Female Stimulus Persons Research Articles

The Effect of Competition on Stereotypes about Sex-Role and Marital Satisfaction

Summary Sex-role stereotypes attributed to descriptions of married couples were examined. Ratings of the “femininity” or “masculinity” of couples were made by 259 male and female undergraduates. In the competitive conditions, couples were described as attending medical or law school. Their performance was described as successful or unsuccessful. In the noncompetitive conditions, they enacted traditional roles. “Masculine” traits were associated with achievement and “feminine” traits with nonachievement, for both female and male stimulus persons. The low-achieving female and the housewife were rated as equally “feminine.” When the couple were in the same field, the husband was rated as more “masculine” than when they were in different fields. Male raters tended to see the husband as less “masculine” when his wife was successful; female raters saw him as less “masculine” when his wife was unsuccessful. When the husband was rated second, he was rated as more “masculine” than when he was rated first. Marital ...

Sex Factors and Allocation of Attention in Observing Persons

Summary Standard videotapes of two male and two female stimulus persons were viewed by 72 college students (33 male, 39 female), and allocation of attention was assessed by distribution of responses in an unstructured free-recall test after each tape. Female student observers were found to attend relatively more to gestures and verbal style, while male student observers attended more to appearance and verbal content. For male stimulus persons, observer attention centered on verbal stimuli, whereas for female stimulus persons observer attention focused more on visual stimuli. Details of these findings and others are interpreted in relation to results of previous studies on sex-role stereotyping, person perception, incidental learning, and observational accuracy.

Influence of Clothing and Physical Attractiveness in Person Perception

Using a semantic differential to assess person perception, a non-random sample of 30 female university students recorded their impressions of a number of pictures of female stimulus persons. The pictures represented a systematic pairing of faces of varying levels of attractiveness, and clothed bodies of varying levels of attractiveness. The results of a 3 × 3 Latin square analysis of variance showed facial attractiveness to be a significant factor in the perception of physical attractiveness of the total unit, social and professional happiness, and social desirability. Attractiveness of the clothed body exerted a significant effect in the perception of bourgeois orientation. Pearson productmoment correlation results indicated that as level of perceived physical attractiveness increased, so did the perception of social and professional happiness and social desirability.

Effects of modeling and modeling with instructions and feedback on the behavioral components of social skills

Modeling and modeling plus instructions and feedback were compared for social skills training of a male schizophrenic patient in a modified multiple-baseline desggn. Generalization to different individuals and social situations was assessed by probe scenes within sessions and between experimental conditions. For each scence, the subject responsed to male and female stimulus persons. The dependent measures were duration of eye contact, number of head and hand gestures, and ratings of affect and assertiveness. Modeling alone increased affect, but not gestures or duration of eye contact. Modeling combined with instructions and feedback increased eye contact, gestures, and overall affect.

Additional evidence for veridicality of perceptions based on physiognomic cues.

This study was designed to determine whether veridical interpersonal perceptions can be found on the basis of physiognomic cues. 21 male and female college students attempted to identify the correct social category [honor student, active or inactive in extracurricular events, and beauty queen (for female stimulus persons) or athlete (for male stimulus persons)] of 44 photographed male and female stimulus persons. Results demonstrated considerable veridicality, especially by male judges and of stimulus persons occupying categories which imply physical attributes.

Impression Formation: Differential Effects of Pictorial Context on Status-Relevant and -Nonrelevant Trait Attribution

Ratings by college Ss of a young, female stimulus person on three status-relevant traits (ambitious, educated, cultured) and three status-non-relevant traits (friendly, moral, lazy) were compared when that person was photographed in a neutral (nature setting) vs a high, medium, or low status background (house type). It was hypothesized that: trait ratings would vary as a function of background across all traits, status-relevant traits would be more sensitive to background effects, and men and women would not differ in their ratings. All hypotheses were confirmed.

Likability, Sex‐role Congruence of Interest, and Competence: It All Depends on How You Ask1

Subjects were shown one of four videotaped versions of a male or female stimulus person (SP) being interviewed, the SP' s being Competent or Incompetent and Masculine or Feminine in their interests. All S s were asked to rate the SPs' likability on an objective questionnaire, those in one condition (Standard) immediately after viewing the tape, and in another (Projective) after first having responded to a series of open‐ended, TAT‐like questions about the SP. In the Standard condition, the major results were two highly significant effects‐Competent SP s were liked better than Incompetent ones, and the Masculine Competent SP s more than their feminine counterparts. Several changes occurred in the Projective condition. Only profeminist women continued to prefer the Masculine Competent female SP to the Feminine Competent, the other group reversing their ratings. In response to the male SP s, profeminist males in the Projective condition preferred both Masculine SP s to the Feminine ones and, in comparison with other groups, exhibited a reduced competency effect.

Inferences about the femininity of competent women and their implications for likability

Male (N=59) and female (N=60) college students were given a written protocol describing a competent, achievement-oriented female stimulus person (SP) with either a masculine or feminine pattern of vocational and avocational interests. Three groups were given a masculine-pattern protocol and one group was given a feminine-pattern one. They were then asked to rate the SP on likability in work and social settings, femininity, and a number of other personal attributes. Two groups given the masculine-pattern protocol were also supplied with the SP's responses to items from a “personality” test answered in a predominantly feminine (Masculine—Feminine SP) or masculine (Masculine-Masculine SP) direction. The remaining groups (Masculine-Neutral and Feminine-Neutral SPs) were given no additional information. In agreement with previous findings, the Masculine-Neutral SP was liked more in social settings than was the Feminine-Neutral one. It was hypothesized and confirmed that the Masculine-Neutral SP would be perceived as similar to the Masculine-Feminine SP in femininity and likability and that both these SPs would be judged to be higher on these characteristics than the Masculine-Masculine. Complex results were obtained from the ratings of other attributes. Overall, they indicated that the Masculine-Feminine SP, in whom femininity was explicitly suggested, received the weakest ratings on a series of achievement-related attributes and the Masculine-Neutral SP the strongest.

