Sex differences in self-confidence: The influence of comparison to others' ability level

Previous investigators have suggested that women display lower self-confidence than men in almost all achievement settings. The validity of this suggestion is assessed in an experiment testing the impact of comparison to others upon sex differences. Male and female undergraduates, who expected to cooperate in the future with a same-sex partner of high, average, or low ability, selected a difficulty level for an achievement test, completed the test, evaluated their own performance, and estimated their future partner's probable performance. As predicted, only when subjects' future partner was highly competent did women select an easier test than men, perform less well, and compare themselves less favorably to their partner. Also, women's, but not men's, self-evaluations depended upon their partner's ability level. It is concluded that sex differences are moderated by social comparison variables. Cognitive processes that may underlie such differences are discussed.The authors wish to express their appreciation to Phoebe Ellsworth for her critical comments on this research, and to Pamela Joy, Tama Jacobson, and Thomas Hallet for serving as experimenters. Portions of this study were reported at the Eastern Psychological Association Convention, 1978.     

Evaluation of sex-typed tasks by black men and women

Two studies examined the relationship of sex of subject, sex-typing of tasks, and prior task experience on self-confidence ratings of Black men and women. In both investigations, women's self-confidence tended to vary as a function of task type, while men's self-confidence remained relatively stable across all tasks. Prior experience with the task was highly correlated with self-confidence ratings for men and women and moderated the effects. The variations in the findings of Studies I and II and implications for future research are discussed.Portions of this study were reported at the Eastern Psychological Association Convention, 1983.     

Do Professional Women Have Lower Job Satisfaction Than Professional Men? Lawyers as a Case Study

A central paradox in studies of gender and jobsatisfaction is why women's job satisfaction is notlower than men's, given that women's jobs are ofteninferior. The explanation most commonly used is that women have lower expectations than men becausethey compare themselves to women while men comparethemselves to men. However, general studies maybemasking a gender difference in higher occupationallevels. The current study explores this possibility byanalyzing the 326 lawyers in the 1990 National Survey ofLawyers' Career Satisfaction. Of the women, 9% wereminorities, and of the men, 3%. It is found that women have significantly lower jobsatisfaction. Women's lower job satisfaction is dueprimarily to their lack of influence and promotionalopportunity. The results support the assertion thatprofessional women have the same expectations asprofessional men, not lower, but because of inequalityin opportunity, the women have lower jobsatisfaction.     

Sex differences in graduate student ambition: Do men publish while women perish?

This paper compares men and women graduate students at one university and identifies conditions under which women students equal or surpass men in ambition. Men and women were broadly similar in background characteristics, though different in current family status. They studied different subjects, aimed for different degrees, and were concentrated in different years in the university. If women were to equal the most highly ambitious men on ambition to publish and engage in related behaviors, they had to aspire to a doctorate, survive past the second year of study, and have nontraditional attitudes toward women's role. The results are discussed in terms of differential student careers and barriers to the development of ambition in student women.The research upon which this paper is based was carried out with the assistance of a Lena Lake Forrest Fellowship from the Business and Professional Women's Foundation, Washington, D.C.The author wishes to thank G. L. Millerson and C. T. Husbands for comments on the draft, and Beryl Collins and Bryn Saunders for help with the typing.     

WOMEN, MEN, AND INTIMACY MOTIVATION

Using a projective method with college students, this study assessed sex differences in the motivation to share personal concerns in a friendship context. As expected, women were found to be significantly more likely than men to imagine that they would confide worries to a friend (Intimacy Imagery). Women's Intimacy Imagery stories included positive outcomes significantly more often than did men's Intimacy Imagery stories, and the theme of self-enhancement as a consequence of confiding occurred in one-quarter of the women's Intimacy Imagery stories and in none of the men's. For men, Intimacy Imagery was associated with high social confidence and a strong preference for confiding in women. For women, stories suggesting avoidance of confiding or anxiety around confiding were associated with low social confidence.     

PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS OF JUNIOR FACULTY IN PSYCHOLOGY

Composition and functioning of academics' professional networks were assessed in a study of 47 women and 43 men holding tenure-track assistant professor positions in psychology at sixty universities. Women's networks had significantly more women colleagues, more higher-status women colleagues, and fewer associates from their previous institutions than men's. Women also consistently rated their networks as less effective at helping them build a professional reputation. However, women were similar to men in terms of the number of "important colleagues" and higher status associates in their networks and ratings of colleagues' effectiveness at providing professional socialization, friendship, career information, and access to current research. The results suggest that by the third year at the assistant professor level, women in psychology have established a small same-sex support network, but that their larger network functioning may be beginning to diverge from men's in one important area: building a profesional reputation. Implications for women's career strategies are discussed.     

Male Partners' Appraisals of Undesired Pregnancy and Abortion: Implications for Women's Adjustment to Abortion

The impact of men's attributions for pregnancy and expectations for coping with abortion on their partner's post-abortion adjustment was examined. Men's and women's attributions and coping expectations were assessed in a sample of 73 couples prior to obtaining a first-trimester abortion of an undesired pregnancy. Women's depression was assessed 30 minutes post-abortion. Partners did not differ in their coping expectations or attributions of the pregnancy to chance, situation, another person, or their own behavior, but men blamed the pregnancy more on their own character than did their partners. Male partner's coping expectancies affected women's adjustment only if the women themselves had low coping expectancies. Among women with low coping expectancies, those accompanied by partners who also had low coping expectancies were the most depressed. Men's attributions were unrelated to their partner's adjustment.     

The consequences of being overweight: A controlled study of gender differences

The consequences of body weight were explored in a sample of 44 women and 40 men who were matched for body size on the basis of judges' ratings and height-weight proportions. Results indicated that the condition of being overweight had a more negative effect on women than on men: Average-weight subjects showed a preference for thin women but not for thin men; the condition of being overweight negatively affected the quantity and quality of women's relationships with men, but had little effect on men's relationships with women; overweight negatively affected the self-attitudes of all subjects, but particularly those of women. Furthermore, average-weight and, particularly, overweight women showed more concern regarding their body size than either average or overweight men. These findings were interpreted in terms of prevailing sex role pressures and expectations.We gratefully acknowledge the help of Alice Carpenter in planning this study and the help of Peggy Nevils during the data-gathering phase of the study.     

Rapid communication: Sex differences in artificial grammar learning: evidence for different strategies in men and women

In this article we report an experiment that investigated differences in classification performance of women and men in artificial grammar learning (AGL). Women's and men's responses correspond to a large extent. Consistent differences, however, were found in a variable that codes overlaps between training and test items in terms of string fragments. The results are best explained by the assumption that women and men apply different cognitive strategies at test.     

Gender Stereotypes of Emotional Reactions: How We Judge an Emotion as Valid

In this paper we report a partial replication of the finding that women face a double-bind with respect to emotional expression (Kelly & Hutson-Comeaux, 2000) and explore the hypothesis that gender-inconsistent emotional reactions are perceived to be more valid indicators of one's underlying emotional experience than gender-consistent emotional reactions. Men and women evaluated the appropriateness and sincerity of women's and men's overreactions to happy and angry events in both interpersonal and achievement contexts. Women's overreactions to happy events were judged as less appropriate and their emotional reactions were perceived as less sincere than were men's, particularly in an interpersonal context. In addition, men's overreactions to angry events in the interpersonal context were judged as less appropriate and less sincere than were women's. Implications of the findings for other types of social judgments are discussed.     

