Psychological and social functions of gender stereotypes
In recent years, in foreign psychology, interest in social stereotypes in general and in sex-role stereotypes in particular has sharply increased. The number of studies and publications is increasing, special conferences and symposia are being organized. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of foreign studies on the nature and functions of gender stereotyping remain virtually unknown to the Soviet reader. The available reviews on related problems do not( and do not set this as their goal) a holistic impression of this very important area of psychological research. After all, studying a wide range of issues related to various aspects of sex-role stereotypes is undoubtedly not only theoretical, but also of great practical importance: it is enough to mention in this connection only two areas - family relations and the upbringing of the younger generation in the school. In this review, an attempt is made to summarize the main directions in the study of the social and psychological functions of sex stereotypes abroad and, at the same time, if possible, to reconstruct the very logic of the development of all studies and outline the main trends in the theoretical analysis of the problem.
The first studies of gender-based stereotyping were related to attempts to isolate typical differences related to the representations of women and men about each other and about themselves. Summing up these studies, in 1957, J. McKee and A. Sherriffs concluded, firstly, that a typically male image is a set of traits associated with socially non-limiting behavior, competence and rational abilities, activity and efficiency. Typically, the female image, on the contrary, includes social and communicative skills, warmth and emotional support. At the same time, excessive accentuation of both typical masculine and typical feminine traits acquires a negative appraisal of color: typical of the negative qualities of a man are rudeness, authoritarianism, excessive rationalism, etc., women - formalism, passivity, excessive emotionality, etc. Second, J. McKee and A. Sherriffs concluded that in general, men are attributed more positive qualities than women. And, finally, these authors found that men demonstrate much greater consistency with respect to typically masculine qualities than female females.
Since the 60's.the study of stereotyped ideas about the abilities of men and women, their competence in various fields of activity and the reasons for their professional success is gaining in popularity. Thus, P. Goldberg discovered a certain proportion of women's prejudice against themselves in the sphere of scientific activity;college students are more highly rated articles written by men than women. Approximately the same data were obtained in the experiment, where the subjects of both sexes had to evaluate the pictures offered by him, some of which were allegedly written by men, and others by women. Another independent variable in this study was the status of artists: in one case, the authors of paintings - both men and women - seemed to the subjects as novice artists, and in the other as winners of competitions. There was also a reassessment of paintings written by men, but this was true only in relation to the conditions of the first series, when artists were introduced as beginners. The authors believe that the mere fact of victory at the contest, as it were, equalized the professional skills of artists in the eyes of the subjects, regardless of their gender, and this acted in opposition to the stereotype of the obviously lower abilities of women in the field of painting.
Having obtained similar results from previous ones, C. Doe attempted to interpret them using the theory of causal attribution, according to which success or failure in any activity is explained differently depending on whether they are unexpected or, on the contrary, expected, probable. The expected behavior is usually attributed to the so-called stable causes, and unexpected - unstable. Therefore, in accordance with sex-role stereotypes, the good performance of the task, the high result in anything achieved by a man, is most often explained by his abilities( an example of a stable cause), and exactly the same result achieved by a woman is due to her efforts, accidental luck or otherunstable causes. Moreover, the very typology of stable and unstable causes is not the same depending on whose behavior is explained - women or men. In particular, S. Kisler found that both "abilities" and "efforts" can have different appraisal connotations in explaining the behavior of women and men. For example, when explaining the success of a woman, the factor of effort is considered most often as unstable and generally has some negative appraisal, and as applied to the professional success of a man, this factor is interpreted as stable and having a positive estimated valence as a necessary condition for the "natural male need to achieve", As a means of overcoming the barriers and difficulties arising on the way to the goal.
