Men's and women's evaluations of menstrual-related excuses

Based on an attributional analysis of menstrual distress, the present study examined how a woman is evaluated when she attributes an instance of negative social behavior to the approach or onset of menstruation. College men and women were asked to imagine an interaction in which a woman behaves very irritably and then gives one of several excuses for her negative behavior, two of which were menstrual related. Subjects evaluated each excuse in terms of (1) degree of annoyance, (2) blameworthiness, and (3) internality versus externality. The results showed consistent relationships between these evaluations and both sex of subject and general attitudes about menstruation. Males tended to see menstrual-related excuses as less blameworthy and more external than did females. In addition, general attitudes regarding the debilitating effects of menstruation predicted greater tolerance toward the use of menstrual excuses. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for the socialization and continuing reinforcement of menstrual distress.The research reported in this article was supported by grants SOC-7602137 and SOC-7602179 from the National Science Foundation. The authors wish to thank Russ Fazio for his help in collecting the data and Al Rogers and Terry Balaban for their help in analyzing the data. Diane N. Ruble is now at New York University. Ann K. Boggiano is now at the University of Colorado.     

Men's preferences for women's profile waist‐to‐hip ratio,breast size,and ethnic group in Britain and South Africa

One particular aspect of the literature on preferences for female body shapes has focused on the purported universality of preferences for a low waist‐to‐hip ratio (WHR), despite substantial evidence of cross‐cultural variability in such preferences. In the present study, we examined the effects of manipulating women's profile WHR, breast size, and ethnicity on men's ratings of physical attractiveness and health. A total of 51 African men in South Africa, 56 British Africans, and 114 British Caucasians rated 12 line drawings that varied in two levels of ethnicity, three levels of WHR, and two levels of breast size. Overall, the results suggested that there were cross‐cultural differences in preferred body shape, with the preferred body configuration varying as a function of the ethnicity of the figure being rated. In addition, there was a strong positive correlation between ratings of attractiveness and health. These findings are discussed in relation to the interplay between culture and evolution in determining ideals of attractiveness.     

Men's and women's perceptions of non-consensual sexual intercourse

This paper examines the reactions of college men and women (primarily white) to scenarios depicting non-consensual intercourse between men and women with varying levels of prior intimacy. Women were more likely than men to consider the scenarios unacceptable, and the gender difference increased with the level of prior intimacy between the victim and the offender in the scenario. Respondents who reported knowing a rape victim were also more likely to consider the scenarios unacceptable, and this effect was significantly larger for men. We consider the implications of these results for understanding the role of salience of sexual assault and self-interest in shaping men's and women's reactions to non-consensual intercourse.     

Men's and women's attitudes and beliefs about the menstrual cycle

Recent analyses of menstrual distress have emphasized sociocultural influences. Yet beliefs and attitudes of men—an important socialization force in the lives of women—have received little attention. In the present study, 239 students (156 females and 83 males) from three colleges filled out a survey on expectations for menstrual and premenstrual symptoms, attitudes about mensturation, sources of menstrual-related information, and effects of menstruation upon daily activities. The major findings are as follows: First, although both males and females believed women experience certain cycle-related symptoms, females reported that women experience more severe menstrual and premenstrual symptoms (when compared to intermenstrual ones) than males reported, while males believed women experience more severe menstrual than premenstrual symptoms than females believed. Second, males learned less about menstruation from the majority of possible informational sources and rated most sources as more negative than did the females. Third, males believed that menstruation had more of an effect on women's moods and had a more debilitating effect on women's lives than did females. Fourth, females rated menstruation as more bothersome than did males. Fifth, more males believed their mothers experienced menstrual irritability and moodiness, while more females believed their mothers experienced swelling. The findings are discussed in terms of the role of socialization and the type of information imparted to males and females in America today.     

Men's and women's perceptions of effort during progressive-resistance strength training

Previously sedentary adult men (M age=34.3 yr.) and women (M age =41.8 yr.) participated in a 25-wk., 7-station circuit-training program designed to evaluate the effects of a low-volume (1 set) and a high-volume (3 set) exercise regimen on the development of muscular strength. Participants completed the Borg scale of perceived exertion immediately following a chest-press exercise and a leg-extention exercise. Neither exercise volume nor sex classification was related to participants' ratings of exertion; however, exertion ratings for both exercises increased over the course of training.     

