Clothing: Communication, Compliance, and Choice

This study looks at some effects of five different styles of women's clothing: Formal Skirt, Formal Pants, Casual Skirt, Casual Pants, and Jeans. There were no significant differences in compliance to a request to fill out a questionnaire made by experimenters dressed in the five clothing styles, although experimenter age and sex effects were found. Ratings of photographs of the five dress styles indicate that a model was viewed by both male and female subjects as most happy, successful, feminine, interesting, attractive, intelligent, and wanted as a friend when wearing a Formal Skirt outfit and as least so when wearing Jeans. She was also seen as more active when wearing pants as compared with a skirt. Subjects' reasons for choosing what clothing to wear did not indicate that how one will appear to others is the major factor in clothing selection. It appears that clothing does communicate something about the wearer but may influence behavior toward her primarily in the absence of other information about her status.     

Looking beyond gender: The effects of racial differences on tokenism perceptions of women

This study looks beyond gender to explore the impact of the social status of race and of token difference defined by race. In a 2 × 4 design, 53 African American women and 76 white women undergraduates rated a woman target, of the same race as themselves, who was described as being of the same race and gender as the dominant members of her work group or as a token defined by her gender alone, race alone, or both her race and gender. White women tokens were perceived to experience better social relations, more supportive colleagues, and lower stress than African American targets. Across African American and white raters/targets, token representation, defined by any ascribed status, was associated with expected negative tokenism outcomes relative to those projected for dominants. The omnirelevance of race toward understanding tokenism processes is discussed.We wish to thank Marchell Bass, Paulina Beres, Darya Burns, Roy Carrera, Nicole Cassie, Comilita Jackson, Susan Mathews, Pamela Ramsey, Catina Scott, and Aretha Strickland for their invaluable help with data collection and entry. These findings were presented at the meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in May 1995 in Chicago.     

Undergraduates regard deviation from occupational gender stereotypes as costly for women

Studies from the 1970s have shown deviation from norms defining the gender-appropriateness of occupations to be costly for both women and men. Two hundred thirty undergraduates wrote open-ended stories and rated a stimulus person, Anne or John, who was described at the top of his/her class in medicine or one of four persistently gender-skewed fields: nursing, day care, electrical engineering, and electrician. Across all five occupations, negative imagery in stories about Anne and John in gender-incongruent occupations disappeared. However, when Anne succeeded in the two currently female-incongruent fields, raters treated her as a personal and social deviate by distancing themselves and by denigrating her role behaviors and personal traits, including her femininity. Parallel costs were not found for John nor were Anne's work-related qualities undermined. Undergraduates expect deviation from occupational gender-types in the 1990s to be personally costly for women, but not for men.The authors wish to thank Peggy Braam for her invaluable help with data collection and entry, and Arnold Kahn, John Zipp, Stephanie Riger, Lynne Berendsen, and Patricia Aniakudo. Parts of this paper were presented at the meetings of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago in May 1993 and at the meetings of the American Psychological Association in Los Angeles in August 1994.     

Personality and drug testing: An exploration of the perceived fairness of alternatives to urinalysis

Paper-and-pencil inventories have been suggested as a less invasive alternative to urinalysis drug testing. Using 702 students in three experiments, an overt integrity test, a personality inventory, an interest inventory and a no-testing control condition were compared. Subjects reacted most positively when no testing was required. When drug testing was required, subjects were most satisfied with either overt tests or urinalysis, and least satisfied with the personality inventory. Attempts to increase the acceptability of personality testing by providing explanations and rationale had no effect on subjects' attitudes.We wish to express our appreciation to Andrew Colfelt for his assistance in research design and data collection, and to Kevin Murphy and Terry Stecher for their comments on previous drafts of this paper.     

Retrograde Enhancement of Human Kinesthetic Memory by Alcohol: Consolidation or Protection against Interference?

Alcohol intake is known to impair memory in animals and humans. However, five studies reported that “medium” (0.05 ml/kg body weight) to “high” (1.0 ml/kg body weight) doses of alcohol improved memory when drunk immediately after initial learning of verbal or visual material. It was proposed that alcohol brought about this retroactive facilitation either through enhanced consolidation of memory traces or by protecting against retroactive interference. The present double blind study compared the performances of an alcohol and a placebo group on a kinesthetic memory task before alcohol or placebo intake and at retest 1 h after consumption. A second experiment was identical to the first except that all subjects carried out two trials on a T maze in the hour between testing and retesting. The alcohol group in the first experiment performed significantly better than the placebo group at retest (p< .05) but this was not the case in the second experiment. Alcohol therefore enhanced performance on the kinesthetic memory task in the first experiment but may not have protected against the moderate interference from the T maze in the second. The low levels of alcohol could have had a stimulant effect on trace consolidation, perhaps via raised blood glucose levels.     

