Sex-role stereotypes: Self-reports of behavior

Abstract

The present study represents a self-reported behavioral approach to the study of sex differences and sex-role stereotypes. One hundred forty-eight undergraduate women and men responded anonymously in group testing sessions to two questionnaires. The first questionnaire asked them to report their own involvement in 45 masculine and feminine sex-typed behaviors; the second questionnaire asked for their perceptions of the involvement of men and women in the same behaviors. Major findings included (a) sex differences in reported ability, enjoyment, performance, and opportunity which mirrored traditional sex-role stereotypes and indicated greater competence at stereotypic behaviors (the majority of differences significant at p<.001); (b) perceptions of men and women's behavior also consistent with sex-role stereotypes; and (c) sex differences in the perceived appropriateness of behaviors (p<.05) which indicate greater sex-typing in men's (as compared with women's) perceptions of both sexes. The study focuses on the self-reported behavioral bases of gender-specific stereotypes and how these behaviors are influenced by aspects of the social environment (such as reinforcement contingencies) and by aspects of the the person (such as simple learning and performance deficits), and suggests ways in which sex differences might be changed to provide increased behavioral options for women and men.