The relationship of same- and cross-gender work pairs to staff performance and supervisor leadership in residence hall units

This seven campus study found that whether men and women resident assistants report to a hall director of their same or different gender makes no difference in their view of supervisory leadership, satisfaction with the leader, overall job satisfaction, or motivation to extra effort.This research was supported in part by a grant from the Center for Educational Research and Development in the College of Education and the Computer Science Center at the University of Maryland College Park.     

Loving and leaving: Sex differences in romantic attachments

We propose a two-part generalization about sex differences in entering into and giving up romantic attachments: (1) Men tend to fall in love more readily than women; (2) women tend to fall out of love more readily than men. Evidence in support of these generalizations is derived from a longitudinal study of 231 college student dating couples. The data suggest that women are more cautious than men about entering into romantic relationships, more likely to compare these relationships to alternatives, more likely to end a relationship that seems ill fated, and better able to cope with rejection. We consider several possible explanations of these sex differences from the standpoints of psychoanalytic theory, the social and economic context of mate selection, and the socialization of men and women in the management of their own emotions. To evaluate these (and any other) explanations, further research might profitably investigate whether and to what degree these sex differences are found in other segments of the population.This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant GS-27422 to Zick Rubin. The authors are grateful to Claire Engers, Sherry Ward, and Susan Willard for their contribution to this research and to Jessie Bernard, Nancy Chodorow, George W. Goethals, Paul Rosenblatt, Ann Swidler, and Shelley Taylor for their helpful comments.     

Changing Jobs and Changing Chores? The Longitudinal Association of Women’s and Men’s Occupational Gender-Atypicality and Couples’ Housework Performance

Prior research linking occupational sex composition (the proportion of women in an occupation) to housework has yielded conflicting results and relies exclusively on cross-sectional data. The present article extends scholarship on the gendered division of household labor by using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 1981–2013 to assess how changes in occupational sex composition alter heterosexual married couples’ housework performance over time. I find that either spouse’s gender-atypical employment (e.g., husband’s employment in a predominately female job) is associated with gender-atypical housework performance by both spouses (e.g., higher housework hours for the husband and fewer hours for the wife). The association of women’s occupational sex composition with housework is driven by changes in individual women’s occupations and both spouses’ housework over time. In contrast, the association of men’s occupational sex composition with housework is driven by differences between different couples, not by within-couple change over time. Thus, fundamentally different causal mechanisms link women’s and men’s occupational sex composition to couples’ housework performance, and only for women are longitudinal changes in occupational sex composition associated with changes in housework. These findings have important implications for understanding occupation and housework as domains of gender performance.     

GENDER'S ROLE IN RESPONSES TO INFERTILITY

Infertility is a major life stressor that affects approximately 10% of U.S. married couples. Infertile women and men have reported experiencing depression, helplessness, and marital strain. Given U.S. society's emphasis on women's role as mothers, it has been suggested that women's lives are more disrupted by infertility than those of men. This hypothesis was supported in a survey of 185 infertile couples and 90 presumed fertile couples. Infertile wives, as compared to their husbands, perceived their fertility problem as more stressful, felt more responsible for and in control of their infertility, and engaged in more problem-focused coping. Infertile husbands experienced more home life stress and lower home life performance than did their wives. These differences were not found for presumed fertile couples. Both infertile and presumed fertile wives experienced more depression, more sexual dissatisfaction, and lower self-esteem than did their husbands. Theoretical and counseling implications of these findings are discussed.     

Family-of-Origin Experiences and Conflict Resolution Behaviors of Young Adult Dating Couples

This study was conducted to explore the relationship among retrospective reports of family-of-origin functioning, reported perceptions of a laboratory-based conflict resolution discussion, and outsiders' ratings of communication behaviors between young adult dating couples, with a special focus on predicted gender differences. Sixty-three couples aged 18 to 24 participated in this study. A Revealed Differences task was used to elicit discussion about an issue identified as discordant for the couple on a Relationship Issue Questionnaire. Family-of-origin variables were related to both men's and women's perceptions of the conflict, as well as outsiders' ratings of their conflict resolution behaviors. However, the conflict resolution behaviors and perceptions of men and women were associated with distinctly different aspects of functioning in their families of origin. Further, women's families-of-origin factors were more prominent for the couples' communication behaviors because they indicated a greater number of significant correlations between the women's families of origin and: 1) perceptions of the conflict resolution discussion by both the men and women, and 2) the observed conflict resolution behaviors of both men and women. These findings are discussed in the context of both the relevant research and important social-political influences.     

