Employee Gender, Gender Similarity, and Supervisor-Subordinate Cross-Evaluations

This article examines the relationship between employee gender and gender similarity on the one hand and supervisor-subordinate cross-evaluations and subordinate rewards on the other, using a sample of 651 employees from five midwestern organizations. Data were obtained through structured interviews, supervisor ratings of subordinates, and employee personnel records. Two-way analysis of variance results indicated that (a) evaluations of women are more positive than evaluations of men and (b) opposite-sex evaluations tend to be higher than same-sex evaluations, but (c) men subordinates receive more promotions, and same-sex subordinates more pay increases, than do women subordinates and opposite-sex subordinates respectively.     

The Development of Gender Identity,Gender Roles,and Gender Relations in Gifted Students

This article describes the interaction of giftedness with gender identity, gender role, and gender relations. The authors explored ways in which many gifted educational practices are gendered, a model for the development of talent in the context of gender and gender relations, and ways of reducing gender inequities in the realization of potential for both male and female students. Issues that are unique to gifted individuals are aligned with suggestions for counseling interventions.     

Gender,Gender Roles,and Personality: Gender Differences in the Prediction of Coping and Psychological Symptoms

Path models of the effects of gender, gender roles, and personality variables (achievement and affiliation orientation, locus of control, empathy) on coping and symptoms were tested to explore the risk and protective effects of gender roles and personality on psychological symptoms, and to test whether or not gender roles or personality accounted for gender differences in coping and symptoms. In a sample of university undergraduates (35% Asian American, 59% European American or Caucasian, 6% other ethnic/racial background), masculinity predicted lower depression but higher antisocial and substance use problems, whereas femininity predicted lower antisocial and substance use problems. Personality variables did not account for the effects of gender or gender roles on coping or symptoms, but rather gender roles and personality each predicted unique variance in those variables. Significant gender differences in the relations among gender roles and personality emerged; however, there were no gender differences in the relations between coping and symptoms. Findings highlight the importance of studying gender differences in the effects of gender roles and personality on coping and symptoms, because it appears that gender roles and personality operate differently for males and females.     

A Gender Role Workshop Focused on Sexism,Gender Role Conflict,and the Gender Role Journey

A 6-day gender role workshop for adult men and women, using the phases of the gender role journey, is presented. The workshop's curriculum and process are described, including its assumptions, norms, and media. Movie clips, music, music videos, and academic content were used to promote participants' learning in both the cognitive and affective domains. Systematic follow-up evaluations of participants ( N =84) in three separate workshops are reported using Likert scaled questions. These evaluations assessed participants' personal learning, emotional reactions, and the workshop's overall impact over l-month and 1-and 2-year follow-up periods. Results indicate that participants were affected personally and professionally over the various time periods.     

Gender and Leadership Aspiration: Supervisor Gender,Support, and Job Control

Understanding the role of leadership aspiration in the under-representation of female leaders is important, because aspiration is a key predictor of hierarchical advancement. A neglected perspective in the relationship between gender and leadership aspiration is the gender of the individual's supervisor. Supervisors can play an important role in providing support and in engendering a sense of control, and both support and control are precursors to leadership aspiration. Yet, supervisors may also act on gender biases that discourage women's leadership aspiration. We argue that there is an interaction between supervisor and subordinate gender such that men experience relatively high levels of support and control regardless of supervisor gender, whereas women experience more support and control and as a result display higher leadership aspiration with a female supervisor. A survey of N = 402 men and women supported these hypotheses regarding the subordinate gender by supervisor gender interactive influence on leadership aspiration, support, control, and the mediated moderation model.     

Gender, object, and humor

Male and female respondents rated jokes with either a female initiator/male target of joke or vice versa. For male respondents, the gender of the joke target made no difference. For female respondents, however, jokes with males as the target received significantly higher ratings than jokes with females as the target.     

