Resistance to the traditional gender role expectation for modest self-presentation among women was examined in a pair of studies. In the first-which included U. S. and Polish college students of both sexes-making traditional gender role expectations explicitly salient led to a significant reversal of traditional modest responding only among American women. A second study supported a role rejection account of this finding by demonstrating that (a) U.S. women reacted much more negatively to the traditional gender role expectations for modesty than did comparable men, and (b) those women who reacted most negatively also evidenced the greatest role-inconsistent intentions. The possibility is discussed that seemingly ambivalent role behavior may not be a result of role conflict but instead to the presence or absence of salient role-related stimuli.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence. Chicago: Rand McNally.
2.
Banaji, M. R. , & Hardin, C. D. (1996). Automatic stereotyping. Psychological Science, 7, 136-141.
3.
Bargh, J. A. , Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). The automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construction and stereotype activadon on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 230-244.
4.
Bargh, J. A. , & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1994). Environmental control of goal-directed action: Automatic and strategic contingencies between situations and behavior. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 41, 71-124.
5.
Bargh, J. A. , & Pietromonaco, P. (1982). Automatic information processing and social perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 437-449.
6.
Berkowitz, L. (1974). Some determinants of impulsive aggression: Role of mediated associations with reinforcements for aggression. Psychological Review, 81, 165-176.
7.
Berkowitz, L. , & Daniels, L. R. (1964). Affecting the salience of the social responsibility norm. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 275-281.
8.
Bond, M. H. (1992). Perception and judgment of the economic system. Journal of Economic Psychology, 13, 421-448.
9.
Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic Press.
10.
Brehm, S. S. , & Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and controlNew York: Academic Press.
11.
Brockner, J. , & Elkind, M. (1985). Self-esteem and reactance: Further evidence of attitudinal and motivational consequences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 346-361.
12.
Bystydzienski, J. (1989). Women and socialism: A comparative study of women in Poland and the USSR. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14, 668-684.
13.
Campbell, J. D. , & Fairey, P. J. (1989). Informational and normative routes to conformity: The effect off action size as a function of norm extremity and attention to the stimulus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 457-468.
14.
Chia, R. C. , Moore, J. L., Lam, K. N., Chuang, C. J., & Cheng, B. S. (1994). Cultural differences in gender role attitudes between Chinese and American students. Sex Rols, 31, 23-30.
15.
Chodorow, N. (1989). Feminism and psychoanalytic theory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
16.
Cialdini, R. B. , Reno, R. R., & Kallgren, C. A. (1990). A focus theory of normative conduct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1015-1026.
17.
Cialdini, R. B. , Trost, M. R., & Newsom, J. T. (1995). Preference for consistency: The development of a valid measure and the discovery of surprising behavioral implications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 318-328.
18.
Crosby, F. J. (Ed.). (1987). Spouse, parent, worker: On gender and multiple roles. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
19.
Crowne, D. P. , & Marlowe, D. (1964). The approval motive. New York: Wiley.
20.
Dabul, A. J. , Bernal, M. E., & Knight, G. P. (1995). Allocentric self-description and academic achievement among Mexican American and Anglo American adolescents. Journal of Social Psychology, 135, 621-630.
21.
Daubman, K. A. , Heatherington, L., & Ahn, A. (1992). Gender and the self-presentation of academic achievement. Sex Roles, 27, 187-204.
22.
Beaux, K. , & Major, B. (1987). Putting gender into context. Psychological Review, 94, 369-389.
23.
Derryberry, D. , & Rothbart, M. D. (1984). Emotion, attention, and temperament. In C. Izard, J. Kagan, & R Zajonc (Eds.), Emotion,cognition, and behavior (pp. 132-166). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
24.
de Silva, L. (1993). Women's emancipation under communism: A reevaluation. East European Quarterly, 17, 301-313.
25.
Devine, P. G. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5-18.
26.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
27.
Gould, R. , & Slone, C. (1982). The "feminine modesty" effect: A self-presentational interpretation of sex differences in causal attribution. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 477-485.
28.
Graczyk, M. , & Gizinski, J. (1992, April 19). The other gender. Wprost, p. 16.
29.
