Flexibility and sharing of childcare duties in black families

With the increasing number of Black mothers participating in the labor force, rearing children without fathers present, and relying on extended family for support the question of the nature of role-flexibility and sharing in the family is raised. Sixty-four families participated in an examination of the relative influence of one- and two-parent Black families and the proximity of the grandmother on self-report measures of (a) household maintenance duties, (b) childcare duties, and (c) parental punishment behaviors. Parents, grandmothers, and at least one child between the ages of 7 and 14 years completed three types of self-report measures. Although the results indicated that mothers, fathers, and grandmothers were nominated as consistently participating in childcare and household maintenance duties, mothers were nominated for more than 60% of the childcare and household tasks. Moreover mothers and not fathers used the full range of discipline practices including corporal punishment. The hypothesis regarding role-sharing in Black household was not supported. Black mothers, like mothers in general, are primarily responsible for the maintenance of the house and the care of children.The preparation of this review was supported by Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies, National Science Foundation Grant PRM-8210411, Rockefeller and Spencer Foundations grants.     

Causal attribution of success and failure as a function or authoritarianism and sex.

We predicted that authoritarian actors would engage in defensive attribution, and authoritarian observers would derogate the other, to a greater extent than egalitarian perceivers. 48 male and 48 female college students were run in pairs of same sex and authoritarianism. A set of easy anagrams was given to subjects in success conditions and difficult anagrams to those in failure conditions. Each subject rated own outcome and other outcome in terms of internal factors of ability and effort, and external factors of task and luck. We found that authoritarian actors were more internal than egalitarian actors only in the condition own success-other's failure. Authoritarian observers, as compared to egalitarians, were more external for other's success and more internal for other's failure only when own outcome was successful. It seems that authoritarian perceivers exaggerate their abilities and derogate the other only when they are clearly in a superior position vis-a-vis the other. There were no sex differences as a function of outcome and authoritarianism.     

Subject variables and reactance to persuasive communications about drugs

The role of three subject variables in the mediation of reactance to pro- and anti-LSD messages was investigated: sex, authoritarianism, and suspiciousness that the purpose of the experiment was to study persuasion. No reactance effect occurred reliably either overall or in any subgroup of subjects for the anti-LSD message which supported the initial views of most subjects (evening-division undergraduates). In the pro-LSD case, reactance effects occurred among highly suspicious male subjects only. It was suggested that reactance could be a responce to perceived threat from the experimenter rather than, or as well as the communicator, and that male and female subjects responded to such threat in accordance with their culturally prescribed roles.     

Effects of imagining speakers’ voices on the retention of words presented visually

Subjects were introduced to one male and one female voice by a tape recording with instructions to attend to characteristics of the voices. Then 18 pairs of words were presented visually on slides. The subject’s task during each 10-sec interslide interval was to repeat silently the pair of words over and over again in the male voice, in the female voice, or in the subject’s own voice. A surprise recognition test for the words indicated that the words were more likely to be recognized if they were spoken in the same Voice at test as was used to repeat them during presentation. Recognition of the words repeated in the subject’s own voice was not affected by the sex of the speaker at test. In Experiment 2, different speakers were used at test than those used by the subjects to repeat the words. The interaction between the sex of voice used at encoding and at test was again significant, but recognition was generally lower than in Experiment 1. It was concluded that it is not necessary to assume that subjects have literal copies of spoken words in memory but speaker’s voice does form an integral part of the verbal memory code and its influence is specific to a given speaker as well as to a given class of speakers (male or female).     

Adolescent Bullying,Relationships, Psychological Well-Being,and Gender-Atypical Behavior: A Gender Diagnosticity Approach

In this study we used a gender diagnostic (GD) approach to examine the associations between gender-atypical behavior and gender role (masculinity—M and femininity—F), bullying, peer relationships, and psychological well-being in a large community sample of 15-year-olds. GD showed little relationship with gender role. Irrespective of sex, M was positively, and F negatively associated with being a bully. “Gender atypical” boys reported more victimization, more loneliness, fewer male friends, and greater distress than their “gender typical” peers. After accounting for M and F, “femaleness” (“gender atypical” boys and “extremely gender-typed” girls) was associated with psychological distress. GD is an effective and unobtrusive method to identify a group whose vulnerability should be recognized by psychology, health, and education professionals.     

REACTIONS TO RESUMES AS A FUNCTION OF RESUME DETERMINATENESS, APPLICANT CHARACTERISTICS, AND SEX OF RATERS

Six male and six female personnel professionals were presented with resumes in which sex, age, marital status, and academic achievement were systematically varied. The study examined the hypothesis that resume determinateness is positively related to the evaluation given to the resume by prospective employers. The provision of ambiguous information was found to distort the evaluation process but not in a consistent manner. Married males and females were evaluated more positively than were those who were single. Also married females with high academic status were evaluated more positively than were married males with high academic status, although there were no differences for single males and females. Female raters showed a tendency to be more stringent than males in their evaluations, and this effect was pronounced for older, married applicants. The study examines the implications of these results and makes suggestions for future research.     

Effects of real gender and labeled gender on adults' perceptions of infants.

