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The current paper investigated underlying mechanisms that produce culture and gender differences in social anxiety. European-Canadian (n = 99; 47% female) and Asian-Canadian (n = 94; 54% female) undergraduate students completed questionnaires measuring levels of independence, interdependence, masculinity, femininity, and social anxiety. Asian Canadians reported a similar level of social anxiety to European Canadians, and females reported higher social anxiety than males. Mediational analyses revealed that levels of independence, interdependence, and masculinity mediated the association between culture and social anxiety, whereas levels of masculinity mediated the association between gender and social anxiety. Cultural differences in social anxiety are explained by the extent to which individuals define themselves as independent and interdependent, while gender differences in social anxiety are explained by the extent to which individuals identify themselves with a masculine gender role. Our findings suggest the orthogonal impact of culture and gender on individuals' social anxiety. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed., Author(s): Kristen E. Zentner [sup.1] , Hajin Lee [sup.2] , Bryce S. Dueck [sup.3] , Takahiko Masuda [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.254645.4, 0000 0001 0702 7079, Faculty of Graduate Studies, [...]

Gender roles operate as a social schema through which people learn how they must behave and make decisions; that is, socially, what women and men are expected to do is pre-established. This gender socialization is such a deep-rooted process that people may not aware of how they have been socialized, which is thus often is difficult to analyze in people's discussions of their own decision-making. On this basis, this research examines whether endorsing gender roles could be related to women's decisions (regret), as well as the possible consequences for their well-being. Moreover, we analyzed the content of the most important decisions that people make throughout their lives. Therefore, this research aimed to understand the meaning of gender and how its internalization seems to be related to sex differences in decision-making and well-being. In a sample of the Spanish general population (N = 203; M.sub.age = 41.70, SD = 10.93; range from 20 to 65 years old), results showed that women (vs. men) had a greater internalization of gender roles (i.e., femininity), which was associated with higher fear of negative evaluation. This, in turn, was associated with experienced regret in decision-making, which finally seemed to lead to lower well-being. Analysis of the content of decisions showed that women's decisions were based mainly on work and family domains, whereas men's decisions were based on work to a greater extent., Author(s): Laura Villanueva-Moya [sup.1] , Francisca Expósito [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.4489.1, 0000000121678994, Department of Social Psychology, Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, , Granada, Spain [...]

The aim of the present study is to examine whether a leader's extrinsic relative to intrinsic goal orientation influences subordinates' subjective career success through leader-member exchanges and to describe the moderating effect of subordinates' gender. Drawing on goal content theory and leader-member exchange theory, we propose that a leader's relatively extrinsic goal orientation is negatively related to subordinates' subjective career success through leader-member exchanges. We conducted a field survey study (N = 216; employees and their immediate supervisors from China) to test our model, and the results suggest that (1) leaders with relatively extrinsic goal orientations are negatively related to subordinates' subjective career success; (2) leader-member exchanges mediate the negative relationship between a leader's relatively extrinsic goal orientation and employees' subjective career success; and (3) subordinates' gender moderates the indirect effect, whereby a leader's relatively extrinsic goal orientation leads to lower levels of leader-member exchange for females than for males, leading to a lower level of subordinates' subjective career success. This study contributes to the goal content and leader-member exchange literature., Author(s): Ying Zhang [sup.1] , Jingjing Li [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.162107.3, 0000 0001 2156 409X, School of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences Beijing, , 100083, Beijing, People's [...]

