What Will I Be? Exploring Gender Differences in Near and Distant Possible Selves

We investigated whether the possible selves of men and women align with the gender-differentiated social roles that are projected to vary across the lifespan. Across two studies (Study 1: N?=?211 and Study 2: N?=?314) of college students in the Midwestern U.S., we found that gender differences in possible selves were larger when projected into the distant future (e.g., 10–15 years) than the near future (1 year). In addition, the relationship between career and family possible selves varied depending on gender and temporal distance, with a tradeoff between career and family observed primarily among women and for distant possible selves (Study 1). Supporting role congruity theory, both genders hoped for role-congruent selves but feared role-incongruent selves (Study 2).     

Alone and happy: Personality moderates the effect of happy mood on social approach

Happy moods are believed to evoke an approach orientation and to broaden one’s potential courses of action. Although positivity is strongly associated with approach, social approach is a more complex behavior because interacting with other individuals can offer either positive or negative consequences. We provide novel experimental evidence that happiness actually reduces social approach among individuals whose happiness might be threatened by social interaction. Specifically, experimentally induced mood interacted with participants’ personality, such that participants who were high in social inhibition (e.g., shyness, rejection sensitivity) sat further away from another individual when in a happy mood. We suggest that happiness may produce a general orientation to approach other individuals except when such approach threatens mood.     

Dynamic Stereotypes of Power: Perceived Change and Stability in Gender Hierarchies

Despite widespread change in gender roles, women continue to have less power than men. From the perspective of social role theory, this gender difference in power should be perceived as eroding as women gain access to male-dominated roles typically associated with power. Study 1's open-ended reports nearly unanimously projected an increase in women's power over the next 50 years, whereas responses were equally split between projecting stability or a decrease in men's power. Study 2's quantitative findings illustrated that participants perceived women as gaining in political, economic, occupational, individual, and relational power from the past into the future. In contrast, men were perceived as decreasing in relational power but maintaining levels of other forms of power over time. Despite the projections of increases in women's power, women were not projected to reach parity with men by 2050. We examine the implications of these beliefs for future social change.     

Negotiating the Double Bind: Interpersonal and Instrumental Evaluations of Dominance

The double bind of dominance—that it can help to attain status but might jeopardize social relationships—was investigated by examining evaluations based on interpersonal skill (e.g., getting along well with others) and instrumental skill (e.g., accomplishing a task). Role congruity theory (Eagly and Diekman 2005; Eagly and Karau 2002) posits that behavior will be evaluated more positively when it is congruent with valued social roles. Two experiments were conducted to explore the importance of context in evaluations of dominance. In both experiments, dominance was more devalued in contexts related to interpersonal skill than in those related to instrumental skill. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the penalty for dominant behavior decreased when the target also displayed warmth, thereby affirming diffuse prosocial roles. Experiment 2 demonstrated that dominant behavior incurred greater penalties in communal versus agentic occupations. The results support a contextual, role-based explanation of evaluative processes.     

Gender gaps in sociopolitical attitudes: a social psychological analysis

This research examined the proposition that differential role occupancy by women and men fosters gender gaps in sociopolitical attitudes. Analyses of the General Social Survey (J. A. Davis & T. W. Smith, 1998) and a community sample showed that women, more than men, endorsed policies that are socially compassionate, traditionally moral, and supportive of equal rights for women and for gays and lesbians. To clarify the sources of these gaps, the research examined (a) similarities between gender gaps and gaps associated with other respondent attributes such as race and parenthood, (b) interactions between respondent sex and other attributes, (c) the temporal patterning of gender gaps, and (d) the mediation of attitudinal gender gaps by 3 ideological variables--commitment to equality, group-based dominance, and conservatism versus liberalism.     

Something Old, Something New: Evidence of Self-Accommodation to Gendered Social Change

Two studies examined how individuals adapt the self to social trends—in particular, when the social roles of the gender ingroup change, do people readily leave behind traditional roles in favor of nontraditional roles? We hypothesized that self-relevant cognitions and behaviors would accommodate to societal change, and we found that this accommodation took the shape of greater acceptance of nontraditional roles alongside continued acceptance of traditional roles. Experiment 1 included 112 undergraduates from the Midwestern U.S. who learned about social change or social stability by reading articles ostensibly published in a newspaper. Individuals who learned about social change for their gender ingroup, relative to those learning about social stability, projected greater personal success in careers, particularly for gender-nontraditional careers. Experiment 2 examined behavioral responses to social change in a sample of 198 female undergraduates from the Midwestern U.S. Participants learned about social change or social stability and then chose to view either a website focused on physical appearance (i.e., traditional choice) or leadership (i.e., nontraditional choice). Behavioral responses to social change reflected accommodation to the anticipated social structure: Individuals who learned about social change chose to view information about nontraditional rather than traditional roles. These studies provide initial experimental evidence investigating how individuals adapt the self to the social structure.     

Enhancing interest in science: exemplars as cues to communal affordances of science

A deterrent to recruiting students into STEM pathways is the stereotype that STEM fields do not afford communal goals to work with or help others. We investigate the challenges to cueing communal opportunities in science via brief exposure to scientist exemplars. Both male and female scientists depicted as engaged in communal work increased beliefs that science afforded communal goals and positivity toward science careers (Study 1). Without the direct performance of communal activities, communal affordances were cued only when a female scientist was prototypic of her gender category and respondents were highly communally oriented (Study 2). To change stereotypes that science does not involve communal goals, both female and male scientists can highlight communal aspects of their work.     

Malleability in communal goals and beliefs influences attraction to stem careers: evidence for a goal congruity perspective

The goal congruity perspective posits that 2 distinct social cognitions predict attraction to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields. First, individuals may particularly value communal goals (e.g., working with or helping others), due to either chronic individual differences or the salience of these goals in particular contexts. Second, individuals hold beliefs about the activities that facilitate or impede these goals, or goal affordance stereotypes. Women's tendency to endorse communal goals more highly than do men, along with consensual stereotypes that STEM careers impede communal goals, intersect to produce disinterest in STEM careers. We provide evidence for the foundational predictions that gender differences emerge primarily on communal rather than agentic goals (Studies 1a and 3) and that goal affordance stereotypes reflect beliefs that STEM careers are relatively dissociated from communal goals (Studies 1b and 1c). Most critically, we provide causal evidence that activated communal goals decrease interest in STEM fields (Study 2) and that the potential for a STEM career to afford communal goals elicits greater positivity (Study 3). These studies thus provide a novel demonstration that understanding communal goals and goal affordance stereotypes can lend insight into attitudes toward STEM pursuits.