Names and “Doing Gender”: How Forenames and Surnames Contribute to Gender Identities,Difference, and Inequalities

Names, as proper nouns, are clearly important for the identification of individuals in everyday life. In the present article, I argue that forenames and surnames need also to be recognized as “doing” words, important in the categorization of sex at birth and in the ongoing management of gender conduct appropriate to sex category. Using evidence on personal naming practices in the United States and United Kingdom, I examine what happens at crisis points of sexed and gendered naming in the life course (for example, at the birth of babies, at marriage, and during gender-identity transitions). I show how forenames and surnames help in the embodied doing of gender and, likewise, that bodies are key to gendered practices of forenaming and surnaming: we have “gendered embodied named identities.” Whether normative and compliant, pragmatic, or creative and resistant, forenaming and surnaming practices are revealed as core to the production and reproduction of binary sex categories and to gendered identities, difference, hierarchies, and inequalities.     

Correction to: Office Housework,Burnout, and Promotion: Does Gender Matter?

Journal of Business and Psychology - In the final version of the publication, the acknowledgement was missing. The data were supported by an ERC pilot grant, and they should be acknowledged.     

Gaming, Gender, and Time: Who Makes Time to Play?

This study investigated gender differences in the perceived benefits of workplace friendships and the relationship between friendship factors and organizational outcomes. Four hundred and forty-five respondents from predominantly Western countries including New Zealand, Australia and America completed an Internet based questionnaire which asked them to describe the benefits received from workplace friends, and which measured workplace friendship and organizational variables. Friendship prevalence and opportunities were more strongly correlated with job satisfaction for men. Women were significantly more likely than men to describe the benefits of workplace friendship in terms of social and emotional support in times of stress, while men focused mainly on the benefits friends provided them in their career or in functional aspects of ‘getting the job done’.     

Young Adults’ Perceptions of Non-Forcible Sexual Activity: The Effects of Participant Gender, Respondent Gender, and Sexual Act

There is a gendered double standard for both sexual activity and criminal victimization, in that female sexual actors and victims are generally viewed more negatively than their male counterparts. In this study, 485 U.S. undergraduates at a large Northeastern university completed a questionnaire in which the gender of the victim and the nature of the non-forcible sexual act (sexual intercourse or oral sex) were experimentally manipulated. The provided scenarios depicted statutory rape situations, characterized by age discrepancies between the two parties. Respondents were asked to rate each of the parties on a series of questions to determine their level of condemnation for each of the parties involved. We hypothesized the existence of a sexual double standard, such that female actors would be more condemned than males. Repeated measures ANOVA indicated that respondents were more condemning of female than male victims, regardless of which act was depicted. Furthermore, male respondents were more condemning of a female perpetrator of statutory rape than of her male victim, and also more condemning of a female victim than of her male perpetrator, whereas female respondents did not differentiate between the victim and perpetrator, regardless of the depicted victim gender or sexual act. That is, whether she was depicted as the victim or perpetrator of the act, the female was more condemned than her male counterpart. Overall, female respondents were more condemning than male respondents, regardless of which act was depicted. These findings suggest the presence of a sexual double standard in perceptions of statutory rape.     

Interviews Exploring Emerging Adults’ Everyday Life Gender Norm Experiences,Media Gender Norm Perceptions,and Future Gender Norm Expectations

In a culture where media increasingly permeate everyday life experiences, this study explores where emerging adult interviewees acquire gender norm information and how this information is applied to future gender norm expectations. Qualitative research has considered emerging adults’ future life expectations; however, it has not concurrently explored everyday life gender norm experiences, media gender norm perceptions, and future gender norm expectations in family and career. This study’s 20 in-depth interviews (M age?=?19.05 years) with male and female undergraduate students were analyzed using grounded theory method (GTM). Findings revealed interviewees used everyday life gender norm experiences to support or challenge media gender norm perceptions. The majority of interviewees also perceived media undergoing a “shift” to mirror everyday life gender norm experiences. Additionally, interviewees often discussed childhood everyday life experiences rather than media perceptions when articulating future gender norm expectations. However, while most female interviewees expected to manage future household, childcare, and career responsibilities, male interviewees expected a 50/50 split, to take part in less childcare, and expected future partners to work, contributing to household finances. The discussion considers the ways the interviewees integrated everyday life and media gender norms in conversation, how they may use these realms to shape future expectations, and the consequences that might arise if these expectations are not met.