The present research aimed to extend the state of knowledge regarding the relationship between self-perceived empathy and traditional gender roles and placed particular focus on the contextual conditions under which gender differences in empathy are present, can be created, or eliminated. Across two studies, women rated themselves higher in empathy than men in all experimental conditions, whereas an objective female superiority in emotion recognition was only evident in one condition. In Study 1 (n = 736), using the term 'social-analytic capacity' instead of 'empathic capacity' increased gender differences in self-reported empathy and resulted in women performing better in the Eyes-test than men. In a neutral task (verbal intelligence), gender differences (in this case, a male superiority), were only found when participants believed that this task had an association with empathy. In Study 2 (n = 701), gender differences in self-reported empathic capacity, but not in performance in emotion recognition, increased when motivation for empathy was raised. Further, gender-role orientation mediated the association between gender and self-reported empathic capacity, whereas it did not account for the association between gender and emotion recognition. Overall, the present studies provide strong support for the idea that empathy is influenced by contextual factors and can be systematically biased by gender roles and stereotypical beliefs., Author(s): Charlotte S. Löffler [sup.1] [sup.2] , Tobias Greitemeyer [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.6190.e, 0000 0000 8580 3777, Social Cognition Center Cologne, University of Cologne, , Richard-Strauss-Str. 2, 50931, Köln, [...]

Studies on both transformational leadership and emotional intelligence have analyzed the relationship between emotions and leadership. Yet the relationships among these concepts and gender roles have not been documented. In this study, we investigated the relations among transformational leadership, emotional intelligence, and gender stereotypes. Four hundred thirty-one Spanish undergraduates (162 men and 269 women; mean age = 19.56 years) in three different disciplines completed a questionnaire including scales for measuring emotional intelligence, transformational leadership, and gender identity. Results showed important differences across the different disciplines and illustrated that emotional intelligence and gender roles predict transformational leadership. These results are interpreted in line with current research on the topic of leadership and emotional intelligence. Key words: gender roles, transformational leadership, emotional intelligence, gender approach, Although women's participation in the workforce of industrialized societies is increasing substantially, the percentage of women in leading positions at the top of various organizations still remains low (Eagly, 2004, [...]

While job satisfaction is a major concern in today's organizations, there is little empirical research concerning Information technology 'IT' and its professionals. A survey of 132 IT professionals (99 men and 33 women) in various Southern California organizations were conducted using the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire 'MSQ' short form containing the 20 question-general satisfaction scale to indicate their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with research variables along a five-point scale. Through an empirical study and descriptive statistics, this paper examined the effects of gender on job satisfaction and accepted all its three null hypotheses that gender does not play a role in job satisfaction among IT professionals in the United States. Implications for research and practice are discussed. The research contributes to job satisfaction literature by providing empirical findings regarding the relationship between job satisfaction and the subject of gender., INTRODUCTION The subject of job satisfaction is considered to be one of the most studied work related attitudes by organizational behaviorists and human resources researchers in both private and public [...]

Extensive research has linked a greater female tendency to ruminate about depressed feelings or mood to the gender difference in depression. However, the developmental origins of the gender difference in depressive rumination are not well understood. We hypothesized that girls and women may be more likely to ruminate because rumination represents a gender-stereotyped coping style that is associated with a more feminine gender role identity, maternal encouragement of emotion expression, and passive coping responses to stress. This study examined whether child self-reported gender role identity and observed maternal responses to child stress mediated the emergent gender difference in depressive rumination in adolescence. Maternal gender role attitudes were further hypothesized to moderate the relationship between child sex and mediating variables. Rumination and gender role identity were assessed in 316 youths and their mothers in a longitudinal study from age 11 to age 15; in addition, 153 mother-child dyads participated in an observational task at age 11 from which maternal responses to a child stressor were coded. Results indicated that greater feminine gender role identity among children and encouragement of emotion expression by mothers at age 11 significantly mediated the association between child sex and the development of depressive rumination at age 15, even after controlling for rumination at age 11. Maternal gender role attitudes significantly moderated the relationship between child sex and maternal encouragement of emotion expression, such that mothers who endorsed more traditional gender role attitudes themselves were particularly likely to encourage emotion expression in their daughters. Keywords: rumination, gender role, maternal behavior, emotion expression DOI: 10.1037/a0019813

Research on the relationship between personality and social factors in spatial cognitive style is sparse. The present research was conducted to help fill the gap in this domain. We investigated the influence of specific personality traits (masculine/feminine, spatial and trait anxiety), state anxiety, and sex on spatial cognitive style. One hundred forty-two participants completed a battery of spatial tasks in order to assess their spatial cognitive style and filled in questionnaires about the personality traits under examination. Results showed that state anxiety, spatial anxiety, sex, and masculine/feminine trait of personality are predictors of spatial cognitive style. More specifically, it seems that masculine/feminine trait mediates the relationship between sex and spatial cognitive style. Such findings confirm the importance of personality in determining differences in spatial representation.

