Communion and agency judgments of women and men as a function of role information and response format

Abstract

In past research, the presentation of men and women in the same social role has eliminated gender stereotypical ratings of greater agency and lesser communion in men compared with women. The social‐role interpretation of such findings is challenged from the shifting‐standards perspective, which suggests that the application of within‐sex judgmental standards to men and women in roles may have masked underlying gender stereotypes. To clarify this issue, 256 participants judged an average man or woman portrayed as an employee, homemaker, or without role information on agentic and communal traits. These judgments were given on subjective scales that were vulnerable to shifting standards (trait ratings) or on common rule measures that restrain shifting standards (estimates of test scores). As predicted from the shifting‐standards perspective, judgments of greater agency in men than women disappeared in the presence of role information only on the subjective scales, which enabled shifts to within‐sex standards. As predicted from the social‐role perspective, judgments of greater communion in women than men disappeared in the presence of the homemaker role on both the subjective and common rule measures. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding judgments of role occupants' agency and communion. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The communality-bonus effect for male transformational leaders – leadership style, gender, and promotability

“…However, with additional information about the person, this can change. When men and women are described as homemakers -a role requiring communal attributes -they are perceived as equally communal (Bosak, Sczesny, & Eagly, 2008). A similar effect may occur when people receive information about a person's leadership style.…”

Gender differences in the association of a high quality job and self-esteem over time: A multiwave study

“…According to this stereotype, men should demonstrate dominance, competitiveness, and achievement orientation. Women on the other hand should exhibit nurturing and socially sensitive attributes like helping, caring about others, being kind, sympathetic and understanding (Bosak, Sczesny, & Eagly, 2008;Eagly, Wood, & JohannesenSchmidt, 2004;Heilman & Okimoto, 2007). These gender stereotypes tend to occur in different cultures, but especially in cultures with high scores on Hofstede's (1998) masculinity dimension (Sczesny, Bosak, Neff, & Schyns, 2004), or individualistic cultures (Steinmetz, Bosak, Sczesny, & Eagly, in press).…”

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“…There is broad empirical evidence that role information significantly influences attributions of a person's agency and communion, and this is true irrespective of the gender of the person fulfilling the role, as was shown in samples of U.S. adults (Bosak et al 2008;Eagly and Wood 2012). Similarly, in German student samples, participants perceive employees who have jobs that require high qualifications to be masculine and to have agentic characteristics (Sczesny 2003;Sczesny et al 2006).…”

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