Three experiments were conducted to discover factors mediating adults' perceptions of male and female infants. In the first experiment, college students were shown 30-s videotapes of four male and four female babies, each of whom was randomly labeled with a male or a female name. Infants labeled as male were perceived as significantly more masculine and stronger than those labeled as female. Discriminant analyses revealed that both rated masculinity and the combination of ratings on male stereotyped traits differentiated infants labeled as male or female. Analyses of real gender revealed that boys were rated as less sensitive and stronger than girls. Discriminant analyses suggested that the combination of less sensitive, more of a problem, more mature, and more playful best differentiated real males from real females. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were confirmed with a sample of mothers of young infants. In Experiment 3 college students' judgments of the sex of the eight babies were correctly predicted from the sensitivity ratings of these babies in Experiment 1. It appears that there is a complex of cues from which adults make judgments of infants' gender and inferences about their characteristics: Boys may appear stronger, more playful, and more of a problem, and girls seem to look more sensitive. Implications for further studies of gender labeling and for sex typing are discussed.     

LANGUAGE ATTITUDES OF ITALO-AUSTRALIAN AND GREEK-AUSTRALIAN BILINGUALS*

The purpose of this research was to investigate differences in the perception of speakers as a function of their language and sex. Forty-two Italo-Australian and 56 Greek-Australian young people listened to male and female speakers in each of their two languages, using Lambert et al's. (1960) guise method. Results indicated few differences in Italo-Australian subjects' ratings of speakers as a function of language, while Greek-Australian subjects, in general, rated Greek guises more positively than English guises. In addition, Italo-Australian subjects rated female subjects more positively than male speakers irrespective of language, but Greek-Australian subjects reversed this pattern.     

Socialization of sex roles in the counseling setting: Differential counselor behavioral and attitudinal responses to typical and atypical female sex roles

Counseling and therapy have frequently been attacked by feminists for the role they play in socializing women to a limited and ultimately untenable sex role. Male counselors in particular have been singled out as special oppressors of women. This study attempted to determine whether, in fact, counselor behavior and attitudes operated as a means of sex-role socialization, and whether male counselors tended to be more biased than female counselors when interacting with female clients. Subjects were eight male and eight female graduate students in counseling psychology who conducted initial interview sessions with two client-confederates, volunteer graduate students trained in role-playing situations representing a typical and an atypical sex-role condition. Videotapes of the interviews were subsequently analyzed to assess counselor reinforcement patterns of specific client cue sentences. In addition to these behavioral data, paper-and-pencil inventories were used to determine counselors' perception of clients, counselors' degree of attitudinal sex-stereotyping, and client-confederates' subjective evaluation of counselors. Contrary to expectations, results indicated that counselors as a whole exhibited more behavioral bias with typical than with atypical clients. Further, counselors reacted more positively toward the atypical than toward the typical clients, and counselor response to a global sex-role inventory indicated that counselors described the healthy, well-adjusted female as significantly more instrumental than the healthy, well-adjusted male. Female counselors appeared to be both more reinforcing and less punishing than male counselors with female clients in both roles, as well as less behaviorally biased than the male counselors. Female counselors also evaluated the atypical clients more positively than did the male counselors, and were in turn evaluated more positively than were the male counselors by clients in both roles. The study concludes with a discussion of implications for counselor training.     

The costs of selecting power bases or messages associated with the opposite sex

A study was conducted to examine the interpersonal costs of using power bases associated with the opposite sex. The study also tested two hypotheses regarding influence differences associated with two statistical interactions: (1) the sex of the source by the sex-type of the message, and (2) the sex of the subject by the sex-type of the message. Subjects (N=387) viewed a videotype containing one of six speakers (three males, three females) delivering one of two speeches (about gun control or child care centers) and using one of two power bases (helplessness or expertise). The results indicated that speakers using power bases associated with the opposite sex were liked less and regarded as less competent and qualified than their counterparts. The results also indicated that female speakers aroused more belief in the child care message and male speakers aroused more belief in the gun control message than did the other speaker-message combinations. No significant effects were associated with the interaction between subjects' sex and message. Among other findings, female subjects generally rated the messages and the speakers more positively than did male subjects.     

Interpersonal aggression as a function of subject's sex, subject's sex role identification, opponent's sex, and degree of provocation.

Ninety-five undergraduates served as subjects in an experiment where they could administer electric shock to an opponent and receive the same from an opponent. The independent variables were subject's sex, subject's sex role identification (as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory), opponent's sex, as well as degree of provocation from the opponent. Aggression was defined as level of shock chosen by the subject for the opponent. The results indicated that masculine subjects facing a male opponent were more aggressive than individuals of other sex role identifications whether or not they were provoked. It was also found that masculine males were more aggressive than other males or anyof the females. Furthermore, opponent's sex influenced the males' aggressiveness but had no effect on the degree of aggression in females. Finally, aggression increased in all subjects following increases in provocation. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for pyschological androgyny.     