Autobiographical memory specificity in response to emotion pictorial cues among non‐clinical participants

The objective of the current study was to investigate whether emotion pictorial cues increase memory specificity among non‐clinical participants. Undergraduate university students were presented with emotion word and pictorial cues on a prompted and non‐prompted version of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT). In comparison to pictorial cues, participants retrieved significantly fewer specific autobiographical memories in response to word cues on the prompted AMT; however, there was no significant difference on the non‐prompted AMT. Participants also retrieved significantly fewer specific memories in response to both word and pictorial cues on the non‐prompted AMT compared with the prompted AMT. These results provide support for the hypothesis that among non‐clinical participants, visual cues increase memory specificity over and above emotion. Further research is needed to investigate ways in which memory specificity can be increased and the use of imagery may be a promising avenue.     

Men's and women's reactions to fair and unfair treatment in relationship conflict

Abstract Evidence of gender differences in reactions to experienced fair and unfair treatment in relationship conflict was examined in 4 studies among dating, cohabiting, and married participants in The Netherlands. Using a critical incidents method and a scenario, this research provided convergent results suggesting that the relationship between fairness of treatment and affective feelings or relationship satisfaction is stronger for women than for men. This gender difference disappeared under conditions of high relationship commitment. Furthermore, men who identified strongly with their relationship showed stronger reactions to fair treatment than men who identified weakly with their relationships. Finally, the manipulation of relationship salience led to heightened sensitivity to fairness of treatment among men, but not among women.     

Transfer of old ‘reactivated’ memory retrieval cues in rats

The present studies examined whether the retrieval of an old ‘reactivated’ memory could be brought under the control of new contextual cues. In Experiment 1 rats trained in one context were exposed to different contextual cues either immediately, 60 or 120 min after a cued reactivation of the training memory. When tested in the shifted context, subjects exposed shortly after reactivation treated the shifted context as the original context. This transfer diminished with longer post-reactivation delays. Experiment 2 replicated the basic finding and demonstrated that the transfer of the old retrieval cues was specific to the contextual cues present during exposure. These findings are consistent with previous research [i.e., Briggs, J. F., Fitz, K. I., & Riccio, D. C. (in press). Transfer of memory retrieval cues in rats. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review] showing the transfer of retrieval cues for a new memory, and demonstrating a similarity (in this case) between newly acquired and old reactivated memories.     

Men's friendships,women's friendships and the alleged inferiority of the latter

Over a decade of research utilizing a model and technique for the study of same-sex friendships has revealed some unsought and initially unexpected differences between men and women. Relevant aspects of this research are reviewed. Taken as a whole, the findings indicate overall differences between men and women that were readily interpretable in terms of traditional sex roles and socialization practices. However, when differences were found, they were seldom extremely large or glaringly obvious and thus provide no sound basis for predicting the character of the friendship of any particular pair of men or women. Moreover, when the friendships examined were limited to those that were very strong and of long duration, no appreciable sex differences were found. Special attention is given to the contention that women's friendships are inferior to those of men.     

Men's and women's self-confidence in persuasive,comforting, and justificatory communicative tasks

The self-confidence of men and women was assessed in three types of interpersonal communicative situations. Participants indicated anticipated level of success, evaluated their performance, and assessed the extent to which the outcome was due to ability and to effort. The most striking finding was higher self-confidence in women than in men in comforting tasks. No difference emerged in level of self-confidence between men and women in persuasive tasks. Men tended to anticipate more success in justifying decisions, but following their performance, did not rate either the quality of the performance or their ability higher than did women.     