A longitudinal examination of couples' coping strategies as predictors of adjustment to breast cancer

This study's goals were to examine coping strategies of women and their male partners as predictors of change in women's adjustment over the year following breast cancer treatment and to test whether partners' coping processes interact to predict adjustment. In a sample of women who had recently completed breast cancer treatment and were taking part in a psychoeducational intervention trial, the patients' and partners' cancer-specific coping strategies were assessed at study entry (average of 10 months after diagnosis). Assessed at study entry and 20 months after diagnosis (n = 139 couples), dependent variables were women's general (i.e., vitality, depressive symptoms, relationship satisfaction) and cancer-specific adjustment (i.e., cancer-specific distress, perceived benefits). Both patients' and partners' coping strategies at study entry predicted change in women's adjustment at 20 months. Women's use of approach-oriented coping strategies predicted improvement in their vitality and depressive symptoms, men's use of avoidant coping predicted declining marital satisfaction for wives, and men's approach-oriented strategies predicted an increase in women's perception of cancer-related benefits. Patients' and partners' coping strategies also interacted to predict adjustment, such that congruent coping strategy use generally predicted better adaptation than did dissimilar coping. Findings highlight the utility of examining patients' and partners' coping strategies simultaneously.     

The siren's call: terror management and the threat of men's sexual attraction to women

Why do sexually appealing women often attract derogation and aggression? According to terror management theory, women's sexual allure threatens to increase men's awareness of their corporeality and thus mortality. Accordingly, in Study 1 a subliminal mortality prime decreased men's but not women's attractiveness ratings of alluring women. In Study 2, mortality salience (MS) led men to downplay their sexual intent toward a sexy woman. In Study 3, MS decreased men's interest in a seductive but not a wholesome woman. In Study 4, MS decreased men's but not women's attraction to a sexy opposite-sex target. In Study 5, MS and a corporeal lust prime increased men's tolerance of aggression toward women. Discussion focuses on mortality concerns and male sexual ambivalence.     

Correlated male preferences for femininity in female faces and voices

Sexually dimorphic physical traits are important for mate choice and mate preference in many species, including humans. Several previous studies have observed that women's preferences for physical cues of male masculinity in different domains (e.g., visual and vocal) are correlated. These correlations demonstrate systematic, rather than arbitrary, variation in women's preferences for masculine men and are consistent with the proposal that sexually dimorphic cues in different domains reflect a common underlying aspect of male quality. Here we present evidence for a similar correlation between men's preferences for different cues of femininity in women; although men generally preferred feminized to masculinized versions of both women's faces and voices, the strength of men's preferences for feminized versions of female faces was positively and significantly correlated with the strength of their preferences for feminized versions of women's voices. In a second study, this correlation occurred when men judged women's attractiveness as long-term, but not short-term, mates, which is consistent with previous research. Collectively, these findings (1) present novel evidence for systematic variation in men's preferences for feminine women, (2) present converging evidence for concordant preferences for sexually dimorphic traits in different domains, and (3) complement findings of correlations between women's facial and vocal femininity.     

Setting the bar: divergent sociocultural norms for women's and men's ideal appearance in real-world contexts

Research suggests that exposure to sociocultural norms for idealized appearance can reduce both women's and men's body satisfaction. Despite comparable effects for both genders in the lab, in the “real-world” women's body satisfaction is chronically lower than men's. Real-world gender differences may arise from discrepancies in men's and women's everyday exposure to norms. Across eight studies using a variety of content analysis, survey, and experimental methods, we examine differences in sociocultural norms for ideal appearance pertaining to women and men in “daily life” contexts. We demonstrate that appearance norms encountered by women in daily life are more rigid, homogenous and pervasive than those for men, and that more messages implying the attainability of the ideal appearance are directed at women. Finally, experimental results show that homogeneous, rigid norms (like those typically encountered by women) are more harmful to body image than heterogeneous, flexible norms (like those typically encountered by men).     