Psychological analyses of haptic and haptic-visual judgements of extent

Magnitude estimates of haptic extent resulted in positively accelerated psychophysical power function with an exponent of 1.18. However, in two further experiments right-handed male subjects made rating-scale judgements of the combined width of two stimulus blocks. Six widths were used and five replications of the 36 factorial combinations were presented to each subject. In Experiment II both stimuli were out of view and one was held between the thumb and index finger of each hand. In Experiment III one stimulus was held out of view between thumb and finger of the right hand and the second was shown to the subject. Mean ratings in both experiments were fit by a model which assumes that responses are a weighted average of the scale values of the two stimuli (Anderson, 1974a).     

The Effect of Clear Evaluation Criteria on Sex Bias in Judgments of Performance

Previous research indicates that the work of women is often devalued rela- tive to that of men. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that such sex bias appears when judges follow ambiguous guidelines or criteria in making evalua- tions, but not when they tollow clear evaluation guidelines. In each experiment, male and female undergraduates evaluated a performance that was attributed to either a man or woman (an intellectual test performance in Experiment I; an artistic craft object in Experiment 11). Subjects followed either clear, explicit evaluation criteria or vague, ambiguous criteria. As predicted, female subjects Lyaluated the "female's" performance less favorably than the "male's" only when. criteria were vague. In contast, male subjects showed little evidence of sex bias, regardless of the criteria they followed. Discussion centers upon: (1) possible cognitive processes underlying the observed effects of clear criteria; and (2) potential practical applications designed to alleviate sex bias in naturalistic settings.     

Emotional Empathy in a Courtroom Simulation: A Person-Situation Interaction1

A pair of experiments were conducted using a simulated courtroom trial of a criminal case. In Experiment I subject-jurors were asked by defense counsel either to imagine themselves as the defendant (empathy-inducing appeal) or to pay close attention to evidence (nonempathy appeal). Later the judge delivered only general instructions or, in addition, charged jurors to give consideration only to the facts presented. When there was no Fact-focused judge's charge, juror-subjects who heard the empathy-inducing appeal rated the defendant's actions as more lawful and attributed less of the cause for the incident to his personality than did their counterparts in the nonempathy condition. Experiment II included individual differences in the tendency to empathize as an additional mediating variable. The original pattern of effects found for the manipulated variables in Experiment I appeared again, but were overshadowed by the stronger effects of the individual difference variable and of subject sex. Subject-jurors who scored high on the empathy individual difference measure rated the defendant less guilty, assigned less cause to him, and showed corresponding mood shifts when they heard the empathy-inducing appeal. In addition, male subjects empathized more strongly with the male defendant and viewed him more favorably.     

Military and Civilian Undergraduates: Attitudes Toward Women,Masculinity, and Authoritarianism

The influence of civilian and military college environments and undergraduates' sex on gender role attitudes and authoritarianism was investigated. Three hundred thirteen male and 69 female, primarily white middle-class students at the United States Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, Reserve Officer Training Corps, and a civilian university participated. Approximately 7% were Hispanic, 6% African-American, and 5% Asian-American. Military students had the most traditional authoritarian beliefs and gender role attitudes. When men only were analyzed, USNA males were the most traditional in their attitudes toward women and in antifemininity attitudes. ROTC men were the most traditional in authoritarianism and in status beliefs. All military-affiliated men held more traditional toughness attitudes than did civilian men. USNA men had the most traditional attitudes toward women as compared to the USNA females and civilian females and males.     

MODELING INFLUENCES ON ALCOHOLICS' RATES OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

Two experiments were designed to examine modeling influences on alcoholics' alcohol consumption. Three male alcoholics were paired with confederates, posing as alcoholics. In Experiment 1, alcoholic-confederate pairs participated in a 1-hour taste-rating task, which involved rating different wines on a list of adjectives. Experiment 2 consisted of 1-hour ad lib access to wine in a naturalistic bar setting. In both experiments, confederates alternated 15-minute periods of heavy and light consumption, drinking fluids resembling wine. The amount of wine consumed by alcoholics in each period was secretly recorded and the data examined on a single subject basis. In Experiment 1, two subjects increased and decreased consumption along with their confederate. The third subject followed the confederate's pattern only after the confederate demonstrated heavy consumption. All three subjects varied consumption with the confederate during Experiment 2, performed later on the same day. These results suggest that alcoholics' alcohol consumption can be modified by the social influences of modeling. The implications of this finding for the loss of control hypothesis and alcoholism treatment maintenance were discussed.     

Influence Attempts When Competing Views Are Gender-Related: Sex as Credibility

A study was conducted to examine the effect of sex of subject, sex of majority and minority influence source, and male or female relatedness of the issue on conformity, Male and female subjects indicated their agreement (or disagreement) with male and female related statements following an influence attempt by either four male or four female confederates. The sex of the majority opinion was juxtaposed with a minority opinion held by an opposite-sexed confederate. Two major findings were obtained. First, for male related issues, subjects conformed more when the majority influence source was male than when female. Likewise, on female-related issues, subjects conformed more when the majority influence source was female than when male. Second, male subjects conformed more than female subjects on the female related issues whereas on male related issues they tended to conform less. The theoretical and practical significance of these findings is discussed.