In real interpersonal interaction and in a purely personal plan, competence is more negative for women than a positive factor: highly competent women do not enjoy the disposition of either men or women. This conclusion logically follows from an experimental study in which it was shown that, in general, both men and women tend to exclude competent women from their group, a trend that is observed in conditions of both cooperative and competitive interaction. The authors interpret their findings as follows: a woman's high competence refutes existing stereotypes. In this case, there are several ways to respond to this contradiction: 1) change the stereotype;2) to refute the fact of having competence;3) generally eliminate the contradiction by actually eliminating, excluding a competent woman from the group. The last two are used most often, not only in the experimental situation, but also in real life. Losing the woman in the competition, R. Hagen and A. Kahn believe, especially for a man with conservative, traditional attitudes toward the relationship of the sexes, almost always means a reduction in self-esteem, because according to unwritten norms in traditional Western culture, "a real man is superior to a womanand always has to beat it. "
The last of these studies is an example of attempts to explain the existing sex-role stereotypes, appealing to a wider social context. Studies of this kind set as their task not only to describe the content of sex-role stereotypes, but also to clarify their functions. The most important of such functions is the majority of researchers consider the justification and protection of the existing state of things, including the actual gender inequality. So, for example, O. Leary explicitly writes about the existence in the American society of norms of prejudice against women having any priority over men of the same age and social status. She investigated the relationship between sex-role stereotypes and the justification for delaying the advancement of women through the industrial ladder in industry. According to the author, without any objective reasons, women are ascribed the following attitudes to work: they work only for the sake of "pin" money;in their work they are more interested in purely communicative and emotional moments;women prefer work that does not require intellectual effort;they value self-actualization and promotion less than men. The basis of all these, in the opinion of the author, absolutely unfounded views are the different sex and role stereotypes, according to which women lack the features related to competence, independence, competition, logic, claims, etc., and who, on the contrary, postulate with thememphatic expressiveness of emotional communicative characteristics.
Often to justify the role of justification, gender stereotypes turn to the distant past, trying to understand the existing asymmetry on the basis of cultural and historical experience. Thus, for example, analyzing the image of a woman in history, J. Hunter came to the conclusion that, on the whole, this is an image of inferiority, and the process of women's emancipation from deep antiquity was unambiguously and directly associated with destructive social consequences, with the collapse of morality and the destruction of the family. For example, one of the main reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire was associated with the far-reaching process of women's emancipation. J. Hunter also believes that the Christian tradition, which regards a woman as a source of evil, had a great influence on the content of modern gender role stereotypes: it was not by chance that the women formed the main contingent of the victims of the Inquisition. These and other factors of the cultural and historical order, according to a number of researchers, influenced what S. and D. Böhm called "the unconscious ideology" of the natural place of women in society, as well as the thin, camouflaged forms of inequality associated with this ideology anddiscrimination in the West. Polorolevye stereotypes are designed to justify this ideology, and this practice, which determines their semantic and evaluative content.
A special field of research, where, according to experts, the protective and justifiable function of sex-role stereotypes is demonstrated with special clarity, these are rape studies. A broad study of this problem began in the mid-1970s, in a very short time, three hundred studies were carried out, and the range of aspects studied was broadened. So, for example, G. Field has established that in general men in comparison with women attribute much greater responsibility for what happened to the victim. At the same time, men with conservative views tend to interpret rape as primarily a "slip" of the victim and at the same time believe that a raped woman loses her attractiveness. Men with more liberal views ascribe to the victim about the same degree of responsibility, but do not deny her a certain attractiveness. It is interesting that the opinions of the general public and the police about the responsibility for rape turned out to be more similar to the point of view of the perpetrators themselves than lawyers. According to the author, the essence of the findings is that, on the whole, men demonstrate a more lenient attitude towards sexual violence than women, and policemen naturally share stereotypes that prevail in the "masculine culture".However, in a number of other works it has been shown that women attribute greater responsibility to the victim than men, although they are more likely than men to consider the victim to be worthy of respect, condescension and compassion. The attractiveness factor of the victim was also far from unambiguous. Lack of data. S. Kanekar and co-workers.explains the different modality of the concept of responsibility, which often means two different aspects: the likelihood of the very fact of violence( the causal aspect) and the blame for what happened( the moral aspect).The results of the research showed the following: 1) the seduction of the victim( in clothing and behavior) increases the guilt attributed to her and the perceived probability of rape( that is, both moral and causal responsibility of the victim);2) married women, in comparison with unmarried women, are attributed great fault, but no more likely to be raped;3) the attractiveness of the victim increases the likelihood of rape, but not the fault for it;4) In general, women recommend longer terms of imprisonment for abusers than men.