     

Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When,Where, and Why?

How big are gender differences in personality and interests, and how stable are these differences across cultures and over time? To answer these questions, I summarize data from two meta-analyses and three cross-cultural studies on gender differences in personality and interests. Results show that gender differences in Big Five personality traits are ‘small’ to ‘moderate,’ with the largest differences occurring for agreeableness and neuroticism (respective ds = 0.40 and 0.34; women higher than men). In contrast, gender differences on the people–things dimension of interests are ‘very large’ (d = 1.18), with women more people-oriented and less thing-oriented than men. Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender-egalitarian societies than in gender-inegalitarian societies, a finding that contradicts social role theory but is consistent with evolutionary, attributional, and social comparison theories. In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences.     

Aggression,Psychopathology, and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration: Does Gender Matter?

The majority of intimate partner violence (IPV) research explores partner violence without considering the influence of contextual and psychosocial factors, such as trait aggression, psychopathology, gender, and provocation. Disparities in the general aggression literature further underscore the need to develop a better understanding of contextual and psychosocial factors. The present study sampled 720 (male = 365, female = 355) college students who completed measures of IPV perpetration and victimization, trait aggression, and psychopathology. Participants then completed a learning task, during which half were randomly selected to be provoked. The interactive effects of condition, gender, and perpetrator status on mood and aggressive responding were explored. Results indicated that perpetrators of both genders had similar emotional responses to provocation, but behavioral responses to provocation varied. Results were discussed in terms of their implication for future research and batterer intervention.     

Who’s funny: Gender stereotypes,humor production,and memory bias

It has often been asserted, by both men and women, that men are funnier. We explored two possible explanations for such a view, first testing whether men, when instructed to be as funny as possible, write funnier cartoon captions than do women, and second examining whether there is a tendency to falsely remember funny things as having been produced by men. A total of 32 participants, half from each gender, wrote captions for 20 cartoons. Raters then indicated the humor success of these captions. Raters of both genders found the captions written by males funnier, though this preference was significantly stronger among the male raters. In the second experiment, male and female participants were presented with the funniest and least funny captions from the first experiment, along with the caption author’s gender. On a memory test, both females and males disproportionately misattributed the humorous captions to males and the nonhumorous captions to females. Men might think men are funnier because they actually find them so, but though women rated the captions written by males slightly higher, our data suggest that they may regard men as funnier more because they falsely attribute funny things to them.     

Gender,Risk, and Religiousness: Can Power Control Provide the Theory?

Collett and Lizardo (2009) offer a model of gender differences that revisits and expands earlier research, in particular nascent ideas used by Miller and Hoffmann (1995) that were borrowed, in part, from a power-control theory of delinquency and crime. However, I am skeptical of their attempt to apply power-control theory as a general explanation of gender differences in religiousness. In this response piece, I first set the context by describing how Alan Miller and I initially approached our risk and religion work. I then point out where I think the research stream went awry and why recent studies of risk preferences and religion have failed to provide convincing evidence one way or the other. Finally, I offer an appraisal of Collett and Lizardo's work, with particular attention to why adopting power-control theory should be viewed with caution. I conclude with suggestions for future research on gender and religiousness.     