Gender differences in the sensitivity to posttraumatic stress disorder: An epidemiological study of urban young adults

The authors examine the relationship between 2 separate but interrelated findings in the epidemiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): women's greater PTSD risk following traumatic events and the sensitizing effects of a prior trauma on the PTSD response to a subsequent trauma. Data come from a representative sample of 1,698 young adults from a large U.S. city. Analysis was conducted on the subset exposed to traumatic events. Women's risk for PTSD following assaultive violence was higher than men's. When assaultive violence preceded a later nonassaultive trauma in women, there was an increased risk (relative risk = 4.9) for PTSD, which was not observed in men. The relative risk estimate in women was significantly higher than in men. These findings suggest that assaultive violence elicits women's PTSD response directly and by sensitizing them to the effects of subsequent traumatic events of lesser magnitude.     

Heterosocial perceptual organization: application of the choice model to sexual coercion

Luce's (1959, 1963) choice model was used to characterize individual differences in men's perception of women's affect as friendly, sexually interested, sad, or rejecting. Women's clothing styles were associated with differences in the model's parameters. Sensitivity to sadness, rejection, and friendliness declined when women were dressed provocatively, whereas sensitivity to sexual interest increased. Provocative clothing was also associated with an increased bias to assume that positive affect was sexual interest rather than friendliness. Men at risk for perpetrating sexual aggression were less sensitive to women's affect than low-risk men were. They were also more likely than low-risk men to associate provocative clothing with sexual interest, and conservative clothing with friendliness. Results indicate that heterosocial perception may help to predict sexually coercive behavior and may be an important target for intervention.     

People's Perceptions of Women's and Men's Worry about Life Issues: Worrying about Love, Accomplishment, or Money?

The study was designed to examine people's perceptions of women's and men's worry about life issues and self-perceptions of worry. Some undergraduates (n = 498) rated typical women's or men's worry, and others (n = 396) rated significant others' worry based on the Worry Domain Questionnaire (Tallis, Eysenck, & Mathews, 1992). As expected, participants perceived women as worrying more than men do about relationships, when they rated typical or significant others. As well, they rated typical men as worrying more than typical women about achievement and finances. Participants who rated significant others' worry also rated their own worry and parallel findings were expected. However, women tended to report more worry about achievement than men did. Overall, the findings indicate that the better people know their targets, the less likely they are to perceive their worry in gender stereotypical terms. This article is partially based on Wendy-Jo Wood's Master's thesis.     

Perceptions of job characteristics and affective work outcomes for women and men

One hundred twenty-three men and women participated in a study designed to assess their attitudes about job dimensions and affective work outcomes. This study found that very few differences existed between women's and men's perceptions of job dimensions and work outcomes. It was also shown that little difference existed between men's and women's perceptions of positive relationships between job dimension and affected work outcomes. The authors concluded that differences that exist in work attitudes are artifacts of hierarchical position and sex-role stereotyping and will disappear when women are allowed to move into jobs that are characterized by the presence of high levels of intrinsic job dimensions.     

Expectations regarding acquaintance sexual aggression among sorority and fraternity members

Among women, college is a high risk period for sexual assault by male acquaintances. Differences in expectations held by men and women may contribute to misinterpretation of social cues and subsequent sexual aggression and may impair women's ability to respond effectively. This paper presents findings from a predominantly Caucasian sample (85.9%) of college sorority (n = 66) and fraternity (n = 34) members regarding the social context within which they interact and their expectations regarding perpetration of and response to sexual aggression. Results showed differences in men's and women's expectations and responses, and in particular highlighted how men's expectations were related to women's resistance of unwanted sex. Understanding the cognitive processes that men and women draw upon in social interactions can be useful for developing sexual aggression prevention and resistance interventions.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Council on Social Work Education Annual Program Meeting, March 1995, San Diego. The authors would like to thank Robert D. Abbott, Kelly Cue, and Virginia Senechal for their input on earlier versions of this paper.This project was jointly supported by the University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, School of Social Work, and Addictive Behaviors Research Center. It was also supported in part by grants from NIAAA (AA05591 and AA07271) and NIMH (MH53702).