Two aspects of children's early gender development--the spontaneous production of gender labels and gender-typed play--were examined longitudinally in a sample of 82 children. Survival analysis, a statistical technique well suited to questions involving developmental transitions, was used to investigate the timing of the onset of children's gender labeling as based on mothers' biweekly telephone interviews regarding their children's language from 9 through 21 months. Videotapes of children's play both alone and with mother during home visits at 17 and 21 months were independently analyzed for play with gender-stereotyped and gender-neutral toys. Finally, the relation between gender labeling and gender-typed play was examined. Children transitioned to using gender labels at approximately 19 months, on average. Although girls and boys showed similar patterns in the development of gender labeling, girls began labeling significantly earlier than boys. Modest sex differences in play were present at 17 months and increased at 21 months. Gender labeling predicted increases in gender-typed play, suggesting that knowledge of gender categories might influence gender typing before the age of 2. Keywords: gender development, self-socialization, language development, play, sex differences

To explore the magnitude of overlap between sociotropy and autonomy with sex-role orientation, relations of Beck's Sociotropy--Autonomy Scale with 6 measures of sex-role orientation were examined using a convenience sample of 153 undergraduate students. The sample included 95 women and 58 men whose mean age was 20.4 yr. A principal axis factor analysis yielded two clear factors, one masculine and one feminine. Sociotropy related strongly to the feminine factor, and Autonomy related strongly to the masculine factor. The mean score for women was significantly higher than that for men on Sociotropy, but the mean difference on Autonomy was not statistically significant. These findings suggest there may be some definitional overlap between vulnerability to depression and sex-role orientation.

The author reacts to three reviews by Carolyn Enns, Stephen Wester, and P. Paul and Mary Heppner on The Counseling Psychologist Major Contribution 'Summarizing 25 Years of Research on Men's Gender Role Conflict Using the Gender Role Conflict Scale: New Research Paradigms and Clinical Implications.' The reviews provide support for assessing the complexity and diversity of men's gender role conflict. The author comments on the reviewers' most critical points in four areas: (a) endorsing contextual, multicultural, and cross-cultural dimensions of gender role conflict; (b) the gap between gender role conflict and career psychology; (c) integrating feminist theory and the macrosocietal perspectives of gender role conflict and sexism; and (d) qualitative and developmental research, societal needs, and social activism. The author recommends further theory development, research, and activism in combating and preventing sexism and gender role conflict.

The well-developed body of theory and research on men's gender role conflict provides an excellent foundation for developing increasingly complex models of men's genderrelated concerns. Theorists and researchers are encouraged to incorporate themes related to social structural aspects of gender as well as to examine the ways in which men's multiple identities and the intersections among these varied identities are experienced by men and boys. The complexity of men's gender-related challenges are illustrated through the exploration of the various individual, interpersonal, structural, and cultural components of gender issues faced by contemporary men in Japan.

African American/White interracial couples are a rapidly growing segment of the population. However, little is known about factors related to marital quality for these couples. The authors examine the relationships between sex role ideology, perception of relationship unfairness, and marital quality among a sample of 76 married African American/White interracial couples from the mid-Atlantic region. The results indicate that interracial couples are similar to same-race couples in some ways. In particular, women, regardless of race, report their marriages to be more unfair to them than do men. Unique experiences in interracial marriages based on one's race or race/gender combination are also identified. African Americans experience more ambivalence about their relationship than their White partners. Furthermore, sex role ideology has a moderating effect on perceived unfairness and marital quality for African American men. Similarities and differences among interracial and same-race marriages are discussed, with recommendations for future research. Keywords: interracial couples; marital quality; sex roles; perceived fairness

Two experiments that were carried out in order to develop and test a simple and direct tool for indexing implicit gender schema contents are discussed. Results showed that children who were generally less flexible regarding gender roles showed more interference in response to gender-stereotypical words and adults exhibited the pattern that was opposite.