The author's interpretation of the obtained data is reduced to ascertaining the natural and natural asymmetry in the positions of women and men in relation to the situation of rape: women are forced to identify with the victim and men are forced to identify with the abuser. Therefore, in relation to this situation, sex-role stereotypes perform both a protective function for women and an exculpatory one for men. The protective function of the representations typical of the female contingent of subjects compared to men is not only to reduce moral responsibility( guilt) and exaggerate the causal responsibility( probability) attributed to the victim, but also in the desire to differ as much as possible from the victim according to the criteria used in the experiment: attractiveness, provocative behavior and clothing;social status. Accordingly, the acquittal function of the representations characteristic of the male contingent of the subjects, on the contrary, is manifested not only in exaggeration in comparison with women of moral and causal responsibility attributed to the victim, but in a more lenient attitude towards the criminal.
Recently, a number of other functions of sex role stereotypes have been subjected to analysis, for example, regulatory, explanatory translational, etc. Let us briefly illustrate some of the most interesting of them.
A number of authors believe that the concept of sex-role stereotypes can be applied not only to the description of the person's cognitive-emotional sphere, but also to the directly observable behavior of people. An important task, however, is the study of typical differences between men and women in the manner of behavior, in the "playing" of sex roles and rituals. For example, by the method of natural experiment, differences in the manner of women and men were studied to cross the street to red light in violation of traffic rules. It was found that women are less likely than men to cross the street to red light first, but more often they violate the rules after a more determined violator. The main conclusion of the author boils down to the fact that, apparently, women are more flexible to the requirements prohibiting violations of the rules, but at the same time they are more conformable to group pressure in such a situation. Another example of a study of the regulative function of sex-role stereotypes is to study the influence of ethnic and gender identity on helping behavior. Four white Englishmen( two men and two women) and four British citizens - Hispanics( two men and two women) asked the white British to exchange coins for the pay phone. The results showed that both women and men demonstrate racial discrimination, but only towards members of their gender, but not the opposite.
"Studies of the retransmission function of gender stereotyping are becoming more popular, in particular, very important questions are discussed about how different social institutions, literature, art, the media, etc., contribute( or hinder) the formation andFor example, to determine whether there are differences in the image of consumers and consumers, and if so, what they are, images of men and women were studied in advertisingthe essence of the differences found coincided with the traditional lines of gender stereotyping: men are most often portrayed as reasoning and evaluating goods that understand the objective reasons for its purchase, occupy autonomous roles and are associated with the practical use of acquired items, women, on the contrary, do notas discussing and evaluating the merits of the acquired goods, but as being driven by subjective reasons in its acquisition( emotions and desires), occupying additionalnye and dependent roles( wife, lover, friend), and associated with social prestige and the symbolic value of the purchased items. Unfortunately, in works of this kind, the answers to the main question are not heuristic enough: what is ultimately the cause, and what is the consequence? The authors' conclusions most often boil down to the observation that, on the one hand, the mass media draw their images from existing stereotypes, and on the other, that the latter are reinforced and disseminated by the mass media.
Another, very important direction in studying the retransmission function of sex-role stereotyping is associated with the genetic, age-related aspects of the problem. The role of sex role stereotypes in the formation and development of gender identity in children and adolescents is analyzed. For example, when studying how boys and girls assess behavior in schools of their own and the opposite sex, D. Hartley found that boys assess the behavior of girls only in positive tones, and their own - in both positive and negative, while girlsdetermine their own behavior as good, and the behavior of boys as bad. The author's interpretation of the obtained data is reduced to the fact that the role of a schoolboy and a schoolgirl varies in different ways with sex-role stereotypes. According to D. Hartley, being a "good" schoolgirl and a "real" woman - in general, does not contradict each other;but to be a good( diligent) schoolboy and at the same time feel like a "real" man - these are things in a certain sense the opposite.
