Effects of occupational choice and sex-role preferences on the attractiveness of competent men and women1

The present experiment assessed the impact of a person's sex role and occupational preferences on his/her social attractiveness, attractiveness as a coworker, and attractiveness to a prospective employer. Male and female subjects were provided information describing a competent male or a competent female stimulus person. Stimulus persons (SPs) were portrayed as favoring either traditionally masculine or traditionally feminine occupations, and as masculine or feminine in their sex-role preferences. As expected, both male and female SPs were seen as most socially attractive when their sex-role preferences were “gender consistent.” In contrast, subjects favored SPs who expressed masculine sex-role preferences when assessing the individual's attractiveness as a prospective employee. These findings were compared and contrasted with the results of earlier research, and the implications of sex-role deviance for males and for females were discussed.     

BEHAVIORAL TREATMENT OF DEVIANT SEX-ROLE BEHAVIORS IN A MALE CHILD1

This study demonstrated reinforcement control over pronounced feminine behaviors in a male child who had been psychologically evaluated as manifesting “childhood cross-gender identity”. The clinical history of the subject paralleled the retrospective reports of adult transsexuals, including (a) cross-gender clothing preferences, (b) actual or imaginal use of cosmetic articles, (c) feminine behavior mannerisms, (d) aversion to masculine activities, coupled with preference for girl playmates and feminine activities, (e) preference for female role, (f) feminine voice inflection and predominantly feminine content in speech, and (g) verbal statements about the desire or preference to be a girl. The subject was treated sequentially in the clinic and home environments by his mother, trained to be his therapist. The mother was taught to reinforce masculine behaviors and to extinguish feminine behaviors, by using social reinforcement in the clinic and a token reinforcement procedure in the home. During this treatment, his feminine behaviors sharply decreased and masculine behavior increased. The treatment effects were found to be largely response-specific and stimulus-specific; consequently, it was necessary to strengthen more than one masculine behavior and weaken several feminine behaviors, in both clinic and home settings. A multiple-baseline intrasubject design was used to ensure both replication and identification of relevant treatment variables. Follow-up data three years after the treatment began suggests that the boy's sex-typed behaviors have become normalized. This study suggests a preliminary step toward correcting pathological sex-role development in boys, which may provide a basis for the primary prevention of adult transsexualism or similar adult sex-role deviation.     

Social perceptions of male and female extreme mesomorphs.

In this study, male and female university students in the United States were exposed to mesomorphic or nonmesomorphic stimuli as reflected by photographs of either male body builders and non-body builders or female body builders and non-body builders. Then they were asked to attribute various personality traits and sex-role behaviors to them. Subjects, irrespective of their sex, perceived male and female body builders as possessing more traditionally masculine and less traditionally feminine personality characteristics than male and female non-body builders. Also, male and female body builders were seen as possessing less socially desirable traits than non-body builders. As predicted, female body builders were perceived generally as being more likely to engage in traditionally masculine sex-role behaviors in their dating and marriage relationships than female non-body builders. Contrary to expectation, however, male body builders were not perceived as more likely to engage in higher levels of masculine sex-role behaviors than male non-body builders.     

Subdomains of Gender‐Related Occupational Interests: Do They Form a Cohesive Bipolar M‐F Dimension?

In four studies, with a total of 1780 male and 2969 female participants, subdomains of masculine and feminine occupations were identified from sets of occupational preference items. Identified masculine subdomains included "blue-collar realistic" (e.g., carpenter), "educated realistic" (electrical engineer), and "flashy, risk-taking" (jet pilot). Feminine subdomains included "fashion-related" (fashion model), "artistic" (author), "helping" (social worker), and "children-related" (manager of childcare center). In all studies, principal components analyses of subdomain preference scales showed that masculine subdomains were bipolar opposites of feminine subdomains. This bipolar structure emerged in analyses conducted on combined-sex groups, high-school boys, high-school girls, men, women, heterosexual men, gay men, heterosexual women, and lesbian women. The results suggest that, although there are distinct masculine and feminine occupational subdomains, gender-related occupational preferences, nonetheless, form a replicable, cohesive, bipolar individual difference dimension, which is not an artifact of studying mixed-sex or mixed-sexual-orientation groups.     