It has been over 30 years since the creation of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem in Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162, 1974). Although the BSRI is the most frequently tested instrument for measuring gender orientation, no researchers to date have examined its psychometric properties in Taiwan. Using the short version of the instrument, I asked a total of 381 men and 450 women college students, nurses, police officers, or managers in Taiwan to evaluate themselves on the BSRI. Among the findings are (1) satisfactory internal consistency of the BSRI, (2) more complex structure of masculinity and femininity than originally reported, and (3) doubtful ability of the BSRI to differentiate gender role orientation. These results suggest use of the BSRI in Taiwan with extreme caution before further validation of its applicability is conducted. Keywords Bem sex role inventory * Validity assessment * Taiwan * Cross-cultural

An empirical research study based upon the expectancy - value model of Eccles and colleagues (1983) investigated the effect of gender-role orientations on psychological dimensions of female athletes' sport participation and the likelihood of their continued participation in a stereotypical masculine activity. The model (Eccles et al., 1983) posits that gender-role orientation is linked to the intention to persist or discontinue sport participation, which is acted upon indirectly through mediation by two motivational variables: an individual's perceived competence and the perceived value of the activity. Three models were compared to test this mediation hypothesis with 333 female adolescent handball players in a prospective study. Results from structural equation modeling showed that a fully mediated model fit the data. The masculinity orientation positively predicted value for and perceived competence in handball, whereas the femininity orientation negatively predicted perceived competence. In addition, the two motivational variables negatively predicted intention to drop out. Finally, such intentions are the more proximal predictors of actual dropout.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how the constructs of hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity correlate with gender-related individual differences in agency, communion, and occupational interests over and above hypergender's hypothesized associations with psychological symptomatology. Hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity were significantly related to overall symptomatology. Only hyperfemininity was significantly related to one measure of gender-related personality traits (i.e., communion). Exploratory analyses revealed various relationships between gender measures and relative scores of psychological symptomatology. Overall, results indicated that hypergender may represent an independent domain of gender and may be especially useful in delineating the relationships between gender and psychological well-being. Keywords Hypermasculinity * Hyperfemininity * Hypergender * Gender differences * Personality * Gender diagnosticity

This study examined relations between feminist identity development, gender-role orientation, and psychological well-being in 244 women of varying ages and backgrounds. As hypothesized, both feminist identity development and gender-role orientation contributed independently to the explanation of variance in psychological well-being. Instrumentality, expressiveness, and a more developed feminist identity were all related positively to psychological well-being. In addition, instrumentality and a more developed feminist identity were correlated positively. Implications of these findings as well as limitations and future directions are discussed.

We compared the subtlety of four measures of sexism and sources of variation in male and female psychology students' judgments that beliefs from these scales and everyday behaviors were sexist. Participants judged traditional gender role and hostile sexist beliefs as more sexist than benevolent and modern sexist beliefs, indicating the latter were more subtle measures of sexism. Participants also judged traditional gender role behaviors as more sexist than unwanted sexual attention, suggesting the latter may less readily be identified as sexist. Variation in judgments of beliefs as sexist was related to differences in likelihood of endorsing such beliefs. This relation fully accounted for the tendency for men to be less likely to judge beliefs as sexist in comparison to women. Endorsement of Modern and Hostile Sexist beliefs was related to judgments of behaviors as sexist. The implications of the results for scale usage and identifying sexist behavior are discussed.

The authors hypothesized that masculine gender role stress would mediate the relationship between insecure attachment and controlling behaviors in a sample of men who batter To examine this hypothesis, 143 men who were court mandated to attend a batterers' intervention program in a northeastern state completed measures including the Controlling Behavior Index, the Gender Role Stress Scale, the Relationship Questionnaire, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. After controlling statistically for social desirability, results indicated that both fearful attachment and gender role stress significantly predicted controlling behaviors, with gender role stress partially mediating the relationship between fearful attachment and controlling behaviors. The discussion focuses on the importance of understanding partner abuse through a gendered context. Keywords: masculinity; gender role stress; attachment; male batterers

This paper argues that changes to the original definition of the disidentification process are in order, including reconceptualizing the restrictive gender role behaviors from boyhood onward as an early form [...]