The most recent attempts are being made to apply the theory of social identity developed by G. Taizfel and J. Turner to explain the process of sex-role stereotyping. A great deal of attention in this theory is given to the differentiating function of social stereotypes, which consists in the tendency to minimize differences between members entering into oneand the same group, and to maximize the differences between members of opposing groups. An important point of the theory of social identity is also a description of those potential strategies that can be used in the interaction of groups with different social status. Based on this theory, K. Guichi believes that men and women can be considered as a whole as social groups with different social status, with all the ensuing consequences. High-status groups are most often assessed in terms of competence and economic success, and low-status groups - in terms of warmth, kindness, humanity, etc. In the author's opinion, all the positive yurts of the female stereotype( warmth, emotional support, compliance, etc.) are just a typical compensation for the lack of achievements in the "power position".The findings in a number of studies that women share with men the tendency to overestimate male achievements and dignity and underestimate their own are also interpreted by K. Guici as a direct consequence of differences in social status: women seem to adopt the point of view of a higher-status group of men. As members of a low-status group, and for this reason, women have less sense of identification with their group than men, which explains many of the meaningful and structural characteristics of sex-role stereotypes, including less coherence of women's self-image, less self-esteem andetc.
Let us summarize this brief overview in the form of posing a number of discussion problems.
1. Over the past 30 years, the study of sex-role stereotypes in foreign psychology has not only intensified dramatically, but has also changed qualitatively. If the first studies were limited only to the description of the main substantive features of the stereotype, then in the future the desire to explain the nature and functions of sex-role stereotyping as such appears. However, because of the limitations of general methodological principles, the explanatory models proposed in the West turn out to be largely one-sided and partial. In some models, the only determinants of gender-based stereotyping are purely cognitive factors, in others - the whole thing boils down to simplified social factors. We believe that neither psychological nor sociological reductionism is a convincing methodological platform for the scientific and psychological analysis of the regularities of sex-role stereotypes, for elucidating their psychological and social functions.
2. In foreign works devoted to sex-role stereotypes, the problem of objectively existing sex differences due to sexual dimorphism, the biological expediency of specializing sexes in the process of reproductive activity, is almost completely not addressed. It is always about perceived, not really existing differences between the sexes. Meanwhile, one of the main tasks is just to find out how stereotypes correspond to reality, to what extent they are wrong or true. A truly scientific study of gender stereotyping requires the integration of at least three levels of explanation - biological, psychological and social. Sexual stereotypes should be understood simultaneously as a consequence of sexual dimorphism, the corresponding psychological differences and social and cultural-historical factors.
3. The social context leaves an imprint not only on the content of sex-role stereotypes, but also on the general pathos and nature of the studies devoted to them. Most researchers of this problem in the West are women. In many works, the spirit of protest against the continuing socio-economic and legal inequality between women and men continues to exist in Western society. In many works, the influence of feminist ideology is clearly manifested, and often in its extreme forms, when any differences are denied and claims of absolute equality and full symmetry in the relations between the sexes are put forward. To prove such extremes, many ideologists of the feminist movement appeal to psychological facts and patterns, trying to justify their views and goals with the help of science. This review does not imply a special discussion of this problem, let us give only the point of view of a psychologist and an ethnographer? And Able Eybesfeldt, with whom we fully agree."Denying the inherent differences between a man and a woman is very fashionable, it corresponds to the desire of man to free himself from all restrictions, get rid of his biological heritage. But freedom is not achieved by ignoring the truth. .. "
4. A special area of research, which we did not mention in this review, but deserves the closest attention, are comparatively cultural studies of gender stereotyping. We have the right to expect a qualitatively different content of sex-role stereotypes and a different combination of their functions in societies of various types. The accumulated factual material, unfortunately, is not enough to prepare a basis for scientifically grounded conclusions. Theoretical and practical research is needed in this field.