Gay Stereotypes: The Use of Sexual Orientation as a Cue for Gender-Related Attributes

This study investigated whether gay men and lesbians are assumed to have attributes stereotypically associated with the other gender. Participants were 110 male and female undergraduates from a private, Midwestern, U.S. university. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (i.e., gay male, lesbian, heterosexual female, heterosexual male) and rated their given target on possession of traditionally masculine and feminine occupational interests, activities, and traits. Results revealed that, despite some changes in the status of gay men and lesbians in society, stereotypes regarding sexual orientation were similar to those seen in studies conducted 20 years ago. Specifically, gay males were viewed as less masculine/more feminine than heterosexual males, and lesbians were viewed as more masculine/less feminine than heterosexual females.     

Sex-role identity and male and female homosexuality

The incidences of sex-role outcome within homosexual and heterosexual male and female young adult samples were compared using a fourfold typology (both masculine and feminine, masculine, feminine, neither masculine nor feminine). Sex-role identity disparities between the female groups were more clear-cut; the most striking difference was the high incidence of masculinity (60%) within the homosexual female group. No significant differences for males were found, although a trend was noted toward higher incidence of femininity and lower incidence of masculinity in homosexuals. The second purpose of the study was to search for possible developmental antecedents to heterosexual deficit in unselected college samples. The same key pattern of psychometric indices was identified for males and females. Low heterosexuality and the closest approximation to the modal sex-role identity among homosexuals of their sex were found in females primarily identified with masculine fathers and low in role consistency and in males primarily identified with feminine mothers and low in role consistency.     

The preference to work for a man or a woman: A matter of sex and gender?

A survey of 455 individuals sampled from two populations that varied in age, educational level, and work experience posed a question asked in Gallup polls over six decades: “If you were taking a new job and had your choice of a boss, would you prefer to work for a man or a woman?” Respondents could state that they would prefer a male boss, prefer a female boss, or had no preference. As expected from theory and Gallup results, respondents who had a preference preferred to work for a man more than a woman, although a majority expressed “no preference.” When they expressed a preference, women preferred to work for a female boss over a male boss more than men did, whereas men preferred to work for a male boss over a female boss more than women did. Sex-typed (i.e., masculine or feminine) respondents in gender identity exhibited a greater preference to work for a boss of a particular sex over having no preference than non-sex-typed respondents. Further, feminine respondents preferred to work for a female boss over a male boss more than masculine respondents did, whereas masculine respondents preferred to work for a male boss over a female boss more than feminine respondents did. Overall, these results suggest that the preference to work for a man or a woman is a matter of both sex and gender. Implications for job applicants' vocational decisions and how female leaders fare in the workplace are discussed.     

The effects of unipolar sex-role identities and situational determinants on components of fear of success

In the present study the relationship between unipolar models of sex-role identity (i.e., the degree to which a person perceives him/her self as relatively masculine and/or feminine) and situational cues (i.e., females engaged in successful activities which vary in their sex-role appropriateness) on fear of success was investigated. An alternative, objective measure of fear of success was employed which generated 16 variables thought to reflect various theoretical and empirical components of the motive to fear success. These variables dealt with personal attributes of the successful characters, reasons for their success, and possible consequences of their success. It was found that situational rather than psychological variables are of greater importance in affecting female response to female success. However, there was some support for the notion that general diffusion of sex-role identity (undifferentiated sex-role identity group) rather than high femininity may be related to avoidance of success.     

Encoding processes and sex-role preferences

Seven- and 10-year-old children were tested on memory and sex-role preference tasks. The memory task was the Wickens release from proactive inhibition paradigm in which short-term recall of words is tested on successive trials. On Trials 1–4, words were selected from one of two categories, either words with masculine or feminine connotations. On Trial 5, words were drawn from the second category. Sex-role preference was assessed by asking the child to select his favorite pictures from an array that included masculine and feminine items. Recall by boys at both ages increased following a shift between words with masculine or feminine connotations, suggesting that this dimension of a word's meaning was encoded in memory. Recall by girls who selected a feminine item as their favorite on the sex-role preference task increased following a category shift; recall by girls who chose a masculine item did not increase. These results are discussed in relation to previous research on the attributes of encoding in children's memory.     