In two studies (ns = 277 and 221), the authors examined the relationships among sex drive, sociosexuality, lifetime number of sex partners, and gender identity. They found that sex drive is highly and positively correlated with sociosexual orientation, and that both sex drive and sociosexual orientation are positively correlated with lifetime number of sex partners. However, partial correlations revealed that sociosexual orientation is an independent predictor of lifetime number of sex partners, whereas sex drive is not. The authors were also able to replicate and extend Mikach and Bailey's (1999) finding that gender identity is related to women's lifetime number of sex partners. More masculine women had more sex partners and had a less restricted sociosexual orientation than did less masculine women; less masculine men had a higher sex drive than did more masculine men. The findings are discussed with regard to theory and research on sex drive and sociosexuality. Keywords: sex drive; sociosexuality; gender identity

Since Prozac emerged on the market at the end of 1987, there has been a dramatic increase in antidepressant use and in its discussion by popular media. Yet there has been little analysis of the gendered character of this phenomenon despite feminist traditions scrutinizing the medical control of women's bodies. The authors begin to fill this gap through a detailed content analysis of the 83 major articles on Prozac and its 'chemical cousins' appearing in large-circulation periodicals in Prozac's first 12 years. They find that popular talk about Prozac and its competing brands is largely degendered, presented as manifestly gender neutral, yet replete with latent gendered messages. These are about women with neurochemical imbalances but also about the need to discipline elite female bodies, to enhance their productivity and flexibility. This new form of female 'fitness' mirrors demands of the New Economy and indicates how psychiatric discourse contributes to the historically specific shaping of gendered bodies. Keywords: Prozac; psychopharmaceuticals; gender: psychiatry; new economy

Numerous studies have documented gender differences in psychopathology: girls generally report more internalizing symptoms and boys generally report more externalizing symptoms. These gender differences are partially accounted for by the gender-typed personality characteristics of boys and girls. This study was designed to investigate how gender roles influence symptoms of psychopathology by examining the mediating effects of self- and peer-rated competencies. Using a multiple regression approach to path analysis with a sample of primarily White, middle-class high school students, gender roles significantly predicted symptoms of psychopathology and mediated the gender differences in those symptoms. In addition, the adolescents' self- and peer-rated competence in various domains helped to explain the effect of gender roles on symptoms of psychopathology. Specifically, self-rated social attractiveness and global self-worth fully mediated the relation between instrumentality (i.e., masculinity) and internalizing symptoms. Global self-worth and both self- and peer-rated achievement/conduct partially mediated the relation between expressivity (i.e., femininity) and externalizing symptoms. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. KEY WORDS: gender; gender role; competence; psychopathology.

In the present study, an ethnically diverse convenience sample (N= 182; 62% female) of working adults (56%) and college students (M age=30.9 yr., SD=12.8, range=18 to 71.) completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory which is a widely used self-report measure of perceptions of gender roles. Based on their scores, individuals' sex roles can be categorized as Masculine or Feminine (sex-typed) or Androgynous. The results of this study suggest that, almost 30 years after it was first developed, the categories can still be used to categorize men and women of varying ages.

To examine sex differences in persuasiveness, we conducted a meta-analysis of seven studies from our laboratory on reactions to human versus computer-synthesized speech. We tested three hypotheses: (1) people would be more persuaded by human speech than by computer-synthesized speech, (2) women would be slightly more persuaded than men, and (3) the sex difference would be more pronounced for human speech than for synthetic speech. While there was support for the first two hypotheses, there was none for the third. Also, no consistent support was found for a moderating effect of mode of presentation, audio versus video.