Heatherington, L. , Daubman, K. A., Bates, C., Ahn, A., Brown, H., & Preston, C.1 (1993). Two investigations of "female modesty" in achievement settings. Sex Roles, 29, 739-754.
30.
Helmreich, R. L. , Spence, J. T., & Gibson, R. H. (1982). Sex-role attitudes: 1972-1980. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 656-663.
31.
Kramer, R. M. , & Goldman, L. (1995). Helping the group or helping yourself. In D. A. Schroeder (Ed.), Social dilemmas (pp. 49-67). Westport, CT: Praeger.
32.
Krech, D. , Crutchfield, R. S., & Ballachey, E. L. (1962). Individual in society. New York: McGraw-Hill.
33.
Levine, J. M. , & Moreland, R. L. (1990). Progress in small groups research. Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 585-634.
34.
Lippa, R. , & Beauvais, C. (1983). Gender jeopardy: The effects of gender, assessed femininity and masculinity, and false success/failure feedback on performance in an experimental quiz game. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 344-353.
35.
Major, B. , Cozzarelli, C., Testa, M., & McFarlin, D. B. (1988). Self-verification versus expectancy confirmation in social interaction: The impact of self-focus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14, 346-359.
36.
Malinowska, E. (1995). Sociopolitical changes in Poland and the problem of sex discrimination. Women's Studies International Forum, 18, 35-43.
37.
Markus, H. R. , & Oysterman, D. (1988). Gender and thought: The role of the self-concept. In M. Crawford & M. Hamilton (Eds.), Gender and thought (pp. 100-127). New York: Springer-Verlag.
38.
Marody, M. (1993). Why I am not a feminist: Some remarks on the problem of gender identity in the United States and Poland. Social Research, 60, 853-864.
39.
Matynia, E. (1994). Women after communism: A bitter freedom. Social Research, 61, 351-377.
40.
Messick, D. M. (1993). Equality as a decision heuristic. In B. A. Mellers & J. Baron (Eds.), Psychological perspectives on justice (pp. 51-68). New York: Cambridge University Press.
41.
Nail, P. R. (1986). Toward an integration of some models and theories of social response. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 190-206.
42.
Norman, W. T. (1963). Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 574-583.
43.
Oskamp, S. (1991). Attitudes and opinions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
44.
Schwartz, S. H. (1994). Beyond individualism/collectivism: New cultural dimensions of values. In U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, & G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism: Theoretical and methodological issues (pp. 85-119). Newbury Park, CA.Sage.
45.
Spence, J. T. , & Helmreich, R. L. (1978). Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions. Austin: University of Texas Press.
46.
Taps, J. , & Martin, P. Y. (1990). Gender composition, attributional accounts, and women's influence and likability in task groups. Small Group Research, 21, 471-491.
47.
Thornton, A. (1989). Changing attitudes toward family issues in the United States. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 873-894.
48.
Turner, J. C. , Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford, UK.Basil Blackwell.
49.
Tyszka, T. , & Sokolowska, J. (1992). Perception and judgment of the economic system. Journal of Economic Psychology, 13, 421-448.
50.
Whetstone, M. R. , Okun, M. A., & Cialdini, R. B. (1992, June). The modest responding scale. Paper presented at the convention of the American Psychological Society, San Diego.
51.
Whetstone-Dion, M. R. (1995). Predicting modest and self promotional behavior in men and women with the modest responding scale. Unpublished master's thesis, Arizona State University.
52.
Wiley, M. G. , & Crittenden, K. S. (1992). By your attributions you shall be known: Consequences of attributional accounts for professional and gender identities. Sex Roles, 27, 259-276.
53.
Williams, J. E. , & Best, D. L. (1990). Measuringsex stereotypes: A multinational study. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
54.
Willis, R. H. (1963). Two dimensions of conformity-nonconformity. Sociometry, 26, 499-513.
55.
Willis, R. H. (1965). Conformity, independence, and anticonformity. Human Relations, 18, 373-388.
56.
Wosinska, W. , Dabul, A. J., Whetstone-Dion, M. R., & Cialdini, R. B. (1996). Self-presentational responses to success in the organization: The costs and benefits of modesty. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 18, 229-242.