Romantic Relationships and Health: An Examination of Individuals’ Perceptions of their Romantic Partners’ Influences on their Health

This study examines individuals’ perceptions of the impact their significant others have on their health and the extent to which these perceptions are associated with relationship quality and actual health. Two-hundred and ten participants (105 U.S. couples; mean age = 24.93) completed measures of their relationship quality and health along with an open-ended measure asking them to indicate how they felt their partner influenced their health. Results indicated that participants perceived their romantic partners to be primarily positive health influences, women believed their partners were more influential than did men, and eating and physical activity behaviors were believed to be most affected by partners. Participants’ relationship quality and health were associated with their reports of their perceived partners’ health influences. The research described in this report was supported by an award to Charlotte Markey from Rutgers University.     

Interaction with a baby by young adults: A comparison of traditional and feminist men and women

Recently, researchers have examined college students' interactions with unfamiliar babies. Most of the studies have reported that men and women show equal level of interest in these babies. However, one researcher reported a sex difference, with women interacting with a baby more than men did. Perhaps the subjects in the discrepant study were a more conservative or traditional group. In order to examine this possibility, this study compared traditional and feminist young adults. The Attitudes Toward Women Scale was used to preselect feminist and traditional men and women who were videotaped during a period of interaction with a baby. It was predicted that a sex difference would be found among the more traditional subjects only. However, women interacted with the baby more than men did in both groups.This project was supported by a grant to the author from the University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire research grant program. The author would like to thank Rhonda Kienitz, who collected and coded the data; Kay Draeger, who served as reliability coder; and Tom Blakemore, Allen Keniston, and Blaine Peden for their helpful comments.     

The transition from expectancy to parenthood: Impact of the firstborn child on men and women

In this short-term longitudinal study, 31 middle-class primigravidae and their husbands were seen once during the last trimester of pregnancy and again when their infants were 6 months old. At both times, a common core of self-assessment instruments was administered: mood scales, social change ratings, anticipation/experience of parenthood, and a modified Bem satisfaction scale. Some additional items were given at parenthood. For both men and women, expectancy was marked by optimism and contentment, despite some emotional and physical strain. Similarly, as parents of an infant, subjects rated the experience as highly positive. However, the transition to parenthood involved major role upheaval with both more positive and more negative changes reported by women than men. Despite these changes, women displayed considerable stability in mood and self-satisfaction over time and situation. In contrast, measures of the anticipation and self-reported experience of parenthood revealed no consistency for women; the types of mothers they turned out to be were unrelated to their expectations. Men successfully predicted their parenting behavior on more than half of the dimensions measured. The results were discussed in terms of the stresses inherent in role changes encountered during transitions from one stage of life to the next.This research was supported by funds from the Boystown Center for the Study of Youth Development at Stanford University. Special thanks to Barbara Aschenbrenner for her assistance in all phases of the research.     

Sex-role differences in time use

Analysis of how men and women spend their time reveals much about patterns of underlying sex-role relationships. This article examines national sample data on time use by men and women in order to determine systematic sex differences in the division of work and leisure in society. Particular attention is directed to how time-use patterns shift as both paid work and marital and family burdens are added to the woman's role. To determine time use, subjects kept diaries of their activities for a particular day. In addition, attitude questions about time use were also analyzed. Paid employment was found to constrain the free time of women far more than any other single role factor, including marriage and parenthood. Consequently, employed married women have significantly less free time than do employed men or women not in the labor force. While the free time of a married woman with children decreases when she becomes employed, a husband's free time may actually increase with his wife's employment. Nevertheless, few women indicated that they would like more help with housework and child care from their husbands. Several explanations for women's resistance to more male help are examined. Implications of these results for the career development of employed women and for future changes in marital role relationships are discussed.     

