Perspectives on self and other: Male-female differences in perceptions of communication behavior

Two studies were conducted to examine male-female differences in perceptions of subjects' own and their best-liked others' communication behavior. The results of the first study indicated that males and females hold relatively stereotypical views of their own communication behavior. Males perceived themselves as more controlling and detached, while females saw themselves as more nurturant and more dependent. The results from the second study indicated that the discriminating dimensions for the same-sex friendships of both males and females were attention-seeking and self-dramatizing communication behaviors. In an opposite-sex relationship, however, the discriminating communication behaviors for males and females were nurturance and dependency. The implications of these findings are discussed.Both authors would like to thank Edmund Kaminski, currently a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University, for his valuable assistance on this project.     

Ambiguity between self and other: Individual differences in action attribution

Individuals differ in their ability to attribute actions to self or other. This variance is thought to explain, in part, the experience of voice-hearing. Misattribution can also be context-driven. For example, causal ambiguity can arise when the actions of two or more individuals are coordinated and produce similar effects (e.g., music-making). Experience in such challenging contexts may refine skills of action attribution. Forty participants completed a novel finger-tapping task which parametrically manipulated the proportion of control that ‘self’ versus ‘other’ possessed over resulting auditory tones. Results showed that action misattribution peaked in the middle of the self-to-other continuum and was biased towards other. This pattern was related to both high hallucination-proneness and to low musical-experience. Findings suggest not only that causal ambiguity plays a key role in agency but also that action attribution abilities may improve with practice, potentially providing an avenue for remediation of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia.     

Student athletes' perceptions of self

Several factors have been found to contribute to the development of the self in adolescents, including religion, race, competence, leadership, physical appearance, and gender. The purpose of this study was to describe the development of self-perception in adolescent athletes and make comparisons with respect to gender and class level. One hundred seventy-five high school athletes were administered Harter's (1988) Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents. The data were analyzed for both the overall sample and demographic subgroups. Males had a significantly higher mean score on athletic competence than did females. Males also viewed both athletic competence and social acceptance as significantly more important than did females. These findings are discussed in the context of relevant literature on adolescents' perceptions of self.     

Sex and culture differences in perceptions of estimated multiple intelligence for self and family: A Macanese1Portuguese comparison

Differences in sex and culture between Macanese and Portuguese university students in self and parental estimations of IQ were examined using Gardner's ( 1999 ) list of 10 multiple intelligences. A total of 197 Macanese (90 male and 107 female) and 331 Portuguese (139 male and 192 female) students participated in the investigation. The following hypotheses were tested: it was anticipated that there would be sex differences in self‐rated mathematical and spatial intelligence, with men giving higher self‐estimates than women; it was predicted that there would be cultural differences between Macanese and Portuguese, with the former awarding themselves and their parents significantly lower scores than the latter; participants would rate their fathers as more intelligent overall than their mothers; the best predictors of overall (g) IQ would be logical/mathematical, spatial, and verbal intelligence. In contrast to previous results (Furnham, 2001 ), when examined separately, gender differences in both self‐estimates and parents estimates did not occur in the Macanese sample. There were, however, consistent and clear culture differences. Portuguese gave higher self and family ratings than Macanese, as expected. Portuguese rated their verbal, body kinetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic intelligence higher than did Macanese. Portuguese rated verbal, mathematical, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, existential, and naturalistic father's intelligence higher than did Macanese. Portuguese rated verbal, mathematical, spatial, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, existential, spiritual, and naturalistic mother's intelligence higher than did Macanese. Participants of both cultures rated overall intelligence of their father higher than that of their mother. This was also to be expected as previous studies have shown this to be the case in terms of gender stereotyping. In both cultures verbal and interpersonal intelligences predict overall intelligence. However, in Macao, body‐kinetic and intrapersonal intelligences, and in Portugal logical and naturalistic intelligences, also predict overall intelligence. Implications of these results for education and self‐presentations are considered.     

Some differences between phonetic and auditory modes of perception

When third-formant transitions are appropriately incorporated into an acoustic syllable, they provide critical support for the phonetic percepts we call [d] and [g], but when presented in isolation they are perceived as time-varying ‘chirps’. In the present experiment, both modes of perception were made available simultaneously by presenting the third-format transitions to one ear and the remainder of the acoustic syllable to the other. On the speech side of this duplex percept, where the transitions supported the perception of stop-vowel syllables, perception was categorical and influenced by the presence of a preposed [al] or [ar]. On the nonspeech side, where the same transitions were heard as ‘chirps’, perception was continuous and free of influence from the preposed syllables. As both differences occurred under conditions in which the acoustic input was constant, we should suppose that they reflect the different properties of auditory and phonetic modes of perception.     

