Fixed Roles and Situated Actions

Abstract

Two visions have shaped research and theory on gender for at least 60 years. The older vision treats the genders as distinct roles that are strongly socialized and make women and men inherently different in all circumstances. The newer one treats gender as reflecting effects of different social structural relations, and it sees women and men as capable of displaying wide-ranging and overlapping responses. We clarify the two visions by stating five tenets of each. The visions affect a scholar's choice of research topics, what one sees when women and men interact, the meanings attached to different behaviors and attitudes, how one interprets evidence, and how to know when a research question has received a satisfactory answer.

Status, Personality, and Gender Stereotyping: Response to Commentators

“…The two visions elucidated by Webster and Rashotte (2009), which involve observable behavior, parallel the two approaches that have guided theory and research on personality. The classic view of personality, including the personalities associated with women and with men, has been described as one in which "individuals are characterized by stable and broadly generalized dispositions that endure over long periods of time and that generate consistencies in their social behavior across a wide range of situations" (Mischel 1990, p. 112).…”

“…In their paper, Webster and Rashotte (2009) compared the "two visions" that have shaped much of the behavioral research and theory on gender. These differing visions have important implications for our understanding of gender and gender stereotyping.…”

“…These behaviors become fixed and resistant to change so that by adolescence fully socialized individuals typically are only able to display the behaviors associated with their gender. By contrast, in the newer, situational or "situated actions" approach, socialization involves learning both the instrumental behaviors associated with a high status role and the expressive behaviors that are linked with low status (Webster and Rashotte 2009). In addition, individuals learn the social cues that indicate a person's position within situational hierarchies and develop considerable flexibility in displaying both instrumental and expressive behaviors and attitudes, depending on the situational circumstances.…”

“…In Webster and Rashotte's (2009) "situated actions" approach to socialization, people learn the behaviors that are associated with various status positions and the cues for when particular behaviors are indicated. This is consistent with the situational approach to personality in which individuals' self-perceived instrumental and expressive personality attributes are calibrated to the situation and task at hand.…”

“…Their comments focus on women's and men's perceptions of their own gender stereotyped traits and highlight important issues involving status, personality, and gender stereotyping, which I seek to address. These include the two approaches that have shaped much of the research and theory on gender: the traditional view that men and women are characterized by stable, enduring dispositions and the more recent perspective, which holds that women's and men's self-perceived attributes can vary from one situation to another (Webster and Rashotte 2009). Other issues concern the effect of gender identity on gender stereotyped behaviors and traits (Sell and Kuipers 2009); changes in gender stereotyped traits over time in the larger sociocultural context (Twenge 2009); and status in relation to personality, evaluations, developmental issues, and crosscultural stereotypes (Best 2009).…”