Gender and Compensation: Understanding the Impact of Gender and Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Rewards

Children’s understanding of rewards for task completion was examined in the context of gender, and gender-based stereotypes. Eighty-eight children (43 girls, M_overall?=?58.39 months) completed a measure assessing gender-based occupational stereotypes. This measure, along with gender, was used to predict children’s self-reward for undergoing the testing, as well as their reward for a fictional other child having undergone the same procedure. The methodology provided a novel approach for studying reward allocation in children, as it did not require children to divide resources between themselves and another child for completing the same task. An occupation-based stereotype measure was found to predict the self-reward, as well as the reward allocated to the other child. In addition, the participant’s gender predicted self-reward, and an interaction between participant gender and gender of the experimenter contributed to predicting the other child reward. Overall, these findings suggest that gender and gender-based stereotyping have an impact on reward allocation of young children. Implications of these results in the context of reward allocation research among children and adult populations are discussed.     

Gender,Culture, and Social Support: A Male–Female,Israeli Jewish-Arab Comparison

Despite large bodies of research on gender, culture, and social support, very few studies have addressed all three. Aspects of 4 theoretical perspectives were used to derive (different) predictions about the role of gender and culture in the evaluation and utilization of social support: evolutionary, psychoanalytic, social role, and social construction theories. The predictions were tested in representative samples of the Jewish and Arab populations in Israel. Men and women were interviewed regarding the importance and availability of different support functions, the quality of different social networks, and the people to whom they would turn for support with different problems. Results demonstrate the universality of the need for support and a number of cultural and gender differences in its utilization. The results support different aspects of the 4 theories and suggest a need for more work on the mechanisms underlying the differences found. The results also demonstrate the value of studying the role of gender and culture in social support.     

Evaluating Gender Discrimination Claims: Is There a Gender Similarity Bias?

A rich literature exists that examines individuals' perceptions of affirmative action in organizations. However, little is known regarding the evaluation of reverse gender discrimination claims arising from gender-based preferential treatment. This study investigated the possible existence of a gender similarity bias in evaluations of gender discrimination allegations using a laboratory experiment in which the strength of evidence against the defendant company and the gender of the plaintiff were manipulated. Our sample consisted of 120 undergraduate students (60 men, 60 women) from diverse racial/ethnic groups (35% Asian, 6% African American, 18% Hispanic, and 41% Caucasian). Results suggested that female mock jurors favored female plaintiffs over male plaintiffs. In contrast, there were no gender-related differences in perceptions of male plaintiffs. Thus, although women did not disadvantage male plaintiffs, there was a tendency for them to be favorably biased in favor of female plaintiffs. As expected, this tendency was greatest under conditions of evidential uncertainty about the company's guilt.     

Does Gender Matter? Relationship of Gender,Spousal Support,Spirituality, and Dispositional Forgiveness to Pastoral Restoration

We examined the relationship of gender, forgiveness, and spirituality to restoration attitudes expressed toward pastors who committed a transgression. In Study 1, participants’ restoration responses favored the opposite gender. In Study 2, men and women responded differently depending on the offense. Dispositional forgiveness was significantly associated with pastoral restoration following offenses of infidelity, anger, child abuse, and substance abuse. Measures of spirituality were primarily associated with forgiveness but explained little of the variance in restoration attitudes.     

Gender,profession, and non‐conformal religiosity

Possible relations between gender, profession and non‐conformal religiosity are discussed, and patterns of religiosity are analysed among Danes in the social, educational, and health care (SEH) professions with a view to clarifying the role of gender versus that of profession in propagating non‐conformal religiosity. The data were taken from an interview study of the Danish Baha'i community and from the Danish part of the European Values Study (EVS). The conversion accounts of SEH professionals among the Danish Baha'is indicate a specific religious socialization in the SEH professional environment. The EVS data demonstrate that non‐conformal religiosity is much more prevalent among SEH professionals than among the rest of the population. Three to five times as many practised meditation, yoga, or healing, and belief in reincarnation was also more widespread. Regarding these indicators of non‐conformal religiosity, no differences were found between men and women in the SEH professions. For persons not in the SEH professions, indicators of both conformal and non‐conformal religiosity showed a higher prevalence among women than among men. This corroborates the hypothesis that the female‐dominated SEH professional environment exerts a strong socialization to non‐conformal religiosity, a socialization that may outweigh the general effect of gender.     