Gender differences in level of self-enhancement and in relations between self-enhancement and self-regulation in 2 school subjects, math and English, were studied among Israeli junior high school students (N = 259). In English (a feminine subject) the gender groups did not differ on their self-enhancement, but in math (a masculine subject) boys revealed significantly higher self-enhancement than did girls. The same differences were found for self-regulation of learning behaviors. It was shown further that self-enhancement mediated the relations between gender and self-regulation of learning behaviors in math. The gender groups differed on the type of relations between self-enhancement and self-regulation of learning behaviors: self-enhancement was positively related to learning behaviors among girls in math, whereas it was negatively related to such behaviors among boys in English. The implications of these last findings for self-enhancement adaptiveness are discussed. KEY WORDS: self-enhancement; self-regulation; gender; gender-typed tasks.

Nash (1979) argued that people tend to perform better on cognitive tasks when their gender-related self-concept is consistent with the stereotyping of the tasks. In order to evaluate Nash's hypothesis, participants were administered the S & M Mental Rotation Task, the Controlled Word Association Test, and the Bem (1974) Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). In men gender role orientation was significantly related to performance on the verbal task, with the critical factor being androgyny. When femininity and masculinity were assessed individually, femininity was found to be significantly related to the verbal task in men only. In women there was no significant variability across the gender role types in relation to performance on either task. These findings suggest that the importance of gender is dependent on the task and participants' sex. Nash's hypothesis was not supported for the mental rotation task. KEY WORDS: gender role orientation; Bem Sex Role Inventory; S & M Mental Rotation Task; Controlled Word Association Test.

This study was designed to investigate choice of role models and levels of self-esteem within a sample of college students (N = 120). Participants rated themselves and their chosen role models on 29 character traits, which allowed determination of the self-perceived likeness of the participant to their role models (difference score). The difference score was then correlated with four subtypes of self-esteem. As predicted, participants chose more same-sex than other-sex role models; women were more likely than men to choose other-sex role models. The results indicated that choice of same-sex, as opposed to other-sex role models, is not indicative of higher levels of self-esteem in general. However, self-perceived likeness of role model to participant is significantly related to self-esteem, particularly for women. KEY WORDS: self-esteem; role models; similarity to role models.

The Bem Sex Role Inventory was used to classify university participants into the gender types: masculine, feminine, and androgynous. Two men who cross-dress were invited to attend and interact with the participants during regular classroom periods. Pre- and posttests were administered to measure the participants' comfort level with the phenomenon of cross-dressing. Feminine-gender-typed participants were initially the most comfortable with the concept of cross-dressing and experienced the least pre- and posttest mean change following the interaction. The masculine-gender-typed participants were the least comfortable, but experienced the greatest pre- and posttest mean change. Androgynous participants' differences for pre- and posttest scores were greater than the feminine-gender-typed participants' differences, but less than those of the masculine-gender-typed participants. KEY WORDS: cross-dresser; androgynous; gender type.

This study examined university students' perceptions of which gender-role characteristics described helpful counselors for 137 nonmajors from an introduction to counseling class. Using a modification of the Broverman, et al. method (1970) and a modified version of their Stereotype Questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Participants indicated the characteristics of a helpful counselor, a helpful female counselor, or a helpful male counselor using 20 bipolar items of gender-role characteristics, t tests were applied to whether agreement of the pole considered most frequently was greater than chance (50%). Analysis indicated agreement on characteristics were most helpful in a counselor, and the direction of this agreement did not differ across the three conditions or as a function of participants' sex. Agreement was high for the individual gender-role characteristic items across conditions as two of 20 items showed significant differences. There was significantly more agreement that male counselors should not have their feelings easily hurt than female counselors and significantly less agreement that male counselors should be able to express tender feelings easily relative to a counselor of unspecified sex.

To test the hypothesis that relationship violence may be related to men's fear of emotions, a secondary data analysis examined a sample of 155 male students attending an Eastern urban university. The men had been assessed using measures of masculine gender role stress, fear of emotions, and self-reported perpetration of relationship violence. Men's fear of emotion predicted relationship violence beyond what was accounted for masculine gender role stress. In addition, men's fear of emotions was found to partially mediate the relationship between masculine gender role stress and relationship violence. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research and clinical interventions.

