Gender-Role Self-Stereotyping and the Relationship Between Equity and Satisfaction in Close Relationships

Gender-role self-stereotyping was investigated as a moderator of the importance of equity to satisfaction within close relationships in a sample of 204 men and women in long-term relationships. For those low in gender-role self-stereotyping, equity strongly predicted satisfaction, whereas for those higher in gender-role self-stereotyping, satisfaction was predicted by the belief that one's own relationship compared favorably with those of same-sex others. The importance of equity was also investigated by asking participants to predict how they would respond if they found themselves in an overbenefiting or underbenefiting relationship. Predicted responses to inequity were influenced by participants' sex, degree of gender-role self-stereotyping, and the type of inequity imagined. These finding are discussed in terms of the system justifying effects of gender-role stereotypes.