus Specificity on Infidelity Reactions: Seeing is Disturbing

Past research has found that males are more distressed by imagined scenarios of sexual infidelity compared with females, while females are more distressed by imagined scenarios of emotional infidelity. Expanding on the methodology originally employed by Buss et al. (Psychological Science, 3, 251–255, 1992), we examined sex differences in reactions to imagined infidelity by addressing the effects of visual images of potential interlopers. Additionally, this research measured affective responses in a continuous format by examining psychological discomfort. Participants in high-visual imagery and control conditions imagined infidelity (both emotional and sexual) and then reported levels of discomfort. Further, two indices of autonomic nervous system responding were assessed (skin conductance and pulse rate). Ninety-three (53 females, 40 males) college students participated. Visual stimuli produced greater psychological distress than thought-produced stimuli for all participants, especially males. Sex differences in reactions to infidelity consistent with past research were obtained for the categorical and continuous psychological indices. Implications for research in this area are discussed.

Exploring the Relationship between Psychopathy and Helping Behaviors in Naturalistic Settings: Preliminary Findings

This study examined the helping behavior of participants with high (High-P; 15 males, 13 females) and low (Low-P; 14 males, 16 females) psychopathic traits without their awareness. In the first of three tests, we found Low-P participants offered more help to an apparently lost female confederate than High-P participants. In the second test, High-P compared to Low-P males offered more help to an “injured” female experimenter, the reverse was true for females. In the third test, High-P compared to Low-P females offered more help to a female confederate who had apparently dropped papers they were carrying; whereas the reverse was true for males. Our preliminary findings indicate that context, gender and psychopathic traits interact and impact helping behavior.     

The influence of sex and sex role orientation on sexual coercion

One hundred female and 77 male college students completed a questionnaire in which they indicated whether they had ever used physical or verbal coercive strategies to initiate sexual behavior with a partner, or had ever engaged in sexual behavior in response to a partner's coercive initiatives. Results showed that males are far more likely than females to initiate coerced sexual behavior and females are more likely to be victimized. In addition, masculine persons reported using coercive strategies more than other sex role orientation types. However, this was due principally to the fact that males were masculine types much more frequently than females. Therefore, sex (that is, being male or female) seems a more critical factor in determining, initiating, or responding to sexual coercion than sex role orientation.     

Conflict behaviors toward same-sex and opposite-sex peers among male and female late adolescents

Differences between males and females in regard to conflict behaviors toward same-sex and opposite-sex peers were examined in a sample of 501 undergraduate university students (326 males, 175 females). They completed a one-page questionnaire containing the theoretical definitions of five conflict behaviors identified by Thomas (1976): competing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating. Students were asked to rate the extent to which they exhibit each of these conflict behaviors, on a 5-point Likert-type scale, separately for same-sex and opposite-sex peers. Results revealed that males reported more competing behavior toward same-sex peers than toward opposite-sex peers, and more avoiding behavior toward opposite-sex peers than toward same-sex peers. Males, compared to females, reported more accommodating behavior toward both same-sex and opposite-sex peers. These findings support the view that preferences regarding conflict behaviors are different for males and females, particularly as exhibited toward same-sex and opposite-sex peers.     

An investigation of the effects of sex of self and other on perceptions of communication satisfaction

This study examined the effects of sex of self and other on communication satisfaction. Respondents rated perceived satisfaction with a conversation they had just completed or one they recalled. Communication satisfaction was operationalized by a 60-item self-report instrument. Results indicated that a person's own gender does not influence the amount of communication satisfaction one experiences, and mixed sex dyads are slightly more satisfying for males and females.     

Sex differences in the assignment of responsibility for an accident

Two experiments examined the proposition that females assign less responsibility than males to a perpetrator in a feminine occupation and males assign less responsibility than females to a perpetrator in a masculine occupation. The results from Experiment 1 indicated that females assigned less responsibility than males to a perpetrator in a feminine occupation, whereas males and females assigned equal responsibility to a perpetrator in a masculine occupation. These results did not generalize to measures of causality, foreseeability, intent, or justification. Therefore, they suggest that responsibility may have been assigned on the basis of reliability of the perpetrator's behavior and that a measure of reliability may be more appropriate than a measure of responsibility. The results from Experiment 2 supported the contention. Females judged the behavior of a perpetrator in a feminine occupation to be more reliable than did males, and males judged the behavior of a perpetrator in a masculine occupation to be more reliable than did females.     

Images Versus Issues in the 1984 Presidential Election Differences Between Men and Women

Recent accounts of male and female personality development suggest that members of each sex differ in the orientations and capacities they bring to their experience of the political world. This article explores the relative importance of respondents’ images of the candidates and respondents’ political positions to predictions of males’ and females’ candidate preferences. It was predicted that candidate images based on interpersonal communication behavior, as opposed to respondents’ political positions, would be a more powerful predictor of females’ candidate preferences. The opposite pattern was expected to be the case for males’ candidate preferences. These predictions were supported; however, the data analysis also indicated that both candidate images and politkal positions contributed significantly to predictions of females’ candidate preferences.     

Applying imagined contact to improve physiological responses in anticipation of intergroup interactions and the perceived quality of these interactions

This experiment (N = 49) is the first to show that imagined contact can buffer anticipatory physiological responses to future interactions, and improve the quality of these interactions. Participants imagined a positive interaction with a person with schizophrenia, or in a control condition, a person who did not have schizophrenia. They then interacted with a confederate whom they believed had schizophrenia. Participants in the imagined contact condition reported more positive attitudes and less avoidance of people with schizophrenia, displayed smaller anticipatory physiological responses, specifically smaller changes in interbeat interval and skin conductance responses, and had a more positive interaction according to the confederate. These findings support applying imagined contact to improve interactions with people with severe mental illnesses.