The degree to which perceivers automatically attend to and encode social category information was investigated. Event-related brain potentials were used to assess attentional and working-memory processes on-line as participants were presented with pictures of Black and White males and females. The authors found that attention was preferentially directed to Black targets very early in processing (by about 100 ms after stimulus onset) in both experiments. Attention to gender also emerged early but occurred about 50 ms later than attention to race. Later working-memory processes were sensitive to more complex relations between the group memberships of a target individual and the surrounding social context, These working-memory processes were sensitive to both the explicit categorization task participants were performing as well as more implicit, task-irrelevant categorization dimensions. Results are consistent with models suggesting that information about certain category dimensions is encoded relatively automatically.

The authors have attempted to increase counselors' understanding of Vietnamese men in the U.S. by discussing masculine gender role socialization influences from Vietnamese culture, including the ritual of nhau (a [...]

The authors surveyed counselors-in-training at counselor education programs nationwide, accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, to examine trainees' acceptance of rape myths and their willingness to make blame-based attributions toward a male victim of rape. Results suggested that male counselor trainees with no experience counseling sexually assaulted clients tended to endorse the greatest degree of acceptance of rape myths. Trainees of both sexes thought that a male rape victim who showed no resistance to his attacker should have done so. The authors discuss implications for counselor training and supervision., The sexual assault of men is an important issue that has been underexamined in the counseling literature. Regarding the scope of the problem, the available research suggests that men constitute [...]

Questionnaires on food attitudes and behavior were completed by 2,200 American undergraduates from 6 regionally dispersed college campuses. Results indicate that a substantial minority of women and a much smaller minority of men have major concerns about eating and food with respect to both weight and health. Overall, 14% of women reported being embarrassed to buy a chocolate bar in the store. A 6-factor structure emerged: weight concern, diet and health orientation, beliefs about the diet-health link, food negativity/importance of food as a source of pleasure in life, eating disordered behaviors, and natural/ vegetarian food preferences. There were surprisingly few regional differences, virtually none if race and social class were taken into account. Gender was the strongest predictor of responses.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of gender, sports participation, and gender orientation in predicting individuals' domain-specific and global self-esteem. A sample of 100 Grade 11 students completed measures of self-perception, body image, gender orientation, and sports participation. The results showed that although boys reported greater satisfaction with weight and appearance, there were no gender differences in general self-worth. In addition, more feminine individuals who participated in competitive sports reported lower levels of perceived athletic competence and global self-worth, but reported higher self-esteem when they participated in more noncompetitive sports. Although sports participation does predict self-esteem, participants' gender orientation and the type of sports in which they participate are moderating factors. KEY WORDS: self-esteem; body image; sports; gender; gender role orientation.

In Britain, the academic achievements of gifted girls in grade school are surpassing those of gifted boys in almost all areas of study and at all ages, whereas this does not appear to be the case in the U.S.. The evidence suggests 2 major reasons for this difference. Emotionally, British girls are now showing greater confidence in their abilities. Educationally, changes in the style and content of British curriculum and assessment may favor female study patterns, along with a national system of inspection that checks for equal gender opportunities in the classroom. Although this managed change in gender equality of opportunity in schools is seen to be highly effective, female school advantage has yet to make a significant difference in the workplace.

In discussing the construction of gender in family settings and in children's lives, one must consider the relations of these separate but closely connected arenas. Easy assumptions of unity are wrong and inappropriate but studying children in isolation from family life--or vice versa--produces a flawed picture as well. This discussion suggests that literal joinings and separations in time and space should be integral to analyses in both fields because they are integral to the phenomena researchers want to illuminate. Keywords: family; childhood; space; work/family issues

The purpose of this study was to examine further the factorial validity of the Self-efficacy Scale via component and subsequent correlational analyses. 651 undergraduates enrolled in an introductory psychology course voluntarily completed the Self-efficacy Scale and the Bern Sex-role Inventory. A principal component analysis with an orthogonal rotation produced a two-factor solution which was remarkably similar to the factor structures reported previously. The two factors (General Self-efficacy and Social Self-efficacy) accounted for about 34% of the total variance. Further, the correlation coefficients indicated that General Self-efficacy was more strongly related to masculine traits than to feminine traits, as defined by the Bem Sex-role Inventory.