Preferences for sexual dimorphism on attractiveness levels: An eye-tracking study

Previous studies on sexual dimorphism showed feminine preferences in female faces and mixed findings in male faces by choosing which is more attractive in a pair of a masculine face and a feminine face. However, very little is known about how people make fine-grained visual assessments of such images and the attractiveness levels of faces are not received much attention. Recently a large number of androgynous stars appear in the media, which triggers a hot phenomenon of imitating them. Here we examine the influence of androgynous stars on people’s facial preferences for sexual dimorphism in male and female faces on different attractiveness levels using eye-tracking techniques. In male faces we found both male and female participants preferred masculine faces to androgynous faces in high attractiveness, but mixed results in low attractiveness. In female faces we found both male and female participants preferred feminine faces to androgynous faces in high attractiveness, but no preferences in low attractiveness. Results suggest that attractiveness levels of faces might be a factor causing inconsistency in sexual dimorphism preference for male faces and that androgynous faces are not preferred, which reveals that androgynous phenomenon might not be caused by facial attractiveness.     

Sex-role preferences in four age levels

Brown's (1956a; 1956b) influential finding that girls of all ages exhibit masculine rather than feminine sex-role preferences has been challenged by the argument that the scale used in his studies—the It Scale for Children (ITSC)—is masculine biased. The present investigation reexamined this issue with an instrument designed to be free of the limitations inherent in the ITSC. Boys and girls from grades 2, 5, 8, and 11 examined drawings of activities scaled for sex-role stereotypy and selected those activities they would like to engage in. Consistent with Brown's earlier work, boys exhibited strong masculine preferences at all ages. Contrary to Brown, however, girls did not show similar masculine preferences. Instead, their choices reflected strong feminine preferences throughout the spectrum of ages tested.     

The effects of sex and sex-role identity on the attribution of maladjustment

This study examined the effects of a stimulus person's gender and sex-role identity and an observer's gender and sex-role identity on the observer's judgments of the stimulus person's personality and level of adjustment. After having been classified as androgynous or nonandrogynous, 141 males and females viewed videotapes of a case conference on a bogus client. In the videotapes the client's gender and sex-role identity were factorially manipulated. As predicted, male clients and clients with a masculine sex-role identity were seen as possessing less favorable personality characteristics and as being less mentally healthy than were female clients and clients with a feminine history. Sex-role incongruence (e.g., a masculine female) influenced the subjects' judgments only of a female client. A sex-role congruent female was seen as more attractive and better adjusted than a sex-role incongruent female. The subjects' gender and sex-role identity did not influence their judgments of the clients in any consistent or interpretable fashion. Finally, it was found that the subjects were most influenced by sex-role congruence/incongruence of opposite sex stimulus persons. The discussion of these results centered on: (a) the relative influence of gender and sex-role identity on people's perceptions of a stimulus person and (b) the need for further exploration of how subject characteristics might influence these perceptions.This study is based on a Masters thesis submitted to the University of South Florida in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree. Portions of the study were presented at the 1978 meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association. All correspondence should be sent to the second author c/o Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620.     

The Factor Structure of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

Seventy-seven female and 86 male psychologist practitioners filled out the Bem Sex Rote Inventory to describe either a healthy adult male, healthy adult female, or healthy adult, sex unspecified. Analyzing the data according to Bem's classification of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny produced a significant Scale X Condition interaction with male and female practitioners ascribing significantly more masculine than feminine traits to healthy adult men, yet displaying no comparable differences when rating healthy adult women. Analyzing the data according to Spence's classification of masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated produced a Group X Condition interaction with practitioners ascribing significantly more masculine traits to healthy adult men and significantly more feminine traits to healthy adult women. Reanalyses omitting "masculine" and "feminine" from Bem's fist of sex-typed traits produced nonsignificant results. The relationship of this to recent criticisms of the construct validity of the BSRI and to the validity of earlier results of therapist sex-role bias was discussed.     

Masculinity,status, and subordination: Why working for a gender stereotype violator causes men to lose status

Occupying gender stereotype-incongruent roles can lead individuals to lose status and earn a lower salary. The present research examined whether merely working for a supervisor in a gender-atypical occupational role leads a subordinate to lose status. Two studies found that male subordinates of gender deviants (i.e., a female supervisor in a masculine domain or a male supervisor in a feminine domain) were accorded lower status and were paid less than male subordinates of supervisors in gender-congruent roles (i.e., a female supervisor in a feminine domain or a male supervisor in a masculine domain). However, the status of female subordinates was unaffected by working for a gender atypical supervisor. Moreover, the status loss for male subordinates was mediated by a perceived lack of masculinity. Thus, establishing the male subordinate's masculine credentials eliminated the bias.     