The distribution of influence in purchase decisions by male homosexual couples

The purchase decisions of families are of great interest to marketing researchers, yet families also have become increasingly multi‐faceted, especially in Western societies, where non‐traditional families are far more prevalent and evident in public and business life than they once were. Even as it attempts to adapt to some changes, marketing has not kept up with every development; homosexual couples in particular remain poorly researched. This article therefore examines which factors affect the distribution of influence between partners in male homosexual, long‐term relationships when they make purchase decisions. In line with some extant predictions, male homosexual families tend to use highly egalitarian processes to make purchase decisions. Sex‐role orientation generally does not significantly affect the distribution of influence. In contrast with prior work, this study also shows that a partner's resources affect his relative influence. The investigation demonstrates that some conflict resolution styles employed by partners have significant effects on influence distribution in the context of purchase decisions by male homosexual couples. By providing insights into the purchase decision‐making of male homosexual couples, this research broadens the understanding of homosexual consumers in general. Moreover, the findings about the effect of conflict resolution styles on the influence distribution in male homosexual couples adds significantly to consumer research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fear of success in dating couples

A study of 91 college-age dating couples explored the relationship between women's fear of success and characteristics of their boyfriends. No relationship was found between women's fear of success and any of seven measures of men's sex-role attitudes. Boyfriends of women with high fear of success were more advanced in school and scored higher on SAT math than other men, but did not differ in college grades or SAT verbal scores. There was a tendency for women high in fear of success to anticipate problems in their relationship due to differences in intelligence or to their own desire for independence. It is suggested that boyfriends do not affect the strength of women's underlying motive to avoid success but can arouse the motive in specific situations. There was also a lack of relationship between women's fear of success and measures of their own sex-role attitudes and achievement.This research was supported by a doctoral dissertation grant from the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University, to the author; and by a National Science Foundation grant to Zick Rubin, Harvard University. Special thanks are due Zick Rubin, Matina Horner, Joseph Pleck, and Charles T. Hill for their important help in this research.     

SILENCING THE SELF

Silencing the self theory (Jack, 1991) holds that women's depression is closely related to experiences in close relationships, especially if women conform with societal norms for feminine relationship roles. In conforming, Jack believes that women develop relationship schema that heighten vulnerability to loss of self-esteem and depressive symptomatology. An exploratory study addressed relationships among self-report measures of silencing the self, dyadic adjustment, demographic variables, and depressive symptomatology in a community sample of 155 cohabiting women and men, including 37 heterosexual couples from which both partners provided data. Although relationship adjustment was no more closely associated with depressive symptomatology for women than for men, silencing the self was. Demographic variables (number of children, employment status, and income) accounted for a significant proportion of variance in depressive symptomatology for men but not for women. Women's self-reported silencing was related to both their own and their partner's relationship adjustment.     

Women's motives to achieve and to nurture in different life stages

This research investigated the influence of different life stages on motives to achieve and to nurture in 60 women ages 31 to 37 years. The influence of motivational patterns and sex-role orientations on employment was also investigated. Findings tended to support the expectation that children and their welfare were a more central concern to women with a child under 4 years than to those whose youngest child was between 6 and 9 years. The women's achievement concerns followed an inverse pattern. Mothers with high achievement motivation were more likely to have a job than were mothers with low achievement motivation. Among employed mothers, there was a significant positive correlation between sex-role orientation and the number of hours worked each week.This research was partially supported by a grant from the City University of New York Doctoral Program in Psychology.     

How Race Matters and Does Not Matter for White Women in Relationships with Black Men

SUMMARY

Drawing on a qualitative research study, this article provides a beginning exploration for how race both matters and does not matter in white women's relationships with black men. As a means of protecting themselves and their families from pathologizing stereotypes about interracial couples, women make claims that race does not matter. At the same time, they describe ways that stereotypes impact their self identities and their couple interactions. Different situations and relationships create shifts in racial interpretations, and contact with extended family members can change racial meanings. The article offers suggestions for how to create a therapeutic space for discussing race without over-determining its significance.     

Gender differences in the interrelationships between weight dissatisfaction,restraint, and self-esteem

This study investigated the interrelationships between weight, weight dissatisfaction, restraint, and self-esteem in a group of young adult women and men. The subjects were students at the Flinders University of South Australia, whose student body consists of primarily local students from English-speaking backgrounds. A tentative causal model proposed actual overweight to lead to body dissatisfaction, which causes the person to diet, with the resulting failures leading to loss of self-esteem. This model was confirmed by path analysis for women, but not for men. In line with self-concept theory, subjective overweight was more strongly related to self-esteem for women than for men, with restraint mediating this relationship.This research was supported by an Australian Research Council Grant.     

