Abstract
This study examined the effects of two social cues on women's and men's self-confidence: the sex and performance of another in an achievement setting. Before trying to solve 60 anagrams, women expected to perform more poorly than men. In addition, both sexes expected to perform more poorly when paired with a male confederate than when paired with a female confederate. The effect of the partner's sex showed up in anagram performance: people with a female partner solved more anagrams than people with a male partner. The effect of subject's sex on performance was unexpected: women solved more anagrams than men. After the task, sex differences in self-confidence disappeared; neither sex of subject nor sex of partner influenced self-confidence. The partner's performance, however, had a strong effect on everyone: people were less self-confident if they had worked with a high-scoring partner. The pattern of results suggests that sex-of-subject differences in self-confidence, while important, are less powerful than the effects wielded by the sex of others in achievement settings.
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This research was carried out by the first author as an honors thesis at Bates College under the supervision of the second author. The authors thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
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Sleeper, L.A., Nigro, G.N. It's not who you are but who you're with: Self-Confidence in achievement settings. Sex Roles 16, 57–69 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00302851
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00302851