“Names Can Never Hurt Me?”

Abstract

Research has shown that a woman's selected title of address affects perceiver impressions of her (e.g., Dion, 1987). This study adds to our understanding of the effects of chosen identity labels on perceptions of women by examining impressions as a function of a married woman's surname use. A total of 222 female and male students at a private university read a brief description of a woman who, at the time of her marriage, decided to take her husband's name, keep her maiden name, or use a hyphenated name. Participants rated the stimulus person on 51 traits along 7-point rating scales. The woman who took her husband's name was perceived as less agentic and more communal than women who either kept their maiden name or hyphenated their name.