THE SEX VARIABLE IN CONFORMING BEHAVIOR.
Abstract
The study calls into question the fact that, in most experimental studies, the tendency for females to be more susceptible to pressures toward conformity to group influences has been attributed to cultural prescriptions for the female sex role. A battery of items was developed to isolate (a) item ambiguity or difficulty of judgment, and (b) characterization of the item content as an area of masculine, feminine, or neutral interest and sophistication. Under these conditions, it was found that overall females yielded no more often than males to the pressures of an anonymous majority. More importantly, females yielded more often than males only on judgments which had been consensually characterized as areas of masculine interest and sophistication. The data thus suggest that the 'sexrole' interpretation of sex differences in conforming behavior may be an over-simplification which ignores the operation of more specific variables such as subjective confidence in the area of influenced judgment. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1965
- Accession Number
- AD0622208
Entities
People
- John W. Mcdavid
Organizations
- University of Miami