Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles.

Abstract

According to stereotypic beliefs about the sexes, women are more communal (selfless and concerned with others) and less agentic (self-assertive and motivated to master) than men. These beliefs were hypothesized to stem from perceivers' observations of women and men in differing social roles: (a) Women are more likely than men to hold positions of lower status and authority, and (b) women are more likely than men to be homemakers and are less likely to be employed in the paid work force. Experiments 1 and 2 failed to support the hypothesis that observed sex differences in status underlie belief in female communal qualities and male agentic qualities. Experiment 3 supported the hypothesis that observed sex differences in distribution into homemaker and employee occupational roles account for these beliefs. In this experiment, subjects perceived the average woman and man stereotypically. Female and male homemakers were perceived as high in communion and low in agency. Female and male employees were perceived as low in communion and high in agency, although female employees were perceived as even more agentic than their male counterparts. Experiments 4 and 5 examined perceptions that might account for the belief that employed women are especially agentic: (a) A double burden of employment plus family responsibilities did not account for this belief, and (b) freedom of choice about being employed accounted for it reasonably well.Gender stereotypes, like other social stereotypes, reflect perceivers' observations of what people do in daily life. If perceivers often observe a particular group of people engaging in a particular activity, they are likely to believe that the abilities and personality attributes required to carry out that activity are typical of that group of people. For example, if perceivers consistently observe women caring for chil-

Sex differences in cooperation: A meta-analytic review of social dilemmas.

“…Prior research on gender stereotypes suggests that women are more able to devote themselves to others more generally (e.g., Conway et al, 1996;Deaux & Lewis, 1984;Eagly & Steffen, 1984). Women also self-report greater importance of universalism values than men, which suggests they extend concern to others beyond close relationships (Schwartz & Rubel, 2005).…”

“…Men and women may conform to these gender stereotypes to avoid being negatively evaluated by others (Costrich, Feinstein, Kidder, Marecek, & Pascale, 1975). Because women are perceived to be more cooperative than men (e.g., Eagly & Steffen, 1984), this stereotype may especially influence women to be more coopera-tive than men while interacting with an opposite-sex partner, compared to a same-sex partner (Deaux & Major, 1987). Thus, women are expected to be even more cooperative than men in mixed-sex (vs. same-sex) groups.…”

Putting gender into context: An interactive model of gender-related behavior.

“…Locksley and her colleagues have argued that category-based expectancies have relatively little durability in the face of more individuating information (Locksley, Borgida, Brekke, & Hepburn, 1980;Locksley, Hepburn, & Ortiz, 1982). Similarly, Eagly and her colleagues have found that information about occupational roles outweighs gender as a basis of trait inference under certain conditions (Eagly, 1983;Eagly & Steffen, 1984;Eagly & Wood, 1982). Yet the influence of stereotypic categories may not be quite so ephemeral.…”

Estereotipos de género, maternidad y empleo: un análisis psicosociológico

“…Sin entrar aquí en la cuestión de si estas diferencias existen realmente o no, lo cual sería objeto de la psicología diferencial, lo que la psicología social ha demostrado es que la gente cree que existen y utiliza dicotomías muy similares a la de Simmel para describir a hombres y mujeres. Las primeras investigaciones en las que se analizó el contenido de los estereotipos de género (Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson y Rosenkrantz, 1972;Rosenkrantz, Vogel, Bee, Broverman y Broverman, 1968) establecieron una distinción entre los rasgos relacionados con la competencia y los asociados a la expresividad emocional, dicotomía que es conceptualmente similar a la que estudios posteriores utilizaron para distinguir entre instrumentalidad y expresividad (Spence, Helmrecih y Stapp, 1975), o entre agencia y comunalidad (Deaux y Lewis, 1984;Eagly y Steffen, 1984;Williams y Best, 1982). En todas estas dicotomías los hombres se perciben como competentes, asertivos, independientes y orientados hacia el poder y el logro, mientras que las mujeres se perciben como afectivas, dependientes, sociables, poco preocupadas por ellas mismas y orientadas hacia los demás.…”

“…Son estas diferencias en los roles sociales y laborales que desempeñan hombres y mujeres 5 de 14 doi: https://doi.org/10. 16925/pe.v14i23.2261 las que dan lugar a la formación y el mantenimiento de los estereotipos de género (Eagly y Steffen, 1984). En este sentido, es previsible que el cambio que se ha producido en los roles laborales de las mujeres haya tenido algún efecto en el contenido de los estereotipos.…”