Social Norms in Same- and Cross-Gender Friendships

Abstract

Participants evaluate several vignettes that describe a friend's behaviors, where friend's gender is the experimental manipulation. Results show that women are significantly more approving than men of a friend's crying or hugging, and less approving of shoving. Men are less disapproving of a male friend who cancels plans with them for a date, or a male friend who kisses someone who is not his current partner, than are women of a friend of either gender in these situations. Men also use approximately half as many normative words when evaluating a male friend as when evaluating a female friend, or as women use when evaluating a friend of either gender. Nevertheless, gender has less effect on evaluations of behavioral appropriateness than do the type of friendship behavior evaluated and the context. Finally, no support is found for the argument that cross-gender friendships are scriptless.