Commentary on “deconstructing difference: Gender,splitting, and transitional space”;

This essay identifies Kohut's major contribution as methodological: that psychoanalytic inquiry entails the sustained empathic immersion in the patient's psychological experience. Kohut's consistent employment of this method enabled him to discover that it was not instinctual drive derivatives but selfobject needs that were central to all psychological relationships. This discovery was the basis for the transformation of analysts’ approach to the “narcissistic”; aspects of a wide variety of disorders—a transformation whose theoretical and therapeutic importance rivals the revolutionary approach taken by Freud to the vicissitudes of psychosexuality and its disturbances. The author describes the major areas of progress in self psychology—much of which centers on the growing recognition that the health and vitality of the self depend on complex relational, or intersubjective, selfobject experiences. He indicates how this recognition is changing our perspectives on transference and countertransference and is improving our ability to respond optimally to our patients. He describes how optimal responsiveness constitutes the guiding principle for therapeutic work, and how it may both constitute, and be different from, “being empathic.”;     

Who Thinks Outside the Gender Box? Feminism,Gender Self-Esteem,and Attitudes toward Trans People

Sex Roles - Trans people are targeted with widespread prejudice and discrimination in the United States. In order to better understand this hostility, we examined how different gender beliefs...     

Doing Gender Online: New Mothers’ Psychological Characteristics,Facebook Use,and Depressive Symptoms

Online social networking sites, such as Facebook, have provided a new platform for individuals to produce and reproduce gender through social interactions. New mothers, in particular, may use Facebook to practice behaviors that align with their mothering identity and meet broader societal expectations, or in other words, to “do motherhood.” Given that Facebook use may undermine well-being, it is important to understand the individual differences underlying new mothers’ experiences with Facebook during the stressful first months of parenthood. Using survey data from a sample of 127 new mothers with Facebook accounts residing in the U.S. Midwest, we addressed two key questions: (a) Are individual differences in new mothers’ psychological characteristics associated with their use and experiences of Facebook? and (b) Are new mothers’ psychological characteristics associated with greater risk for depressive symptoms via their use and experiences of Facebook? Regression analyses revealed that mothers who were more concerned with external validation of their identities as mothers and those who believed that society holds them to excessively high standards for parenting engaged in more frequent Facebook activity and also reported stronger emotional reactions to Facebook commentary. Moreover, mothers who were more concerned with external validation were more likely to have featured their child in their Facebook profile picture. Mediation analyses indicated that mothers who were more prone to seeking external validation for their mothering identity and perfectionistic about parenting experienced increases in depressive symptoms indirectly via greater Facebook activity.     

What Predicts Attitudes toward Transgender and Nonbinary People? An Exploration of Gender,Authoritarianism, Social Dominance,and Gender Ideology

Transgender and nonbinary (TGNB) people face discrimination based on negative societal attitudes toward TGNB identities. Our study explored factors contributing to negative TGNB attitudes, including participants’ gender, age, religion, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and adherence to traditional gender ideologies. Our sample of 808 U.S. Mechanical Turk participants completed measures of RWA, SDO, traditional masculinity and femininity, and transgender attitudes and beliefs. Because TGNB people have diverse identities, we modified the transgender attitudes and beliefs scale to measure attitudes toward trans man, trans woman, and nonbinary targets instead of the single “transgender” umbrella. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that gender was a significant predictor of attitudes toward trans men and trans women. Higher levels of RWA, traditional masculinity, and anti-egalitarianism (a domain of SDO) predicted negative attitudes toward all TGNB identities, with RWA generally being the strongest predictor. Traditional femininity and the dominance domain of SDO did not significantly contribute to our predictive model for most groups, although we were surprised to find that for nonbinary people, higher levels of traditional femininity predicted positive attitudes. These results can inform targeted interventions aimed at reducing transprejudice.