Molecular carrier testing for the fragile X syndrome: Issues for genetic counselors

Molecular analysis of the fragile X (FMR-1) gene identifies female fragile X carriers, but appropriate genetic counseling can only be provided if the limitations of the testing methods are understood. Molecular analysis of this gene is achieved with both the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Southern blot techniques. PCR is faster and can determine the actual number of CGG repeats, which modifies genetic counseling substantially. However, for a sizeable percentage of women, PCR alone is not conclusive, and Southern analysis is necessary to complete the study. While this procedure takes longer, it is usually conclusive. Women who present for genetic counseling and carrier testing in the second trimester of pregnancy need this information quickly, and for them the turn-around time is paramount. It is critical that genetic counselors understand these methods so that they can educate their clients and facilitate appropriate follow-up.     

The responses of African American women firefighters to gender harassment at work

The purpose of the present study is to describe the responses of African American women firefighters to sexual and gender harassment. Surveys and interviews of 22 firefighters nationwide uncovered universal exposure to harassment. Contrary to prior studies, most of which involved white college students and white collar workers, all these firefighters used externally focused, direct response strategies. Nineteen women directly confronted the harasser; of these, ten responded aggressively, including four women who countered physical harassment in kind. Their stories suggested that most found their strategy to be effective at stopping the present harassment and deterring future occurrences. While few firefighters reported positive work relations, these may have been a precursor to, rather than a result of, their direct response patterns.We wish to thank Maureen Aniakudo, Brenda Brooks, and the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, and Terese Floren and Women in the Fire Service for their invaluable advice and support. This project was supported by funding from the Fromkin Research Grant and Lectureship at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues' Grants-in-Aid Program, and the University of Wisconsin System's Institute on Race and Ethnicity.     

Children's appraisals of sex-typed behavior in their peers

Four experiments evaluated the effect of variations in sex-typed behavior in hypothetical peers on children's ratings of friendship. In all four studies, the children were heterogeneous with regard to social class, ethnicity, and race. In Experiment 1, children (71 boys, 90 girls) in Grades 3–6 read five stories about a target boy and in Experiment 2 (102 boys, 137 girls) about a target girl who displayed four sex-typed behaviors that ranged from exclusively masculine to exclusively feminine. In Experiment 1, boys preferred the exclusively masculine boy most as a friend. With each addition of a feminine behavior (and corresponding subtraction of a masculine behavior), the friendship ratings became increasingly negative. In contrast, the girls preferred the exclusively feminine boy most as a friend and, with each addition of a masculine behavior, the friendship ratings became increasingly negative. In Experiment 2, the converse was found although girls' ratings of friendship were less sharply affected by the target girl's sex-typed behavior than was observed for boys' ratings in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, children (33 boys, 38 girls) in Grades K—2 were read three stories about a target boy, accompanied by detailed chromatic illustrations, whose four sex-typed behaviors were exclusively masculine, equally masculine and feminine, or exclusively feminine. The boys had significantly more favorable friendship ratings than the girls; however, in contrast to Experiments 1 and 2, the target boy's sex-typed behavior did not affect friendship ratings of either boys or girls. Experiment 4 (28 boys, 27 girls) repeated the procedure of Experiment 3 with children in kindergarten and Grade 1; in addition, the children made forced-choice friendship ratings for each of the three possible story pairs. In contrast to Experiment 3, boys' friendship ratings were affected by the target boy's sex-typed behavior, as observed in Experiment 1, but girls' friendship ratings were not. However, in the forced-choice situation, the boys significantly preferred the exclusively masculine boy whereas the girls significantly preferred the exclusively feminine boy. The results were discussed in relation to the influence sex-typed behavior has on modifying the effects of a peer's sex on affiliative preference and sex differences in appraisals of cross-gender behavior, including the concept of threshold effects.     

Is entry-level recognition viewpoint invariant or viewpoint dependent?

Subjects decided whether an object drawing matched the entry-level name that immediately preceded it in a name-object sequence. When objects in the stimulus set were visually similar with respect to global shape and configuration of parts, response time increased linearly from 0° to 120° for both match and mismatch trials. Similar effects of orientation were found on match trials when objects in the stimulus set were visually dissimilar. No effects of orientation were observed when name and drawing did not match in the visually dissimilar condition. The results are consistent with the view that, in a variety of viewing situations, the initial identification of an object at the entry level is accomplished by viewpoint-dependent mechanisms.     

MEASURING SEXIST DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE

Surveys of 14 African American and 30 White women firefighters support reliability and validity claims for the Sexist Discrimination in the Workplace subscale of the Schedule of Sexist Events, developed by Klonoff and Landrine (1995). The more sexist events at work these women reported in the past year, the lower the perceived valuation of respondents by coworkers and the greater the job stresses associated with token status, with being a pioneering woman and with being treated differently.