Men's and women's attributions of male and female traits to the ingroup and outgroup

In two experiments using the minimal group paradigm, subjects had to describe an ingroup member and an outgroup member on the BSRI. Although the targets were not categorized by sex, the results showed that the typical ingroup member was described by men as having more male traits and by women as having more female traits. They also showed that the lesser worth of outgroup members was associated for men with fewer male and female traits, whereas for women it was mainly associated with fewer female traits. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Support for Race‐Based Affirmative Action: Self‐interest and Procedural Justice1

The current study examines attitudes toward affirmative action. Hypotheses related to self‐interest concerning perceptions of the benefits of affirmative action and hypotheses derived from procedural justice research regarding the structure of policy statements both received support. A survey completed by 387 undergraduate and graduate student participants found greater perception of benefits resulting from affirmative action policies, defined in terms of increased opportunity (concrete benefit) and increased satisfaction (abstract benefit), related to greater support for affirmative action. Policies presented with justification received more support than did policies presented without justification. Ethnicity did not directly affect support for affirmative action; however, ethnicity did affect perceptions of the benefits of affirmative action. Perceptions of the benefits of affirmative action mediated ethnicity effects. Suggestions for increasing support for affirmative action are provided.     

Meaning‐making in women's tattooed bodies

Tattooed women's practices of resistance and conformity are constituted within social, cultural, and historical contexts that produce normative values around “good” and “bad” tattoos. Tattoos enable the performance of multiple femininities, constructing the female body in a way that is personal and meaningful to that individual and opening an agentic space in which they can do so. The vast majority of research that is available on tattoos concerns mostly men or, at least, does not fully understand the implications of specific gendered discourses that regulate the (feminine) body. In this paper, we argue that meaning‐making for women's tattoos serves to function as legitimating, producing tattooed feminine bodies as more acceptable. We argue for a closer examination of the regulatory discourses that feed into the choices that women make in relation to their tattooed bodies.     

Control in memory for movement cues by mentally retarded children

The study was designed to determine the desirability of providing external prompts (1) to use a mnemonic to enhance accuracy of recall and (2) to use response 'priming' in memory for spatial location by mentally retarded persons. Two groups of 40 mentally retarded boys and girls and two groups of 40 MA-matched nonretarded children were compared for accuracy in the recall of movement on an arm-positioning task. No differences were found between mentally retarded subjects and MA-matched subjects treated under the same conditions. However, all groups were unable to make spontaneous control adjustments to accommodate the covert manipulations made just prior to recall. By providing response primes, appropriate performance adjustments were made by all groups, resulting in a significant improvement in accuracy of recall. These findings serve to reaffirm earlier reports showing remarkable similarity between the mentally retarded and MA-matched nonretarded subjects.     

How perceived discrimination and professional rejection sensitivity impact women's career success

Professional rejection is a widespread phenomenon—most, if not all, of us have or will experience it in our lifetimes. However, some are more adept at handling it than others. This paper examines individual differences in how people interpret and handle professional rejection, proposing a construct called professional rejection sensitivity. We focused on whether this construct predicts decreased self-promoting behaviors and increased self-silencing behaviors and, subsequently, whether that impacts career success for junior faculty. Moreover, we investigated whether women may be disproportionally predisposed to professional rejection sensitivity because they tend to experience more discrimination in the workplace than men. We collected self-report data (i.e., individual differences) and biodata (i.e., curriculum vitae) from 300 junior faculty and found evidence of gender differences, such that women perceive more discrimination and report higher professional rejection sensitivity than men. We also found that individuals who are higher in professional rejection sensitivity are more likely to practice self-silencing behaviors, and individuals who perceive more discrimination have lower career success. This paper serves as the first step in demonstrating the existence of professional rejection sensitivity, which can guide future research that addresses how individuals can overcome this disposition. To support this path of research, we conclude with suggestions for potential interventions.     

Men's and women's ratings of life satisfaction by age of respondent and age interval judged

A total of 432 people in six age groups rated the satisfaction of their current, past, and projected future lives. Average ratings for men and women did not differ. However, the triple interaction of sex × age of respondent × age interval judged indicated an optimism toward the future on the part of women. Compared with men of the same age, women judged the age interval prior to their own, as well as their present age interval, as being less satisfying than did the men. But women expected levels of satisfaction in the future to be higher than men expected. This optimism is attributed to socialization differences as well as the hope engendered by the current feminist movement.