Work and family precursors of burnout in teachers: Sex differences

This paper examines factors contributing to burnout in women and men teachers. Results indicated that men were significantly higher than women on one of the Maslach burnout subscales—depersonalization. Additional results showed that women experienced significantly more depression, headaches, and role conflict than their male counterparts. Multiple regression results indicated that 47% of the variation in burnout was accounted for by a model of burnout that included role conflict, marital satisfaction, work sources of stress, and social support in women. But in men, the main contributor to burnout was sources of stress including doubts about competence and problems with students. The results are discussed from a gender role perspective that takes account of the differential implications of gender roles for women and men.This research was supported by grants from York University including the Faculties of Arts and Administrative Studies. We would like to thank Jacob Wolpin for assitance in the data analyses.     

Sex differences in the clinical expression of depression

Recent epidemiological studies have established that the lifetime prevalence rate of depression is greater in women than in men. It was the purpose of the present study to investigate the possibility that the true prevalence of male depression is underestimated because males have learned through social rejection that it is inappropriate for them to openly express depressive feelings. Consistent with this notion that men only express depressive symptoms consonant with their traditional male sex role, a discriminant function analysis performed on the self-reported symptomatology of depressed patients revealed that men were more likely to report sex role appropriate symptoms such as work-related problems and somatic concerns. Since other self-presentational concerns may contribute to the sex difference in depression, it is suggested that future research directly examine the ways in which men experience and express symptoms of depression.An earlier draft of this article was presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Baltimore, Maryland, April 1984. This research was supported in part by a grant from the Medical Research Council of Canada, awarded to the first author, and Grant No. 6606-1768-46 from the Health Services and Promotions Branch of Health and Welfare Canada, awarded to the second author. The authors would like to thank Dr. Paul Grof, Kaely Hutchinson, and the staff and patients of Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital for their help and cooperation with the project.     

Labor market experiences and expectancies

Comparisons are made of the labor market experiences of a national sample of employed Black and White men and women. While women had invested in their human capital nearly as often as men, they less often had tried job training or job changes, and more often had acquired additional schooling, to improve their market positions. Compared to White men, both groups of women also expressed lower work-related expectancies. Part of the White male expectancy edge can be attributed to differences in past investment strategies. Black and white women who had tried to make work changes did not differ from White men in present expectancies. While the causal relationship between experiences and expectancies needs further examination, especially in longitudinal studies, these results suggest that adult socialization in the labor market, while generally neglected, is a potentially important area of research on women's employment.     

Three-year follow-up of same-sex couples who had civil unions in Vermont, same-sex couples not in civil unions, and heterosexual married couples

This study was a 3-year follow-up of 65 male and 138 female same-sex couples who had civil unions in Vermont during the 1st year of that legislation. These couples were compared with 23 male and 61 female same-sex couples in their friendship circles who did not have civil unions and with 55 heterosexual married couples (1 member of each was a sibling to a member of a civil union couple). Despite the legalized nature of their relationships, civil union couples did not differ on any measure from same-sex couples who were not in civil unions. However, same-sex couples not in civil unions were more likely to have ended their relationships than same-sex civil union or heterosexual married couples. Compared with heterosexual married participants, both types of same-sex couples reported greater relationship quality, compatibility, and intimacy and lower levels of conflict. Longitudinal predictors of relationship quality at Time 2 included less conflict, greater level of outness, and a shorter relationship length for men in same-sex relationships and included less conflict and more frequent sex for women in same-sex relationships at Time 1.     

Determinants of role-sharing behavior: A study of egalitarian couples

This article reports on an intensive study of couples engaged in a deliberate attempt to institute complete sex-role equality within their marriages (not to be confused with the dual-career pattern, where couples merely share an interest in employment). Because role-sharing couples are so uncommon, a strategic nonrandom sampling technique appropriate for generating insights about emerging lifestyles was employed to locate couples for study. Several factors related to the adoption of a shared role marital arrangement are described. These are grouped into two categories: (1) background and personality characteristics of role-sharing individuals and (2) contemporary factors in the couples' social environment which facilitate role-sharing. The article ends with a discussion of the possible reasons for the increased incidence of role-sharing.The author wishes to thank Sally Weiler and Rose Gartner for help with interviewing, and Ain Haas, Russell Middleton, John Barlow, and Bert Adams for comments on an earlier version of this paper. This research was partially supported by a training fellowship and a small research grant from the National Institute for Mental Health Social Organization Training Program, University of Wisconsin, 1975–1976.