Gender,prejudice, and categorization

In a replication of a study by Taylor and Falcone (Cognitive Bases of Stereotyping: The Relationship Between Categorization and Prejudice, Personality and Social Psychology bulletin, 1982, 8, 426–432), subjects (n=161) listened to videotapes of three males and three females in a staged discussion of ways to increase voter turnout. Subjects subsequently attempted to identify which speaker had made each of the suggestions offered during the discussion. In confirmation of Taylor and Falcone, both sexes made significantly more within-sex than cross-sex attribution errors, suggesting the importance of gender in processing information. Subjects also rated the speakers on items reflecting their likability and their competence. Contrary to Taylor and Falcone, no promale prejudice effects were found. Relationships were also determined between the dependent variables and subjects' scores on a measure of sex role attitudes and on the M (instrumentality) and F (expressiveness) scales of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; S. L. Bem, The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1974, 42, 155–162) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; J. T. Spence, R. Helmreich, and J. Stapp, The Personal Attributes Questionnaire: A Measurement of Sex-Role Stereotypes and Masculinity-Femininity, JAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 1974, 4, 143). No Significant BSRI or PAQ effects emerged, thus failing to replicate either the results for within-sex errors reported by Taylor and Falcone or those subsequently reported by Frable and Bem (If You Are Gender Schematic, All Members of the Opposite Sex Look Alike, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985, 49, 459–468).The authors wish to thank Glenn Cunningham, who served as experimenter along with the first author.     

Gender,meaning, and psychology

Subjectivity and Method in Psychology: Gender, Meaning and Science Wendy Hollway London: Sage, 1989     

Gender,Nature, and Fidelity

Contemporary discussions of gender and nature are likely to suffer from two vexations, the conflict of constructivism and naturalism and the conflict of nativism and rationalism. As a solution to the first I propose postmodern realism and as a remedy for the second a notion of careful scholarship. With the solutions laid out, I will illustrate and test them by discussing friendship and fidelity within the scope of gender and nature.     

Gender, object, and humor

Male and female respondents rated jokes with either a female initiator/male target of joke or vice versa. For male respondents, the gender of the joke target made no difference. For female respondents, however, jokes with males as the target received significantly higher ratings than jokes with females as the target.     

Gender, stress, and health

Studying men and women and differences between them has long been a goal for researchers in health psychology. Recent advances in this endeavor, reflected in this special issue on the topic, have led to important information about the relationships between health and behavior. Of particular interest are possible differences in psychophysiological response, stress, and immune function. Clearly, more inclusive research strategies hold great promise for future scientific discoveries.     

Gender,the Perception of Aggression,and the Overestimation of Gender Bias

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the gender of aggressor, target, and observer influences the perception and evaluation of aggression. One hundred seventy-one university students (predominantly White) read 1 of 8 vignettes that described an aggressive act. The aggressor–target gender combinations and the aggressive act were varied. Data did not support the hypothesis that, because of the impact of gender stereotypes, participants would perceive more aggressiveness in men's aggression than in women's aggression. Participants rated women's aggression as more acceptable than men's aggression, and male participants considered the aggression more acceptable, apparently because they saw the act as less aggressive. In addition, participants estimated how most men/women would perceive and evaluate the aggression. Results suggest that people overestimate how biased others are toward members of their own gender.     

Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood

This article discusses contemporary spiritualities, focusing in particular on the recent growth of practices attending to "mind, body, and sprit" and centered on the goal of "holistic well-being." We argue that the growing popularity of such "holistic spirituality" since the 1980s can be greatly illuminated by reference to Charles Taylor's account of the expressive mode of modern selfhood. Taylor's account is limited, however, by its inability to explain why women are disproportionately active within the sphere of holistic spirituality. By paying closer attention to gender, we seek to refine Taylor's approach and to advance our understanding of contemporary spirituality. Drawing on findings from two qualitative studies of holistic spirituality and health carried out in the United Kingdom, this article offers an analysis of what the "subjective turn" may mean for women. We argue that holistic spiritualities align with traditional spheres and representations of femininity, while simultaneously supporting and encouraging a move away from selfless to expressive selfhood. By endorsing and sanctioning "living life for others" and "living life for oneself," holistic spiritualities offer a way of negotiating dilemmas of selfhood that face many women — and some men—in late modern contexts .     

Gender,Age, and Rape-Supportive Rules

Social rules regarding sexual behavior indicate when sex may be desired, expected, or obligatory. Some of these rules legitimize a man's initiation of sex with a woman regardless of the woman's desires or intentions; such situations could potentially lead to rape. Middle school, high school, and university students completed a Rules About Sex Questionnaire on which they indicated the situations in which a man could assume a woman wants to have sex. The results indicated that girls and women endorsed fewer rules than did boys and men. University students endorsed the fewest rules, and middle school students endorsed the most rules. Endorsement of rules was associated with boys' and men's self-reported sexually coercive behavior and with beliefs about who should initiate sex. The findings may be useful in the design of sexual assault prevention programs for adolescents.