Gender differences in perceptions of leadership

A study was conducted to examine gender differences in perceptions of leadership. Subjects (N=320) were assigned to same-sex groups of four to six members. The groups participated in a leaderless group discussion and then assessed characteristics of their own and their peers' leadership. The subjects also completed a self-esteem inventory. Correlational analyses revealed that when evaluating their peers, both men and women associated being a leader and having leadership skills with an authoritarian leadership style. In self-perceptions, however, women associated having positive leadership skills with an authoritarian style, but men associated their own leadership skills with a democratic style. The self-esteem of both genders was differentially related to their perceptions of leadership style. These results suggest that men and women hold a leadership stereotype which equates the leadership skills of their peers with an authoritarian style of leadership. However, women but not men base their assessments of their own leadership skills on this leadership stereotype.     

Individual differences in cognition: Some relationships between personality and memory

Individual differences in cognition were studied in the form of the hypothesis that arousal, as indexed by personality measures of extraversion and neuroticism, affects the way in which verbal material is organized in memory. Subjects pretested on measures of these personality variables participated in either a paired-associates learning or a free-recall experiment. On the paired-associates task, subjects who were thought to be high on arousal made fewer errors when response terms were semantically similar than low arousal subjects. On the other hand, subjects thought low on arousal made fewer errors when response words were phonetically similar than high arousal subjects. On the free-recall task, low arousal subjects were found to cluster words together on the basis of semantic category at a higher rate than high arousal subjects. These results were taken to support the view that high arousal (as indexed by personality measures) leads to a focus on the physical aspects of verbal material, whereas low arousal leads to a memory organized around semantic aspects. The implications of these findings for other views of memory are discussed.     

Sex differences in uses and perceptions of profanity

This study examined sex differences in perceptions and uses of profanity. Profanity is considered in terms of the strength it may impart to language and as a tool of group cohesion and nonmember alienation. Implications of these characteristics are explored in terms of observed sex differences on profanity measures. Females reported less profanity usage than males reported, and females further provided more conservative assessments of the appropriateness of profanity usage in various settings. Males more than females reported that profanity provides a demonstration of social power and serves to make the user socially acceptable.     

MCMI differences between alcoholics and cocaine abusers: effect of age, sex, and race.

Samples of alcohol-dependent-only subjects (n = 164), cocaine-dependent-only subjects (n = 63), and subjects dependent on multiple substances, including alcohol and cocaine (n = 103), were administered the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) as part of a routine clinical evaluation. The alcohol-only group was older (M = 38.7 years) and had a higher percentage of White subjects than other groups. The multiple-use (60%) group also had a higher percentage of White subjects than the cocaine only group (38%) and a higher percentage of male subjects (81%) than the alcohol-only group (67%). Although the MCMI characteristics of each diagnostic group paralleled previous findings, few MCMI differences were found after controlling for age, sex, and race effects. The implications of these results for treatment development are discussed.     

Sex differences in perceptions of familial and occupational roles

Women's lower achievement level in the professions is explained by the Multiple Role Negotiation perspective as resulting from the difficulty in balancing the “active” or demanding roles of wife/mother and a high level professional role. The Value Difference perspective, on the other hand, explains this differential achievement as resulting from differences in degree to which women value professional roles and their familial role, with perceptions of “demand” serving only as “excuses” to mask values. To explore the assumptions of each position three research questions are posed and 33 first-year students in a professional program are surveyed. The findings reveal that neither males nor females perceive the female familial role as the “more active” one; females, however do anticipate less career advancement, value the higher level role less, and also perceive it as a more demanding role than the lower level role.     

Depressed and nondepressed students: differences in interpersonal perceptions

The purpose of this research was to study the patterns of interpersonal behavior of depressed students. Depressed participants rated themselves lower than non-depressed controls on assertiveness and initiation of interactions and significantly higher than controls on concern about what others think, introversion, and submissiveness. Depressed participants also scored significantly higher than controls on measures of dependency, self-criticism, and the need to please others. Ratings of depressed participants by their roommates were not correlated with depressed participants' self-reports. In contrast, most subscale self-ratings and roommate ratings for the nondepressed participants and their roommates were significantly correlated.