Kay Deaux

Sex and Gender

Preface 1. Commonsense beliefs and psychological research strategies 2. Stereotypes, attitudes and personal attributes 3. Origins 4. Developmental influences 5. Sexuality: psychophysiology, psychoanalysis and social construction 6. Aggression, violence and power 7. Fear, anxiety and mental health 8. The domestic sphere 9. Work, education and occupational achievement 10. Looking back and looking ahead.

An Organizing Framework for Collective Identity: Articulation and Significance of Multidimensionality.

The authors offer a framework for conceptualizing collective identity that aims to clarify and make distinctions among dimensions of identification that have not always been clearly articulated. Elements of collective identification included in this framework are self-categorization, evaluation, importance, attachment and sense of interdependence, social embeddedness, behavioral involvement, and content and meaning. For each element, the authors take note of different labels that have been used to identify what appear to be conceptually equivalent constructs, provide examples of studies that illustrate the concept, and suggest measurement approaches. Further, they discuss the potential links between elements and outcomes and how context moderates these relationships. The authors illustrate the utility of the multidimensional organizing framework by analyzing the different configuration of elements in 4 major theories of identification.

Putting Gender Into Context: An Interactive Model of Gender-Related Behavior.

A model that describes conditions influencing the display of gender-related behavior is presented as a supplement to existent models of sex differences. Whereas many previous models stress the importance of distal factors, our model emphasizes the degree to which gender-related behavior is variable, proximally caused, and context dependent. More specifically, we propose that gender-related behaviore are influenced by the expectations of perceivers, self-systems of the target, and situational cues. This model of gender-related behavior builds on theory and data in the areas of (a) expectancy confirmation processes and (b) self-verification and self-presentation strategies. Support for the model is presented, and suggestions are offered for its future development.

Reconstructing Social Identity

As a concept with a tradition in both social and personality psychology, identity lends itself to a variety of interpretations. In the present analysis, identity refers to social categories in which an individual claims membership as well as the personal meaning associated with those categories. Four key issues for research are discussed: (a) the structure and interrelationships among multiple identities, (b) the several functions that identities serve, (c) the importance of context to the development and enactment of identities, and (d) the need for longitudinal studies of identity change.

GENDER BELIEF SYSTEMS: HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE IMPLICIT INVERSION THEORY

Beliefs about the characteristics of male and female homosexuals and heterosexuals were assessed to determine the degree to which stereotypes of homosexuals are consistent with the inversion model proposed by Freud (1905) and others, i.e., the assumption that homosexuals are similar to the opposite-sex heterosexual. Results showed that people do subscribe to an implicit inversion theory wherein male homosexuals are believed to be similar to female heterosexuals, and female homosexuals are believed to be similar to male heterosexuals. These results offer additional support for a bipolar model of gender stereotyping, in which masculinity and femininity are assumed to be in opposition.

Attributing Causes for One's Own Performance: The Effects of Sex, Norms, and Outcome.

Abstract Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of sex of subject, stated sex linkage of task, and task outcome on causal attributions of an actors performance. Results from both studies showed that: (1) males evaluate their performance more favorably than do females, despite equivalent objective scores; (2) males claim greater ability than do females following task performance; and (3) females are more prone to use luck to explain performance. The evidence also suggests that the difference between males and females in performance evaluation and self-attribution occurs most strongly in response to failure and on masculine tasks. The results are interpreted in terms of a general expectancy model.

Individual Differences in Justice Behavior

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the individual differences in two general areas of justice behavior—reward distributions and reactions to injustice. Reward distribution refers to the way people decide that what is a fair allocation of resources, either to others, to themselves, or among themselves and others. The area broadly termed reactions to injustice is concerned with how a person reacts when he or she is treated unfairly by another. The individual difference variable that has received the most attention in justice research is the sex of the subject. In part, this attention is because of the obvious ease of obtaining and measuring this variable. However, a second reason for this attention is more theoretical in nature. Early research revealed frequent differences between mens and womens behavior, particularly in the area of reward distribution. Few sex differences are found when women and men allocate rewards to others and are not involved as co-recipients. The few differences obtained appear to be because of the specific nature of the instructions, to ambiguity concerning whether or not the allocator will interact with the recipients in the future, or to confounding of the sex of the allocator with the sex of the recipient.

Interpersonal networks and social categories: Specifying levels of context in identity processes

Two theories have been central to conceptualizing identity processes. Strykers identity theory, developed in a sociological tradition, describes a framework in which role-identities arise from within the boundaries of social structures. Tajfels social identity theory refers to the psychological process of identification and its motivational basis. In this paper we review assumptions underlying these two theories. We propose a new model that integrates these traditions into a single framework of identity context. The main contribution of this model lies in its specification of two different levels of context, namely the social category and the interpersonal network, which act as independent settings of identity work. We exemplify the model using three studies of identity in which different levels of context uniquely shape subjective definitions of the self self-evaluations, and interactions with others. The implications of this model for future research are outlined.

Relationship between social and personal identities : Segregation or integration ?

Recognition that self-representation includes both social and personal identities raises questions about the cognitive organization of these elements. Two models of identity structure are compared: (a) a segregation model (D. Trafimow, H. C. Triandis, & S. G. Goto, 1991), which assumes that (social)identities and (personal) attributes are two distinct categories, and (b) an integration model (K. Deaux, 1992), which proposes that identities and attributes often coexist in a limited set of cognitive structures. Clustering of self-relevant information in free recall was used to assess cognitive organization in a sample of 57 students. Identities and attributes clustered separately at greater-than-chance rates, consistent with the segregation model. More detailed analysis of recall data, in which individual patterns of association between identities and attributes were considered, provides stronger support for an integration model of self-representation.

Stereotypes of young and old: does age outweigh gender?

Stereotypes of age and gender are examined with 35-year-old and 65-year-old men and women as target persons. Age stereotypes were more pronounced than gender stereotypes; respondents offered more elaborate free-response descriptions of older targets than of younger targets and described same-age targets more similarly than same-sex targets. On the rating scales, older people were judged less likely to possess masculine characteristics, but ratings of feminine characteristics were largely unaffected by age. Older people were not uniformly devalued on the age-stereotypic characteristics, but when negative evaluations occurred they were of the older targets. These results attest to the importance of a multidimensional conception of age and gender stereotypes.