Processing grammatical gender of role nouns: Further evidence from eye movements

Two eye-tracking experiments investigated the effects of masculine versus feminine grammatical gender on the processing of role nouns and on establishing coreference relations. Participants read sentences with the basic structure My <kinship term> is a <role noun> <prepositional phrase > such as My brother is a singer in a band. Role nouns were either masculine or feminine. Kinship terms were lexically male or female and in this way specified referent gender, i.e., the sex of the person referred to. Experiment 1 tested a fully crossed design including items with an incorrect combination of lexically male kinship term and feminine role name. Experiment 2 tested only correct combinations of grammatical and lexical/referential gender to control for possible effects of the incorrect items of Experiment 1. In early stages of processing, feminine role nouns, but not masculine ones, were fixated longer when grammatical and referential gender were contradictory (Bruder _male–Sängerin _fem/brother–[female] singer). In later stages of sentence wrap-up there were longer fixations for sentences with masculine than for those with feminine role nouns. Results of both experiments indicate that, for feminine role nouns, cues to referent gender are integrated immediately, whereas a late integration obtains for masculine forms.     

The Impact of Social Roles on Stereotypes of Gay Men

Past research demonstrates that heterosexuals perceive gay men to have traditionally feminine characteristics. Guided by Social Role Theory (Eagly, 1987), we predicted that this stereotype would differ depending on a gay man’s specific social role. To test this idea, participants rated five gay targets (father, single man, hairdresser, truck driver, typical gay man) on stereotypically masculine (e.g., ambitious, leader) and feminine (e.g., affectionate, sensitive) personality attributes. Gay men in traditionally masculine roles (truck driver, single man) were rated as less feminine than gay men in traditionally feminine roles (hairdresser, parent). In addition, gay men in feminine roles were perceived as more similar to the typical gay man than were those in masculine roles. Suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Sex-Typed instructions and sex-role preference in young children's task performance

Two measures of sex-role preference were administered to 32 male and 32 female preschool children. Each group of children was divided according to sex-role preference scores, assigned to a male experimenter or a female experimenter, and performed two sorting tasks after being instructed that one task was masculine and the other feminine. One analysis was based on the sex preference of subjects as measured by the IT Scale for Children and the other was based on subject assignment from Toy Preference Test scores. The hypothesis that sex-role preference would predict performance on sex-labeled tasks was partially confirmed. All subjects performed better on the female task than on the male task and more accurately on all tasks with a male experimenter than with a female experimenter.This report is based on a master's thesis submitted to the University of Guelph by the first author. Acknowledgments are due to MacDonald, Aladdin, Jack and Jill, Wee Y'rs, Cambridge, and Christopher House preschools in Guelph and Cambridge, Ontario, for their cooperation.     

Sex-role orientation of college students and their same-sex parents

The study examined similarities and differences between sex-role orientations of college students and their same-sex parents. College undergraduates filled out the Bem Sex-role Inventory twice: once to describe themselves and the second time to describe their same-sex parents. The inventory was also used to obtain parental self-reports. Compared to their perceptions of their same-sex parents, male students described themselves as more feminine and female students described themselves as more masculine. Also, male students described their fathers as less feminine and female students described their mothers as both less masculine and less feminine than the parents described themselves. Students' femininity scores correlated significantly with the parental femininity scores both actual and perceived, however, no consistent relationship was found for the masculinity scores. Androgynous students and students with the reversed sex-role orientation perceived their parents as androgynous and reversed, respectively.     

Men's strategic preferences for femininity in female faces

Several evolutionarily relevant sources of individual differences in face preference have been documented for women. Here, we examine three such sources of individual variation in men's preference for female facial femininity: term of relationship, partnership status and self‐perceived attractiveness. We show that men prefer more feminine female faces when rating for a short‐term relationship and when they have a partner (Study 1). These variables were found to interact in a follow‐up study (Study 2). Men who thought themselves attractive also preferred more feminized female faces for short‐term relationships than men who thought themselves less attractive (Study 1 and Study 2). In women, similar findings for masculine preferences in male faces have been interpreted as adaptive. In men, such preferences potentially reflect that attractive males are able to compete for high‐quality female partners in short‐term contexts. When a man has secured a mate, the potential cost of being discovered may increase his choosiness regarding short‐term partners relative to unpartnered men, who can better increase their short‐term mating success by relaxing their standards. Such potentially strategic preferences imply that men also face trade‐offs when choosing relatively masculine or feminine faced partners. In line with a trade‐off, women with feminine faces were seen as more likely to be unfaithful and more likely to pursue short‐term relationships (Study 3), suggesting that risk of cuckoldry is one factor that may limit men's preferences for femininity in women and could additionally lead to preferences for femininity in short‐term mates.