Interpersonal Attraction and Help Volunteering as a Function of Physical Attractiveness

Summary The effects of physical attractiveness on both interpersonal attraction and help-volunteering behavior were measured. First, 20 male and 20 female undergraduates viewed two male stimulus persons in a short videotape debate and rated them on a semantic differential scale. The “debaters” were discrepant both in physical attractiveness and behavior, adopting either a “nice” or “obnoxious” demeanor. In the second phase E asked subjects to help one of two female stimulus persons who were also discrepant in physical attractiveness. In both phases subjects were affected significantly by the physical attractiveness of the stimulus persons regardless of the sex of the subjects. The more attractive male was rated higher on favorable traits, and the more attractive female stimulus person more readily drew volunteers; in neither phase was there a significant sex of S × sex of stimulus person interaction. Added strength is given to this finding by virtue of a behavioral measure.

Effects of Trait Guilt on Impressions of Character and Prescriptions of Punishment and Guilt

In order to determine the effect of trait guilt on impression formation, high and low G-trait Ss read a simulated newspaper story of a student caught cheating on an examination. High and low G-trait males and females, presented with either a male or female stimulus person, indicated ratings of credibility and character, prescribed punishment and appropriate guilt for the offense, and estimated the stimulus person's and their own guilt in the cheating situation. Results indicated that high G-trait Ss prescribed significantly less severe punishment for the female stimulus person. There was also a tendency for high G-trait Ss to impute more intense guilt to the stimulus person and to estimate their own guilt for cheating to be greater than low guilt Ss. These findings and other trends were interpreted from a sex-typing and role-expectation perspective.

Same-Sex Recall Effects in Tests of Observational Accuracy

Reviews of research on observational accuracy (1,3) have typically reported small but highly consistent superiority of females in observational ability. T o test further the generality of this finding over a variety of observational tasks, four distinctive tests were administered to se arate samples during experimental training in observation. The Memory &r Names and Faces subscale of the George Washington University Social Intelligence Test was given to one group, the Xerox Corporation Effective Listening Test was given to a second group, and a modification of the Harris-Bruni test of accuracy of observing appearance and conversation ( 2 ) was administered to two other groups. A 60item test of accuracy of observing gestures and nonverbal behaviors from videotapes was constructed and administered to a fifth group. Tests were randomly assigned to the five groups of introductory sociology students. Controlling for the effects of training and pretesting, partial cotrelations between sex (female) and the various test scores (Column 1 ) did indicate small but significant superiority of females. inspecting the range of magnitude of these correlations, we noted that superiority of females was greater on those tests that involved observation of both male and female stimulus persons (Test Groups 1, 4, and 5) than on tests that involved male stimuli only (Test Groups 2 and 3 ) .

Personal Space and Stimulus Intensity at a Southern California Amusement Park

themselves from fearful others, and as a means of expressing liking or disliking of another. Another function seems to be the control of the intensity of stimulation received from others. It was proposed that Ss should regulate this stimulation by positioning themselves relative to particular others according to the intensity of stimulation these individuals provide. To test this hypothesis, male and female stimulus persons entered queues for attractions at an amusement park. It was found that Ss immediately behind them in line stood further away when the stimulus persons wore brightly colored clothes (high stimulus intensity condition) than when they wore more conservative clothing. Subjects similarly stood further away when the stimulus persons used perfume or after-shave lotion than when they used no scent. Sex differences observed in this situation are somewhat contradictory to earlier findings. The inconsistencies are discussed in terms of the normative constraints of the artificial and self-conscious laboratory setting as compared with the naturalistic situation used here.

Inferential sets and person perception: a partial replication and extension.

203 female Ss read a short case-study and a group of related questions. They were then required to complete a 12 adjective-pair semantic differential indicating their dispositional judgments of the stimulus person in the narrative. Two independent variables were manipulated, the sex of the stimulus person and the group of questions asked. One group of questions was intended to induce a situation-matching set and the other a causal-genetic set. Ss in the situation-matching group rated the male stimulus person more hard ( p < .05), more bold ( p < .01), and less emotional ( p < .05) than Ss in the causal-genetic group. In the case of the female stimulus person Ss in the situation-matching group perceived her as more bold ( p < .05). Differences due to sex alone were found only for the situation-matching groups who perceived the female stimulus person as less hard ( p < .05) and less rugged ( p < .01) than the male.

Who Likes Competent Women? Competence, Sex‐Role Congruence of Interests, and Subjects' Attitudes Toward Women as Determinants of Interpersonal Attraction1

Men (N= 264) and women (N= 343) students were shown one of 4 videotape versions of a female stimulus person (SP) being interviewed. The SP portrayed a Competent or Incompetent individual who was Feminine or Masculine in her interests. The S s, who had previously been given an Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS, Spence & Helmreich, 1972) rated the SP on several characteristics, including likability. A 2 × 2 ANOVA indicated that women S s significantly preferred the Competent and the Masculine SPs. For men, the variables interacted significantly, the Masculine‐Competent SP being liked most, the Masculine‐Incompetent least, and the two Feminine SP s being intermediate and similar to each other. When S s' AWS scores (high, medium, or low) were included, complex interactions were found between AWS and experimental condition, especially in the male groups.