Despite the increasing frequency and prominence of other-sex interactions in adolescence, surprisingly little is known about their role in social development and adjustment. This study sought to take an initial step toward a better understanding of such interactions through the development of a taxonomy of teen-identified problematic heterosocial situations. For this purpose, a transcription-based content analysis of 10 same-sex focus groups composed of a total of 58 adolescents was utilized. Nine distinct themes of problematic heterosocial situations encompassing dyadic interactions within the bounds of casual relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, working relationships, and abusive relationships emerged. The results of this study support the importance of romantic relationships in the lives of the participating adolescents, as 3 of the 9 themes describe romantic and/or sexual relationships. A particularly interesting aspect of our findings is the range of situations identified in addition to da ting and/or sexual activity. Participating youths actively discussed friendships with members of the other sex, work and classroom acquaintanceships, and relationships made more difficult by the presence of alcohol or drugs. In addition, several participants discussed sexual harassment and other abusive relationship situations (e.g., rape, emotional abuse). KEY WORDS: other-sex interactions; heterosocial skills; adolescence; peer relations; romantic relationships.

Sexual coercion is a prevalent problem on U.S. college campuses. One potential avenue by which it may occur is the misinterpretation of social cues, and such misperception may be mediated by extreme sex role adherence, i.e., hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity. 62 undergraduate students viewed a film of a neutral interaction between a college-aged man and woman. Subsequently, participants indicated which behaviors they remembered the opposite-sex actor performing, offered a prediction as to the outcome of the scenario and what they would do had they been in a similar situation, and then completed either the Hypermasculinity Inventory or the Hyperfemininity Scale. Scores on the former correlated negatively with recall accuracy, and men indicated that they were more likely to date and have sex with the actress than women reported being likely to date or have sex with the actor. Women reported a high perceived likelihood of dating the actor coupled with the expectation that he would have sex with the actress. Likewise, women expected to be sexually coerced by the actor had they been in a similar situation. Social implications of these findings and possible research are discussed.

Though often conflated, informal physical exercise and organized athletic participation have very different implications for adolescent sexual risk outcomes. The purpose of this research is to disaggregate strenuous exercise from sports, examine how each is associated with sexual risk, and explain the observed differences using the conceptual lens of cultural resource theory. Using a nationally representative sample of over 16,000 public and private high school students, we employ logistic regression to test hypotheses about the gender-specific and race-specific effects of strenuous exercise and athletic participation on adolescent sexual risk behavior. The results show that both forms of physical activity buffer sexual risk for girls. Strenuous exercise is associated with increased odds of sexual risk for boys. Sports and race interact to influence boys' sexual risk outcomes: Athletic participation is associated with lowered odds of sexual risk for white male adolescents, but heightened odds of sexual risk for black male adolescents.

We proposed and tested a theoretical model that links membership in a devalued social group to emotional health. People who identify with devalued social groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, gay men/lesbians, bisexuals, women) may be at increased risk for distress via 3 different pathways. First, some members of devalued groups may internalize negative stereotypes about their group, which negatively impact personal self-esteem. Second, being devalued simply on the basis of one's group membership could lead to emotional distress independent of one's own personal self-esteem. Third, some members of devalued groups may be socialized to develop attitudes and behaviors that increase their risk for emotional distress. Data were collected from a sample of White, middle-to-upper-class undergraduate women and men with respect to personal self-esteem, collective self-esteem on the basis of their gender group, attitudes and behaviors associated with female socialization, and emotional distress. Results supported the direct effect of each pathway in predicting concurrent depression and partially supported the prediction of concurrent anxiety. Each pathway fully accounted for women's greater levels of depression relative to men's. Implications for the study of devalued groups are discussed. KEY WORDS: self-esteem; collective identity; socialization; gender; mood.

Research indicates that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ) teens in the care of a northeastern child welfare department do not receive adequate services due to the workers' homophobic attitudes. These teens are at high risk for alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, prostitution, and suicide. A training module was developed for administrators. Pretest and posttest instruments measured their education and support of GLBTQ issues before and after the training.