Context dependent activation of gender role self-concept

A main issue of social psychological self-concept research is the study of relations between momentary activation of self-knowledge and the behavior. Cognitive theories propose that self-knowledge is organized within an assoziative network. Momentary activation of self-knowledge is a result of both the chronical availability and a situation-dependent activation. Commonly used personality questionnaires can be seen as self-knowledge measures. Several studies provided evidence that people`s self-descriptions vary in dependence of diverse situational contexts. Gender role self-concept is a part of people`s self-knowledge that includes societal determined gender stereotypes. Research has shown that people possess two separate gender role self-concepts, a female role (FEM) and a male role self-concept (MASC). Own studies provided evidence that people show differences in their FEM and MASC in dependence of different situational contexts (e.g., own status position within a group, the sex of an interaction partner). The main goal of the planned studies is to assess different self-knowledge activation not only with questionnaire measures but, additionally, with reaction time measurement. Moreover, a main goal will be to study the relations between activation of FEM or MASC and observed behaviors of people who interact in same-sex or mixed-sex groups with varying size. Further, implications of status position within the group and different gender typicality of tasks for the self-concept x behavior relation will be studied. Four studies are planned with the following research aims: (1) The aim of Study 1 is to provide evidence on the reliability and validity of the computerized gender role self-concept measures. (2) The main goal of Study 2 is to show how status and gender of the interaction partners relate to gender role self-concept activation. (3) Study 3 addresses the question if gender role self-concept of people in same-sex or mixed-sex dyads is related to communication behavior. The people within the dyads will discuss different topics varying gender typicality (masculine vs. feminine vs. gender neutral topics. We will analyze how the expected self-concept x behavior correlations differ depending upon the gender typicality of the discussion topics. (4) In Study 4 we will study four- person groups instead of dyads. Thus, we assess the generalizability of the results concerning the correlation of gender role self-concept activation and situational context variables (group composition, gender typicality of task, and status position within a group) to larger groups.

The research investigated changes of gender role self-concept (GRS) in dependence of situational aspects and, additionally, its relevance for communication behavior. GRS is defined as the amount of self-ascribed attributes and behaviors that are assumed to be more typical for men or women. It is known, that the female role and the male role self-concept can be conceptualized as independent parts of the GRS. Both men and women possess both self-concepts, although men describe themselves as more masculine and less feminine than women. A first step of the project was to develop a computerized questionnaire to measure not only self-descriptions but also answering reaction times. It could be shown, that individuals agreed faster to attributes or behaviors, respectively, the more often they agreed to them. Thus, it can be concluded that the reaction times represent a measure for the accessibility (or the activation) of a self-concept. The results of three studies showed GRS changes in dependence of situational aspects (activations sources). Especially, relative status was an activation source for male role self-concept. However, this was only the case if status differences were not externally legitimized (e.g. because of better skills) but clearly implemented by the experimenters. Gender of the interaction partner was an important activation source for the female role self-concept in interaction with participants` own gender. These results suggest that female role self-concept is activated when individuals show caring towards their interaction partners. The GRS activation was found for both measures of GRS, the number of agreements to GRS items and the agreement latencies. For instance, high status individuals agreed faster to masculine attributes and behaviors after the interaction than they had done before the interaction. Furthermore, the communication behavior depends upon the GRS measured before the interaction. For instance, women and men spoke more the more masculine they had described themselves. Furthermore, communication behavior is linked to GRS change during the interaction. However, not only the own behavior but in addition also the partner`s behavior is linked to individuals` self-concept activation. Finally, we also found that individuals GRS activation is linked to their partner behaviour. As a by-product of our research we were able to show consistent gender differences for typical feminine communication behavior (verbal reinforcements, usage of tentative language, nodding). For typical masculine behavior, we found evidence that actually status is more important than gender. To summarize, the research provides evidence that GRS is malleable and that its changes are linked to situational activation sources and communication behavior. The basic processes are almost equal for men and women. Furthermore, it is GRS contributes to gender-typed communication behavior aside and above biological sex.