LECTURE 7 Gender, Culture, and Emotional Expression

1
LECTURE 7Gender, Culture, and Emotional
Expression

• June 29th, 2005
• PSYC 2120 (M) 3.0 Social Psychology

When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue
another, a practiced man relies on the language
of the first Emerson, 1860
2
Road Map

• Stereotype Susceptibility (cont.)
• Gender and Cultural influences
• Individualist versus Collectivist selves
• Gender and Self-Esteem
• Emotional Expression
• Universality of Emotional Expression
• Nonverbal Accents

3
Anxiety and Stereotype Threat

• Steele and Aronson (Studies 1 2)
• Black students in diagnostic condition had lower
  test performance, but not greater self-reported
  anxiety
• Steele and Aronson (Study 3)
• When anticipating a challenging test described as
  diagnostic, Black students filled in more
  race-related words and more self-doubt words
• Building on the classics (Study 1)
• When under stereotype threat (anticipating a
  challenging math test), women performed better on
  a simple task (writing their name forwards) but
  worse on a challenging task (writing their name
  backwards)
• Building on the classics (Study 2)
• When could attribute their anxiety to a box,
  stereotype threatened women didnt under-perform
  on a challenging math test

4
Stereotype Susceptibility

• Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999)
• How are we affected by our multiple identities?
• Can our performance be enhanced by positive
  stereotypes?
• Subtly reminded Asian-women of their Asian,
  female or a neutral identity
• Examined math test performance (accuracy)

5
Math test accuracy
6
Model Minority Status

• Cheryan Bodenhausen (2000)
• Recruited math-identified Asian-Americans
• Blatantly reminded Asian-women of their Asian,
  female or a neutral identity
• Examined math test performance

7
Collective Self-Esteem

• ____ 1. I am a worthy member of my race/ethnic
  group.
• ____ 2. Overall, my race/ethnicity has very
  little to do with how I feel about myself.
• ____ 3. I feel I don't have much to offer to my
  racial/ethnic group.
• ____ 4. In general, I'm glad to be a member of my
  racial/ethnic group.
• ____ 5. The racial/ethnic group I belong to is an
  important reflection of who I am.
• ____ 6. I am a cooperative participant in the
  activities of my racial/ethnic group.
• ____ 7. My race/ethnicity is unimportant to my
  sense of what kind of a person I am.
• ____ 8. I often feel I'm a useless member of my
  racial/ethnic group.
• ____ 9. I feel good about the race/ethnicity I
  belong to.
• ____ 10. In general, belonging to my
  race/ethnicity is an important part of my self
  image.

8
Collective Self-Esteem

• ____ 1. I am a worthy member of my gender group.
• ____ 2. Overall, my gender has very little to do
  with how I feel about myself.
• ____ 3. I feel I don't have much to offer to my
  gender group.
• ____ 4. In general, I'm glad to be a member of my
  gender group.
• ____ 5. The gender group I belong to is an
  important reflection of who I am.
• ____ 6. I am a cooperative participant in the
  activities of my gender group.
• ____ 7. My gender is unimportant to my sense of
  what kind of a person I am.
• ____ 8. I often feel I'm a useless member of my
  gender group.
• ____ 9. I feel good about the gender I belong to.
• ____ 10. In general, belonging to my gender is an
  important part of my self image.

9
Math test accuracy
10
Road Map

• Group Influence
• Social Facilitation and Social Loafing
• Group Polarization and Group Think
• Stereotype as a Group Influence
• Targets of Negative Stereotypes
• Positive Stereotypes
• Contact improving intergroup relations

11
Combating Stereotypes

• Contact Hypothesis (Allport, 1954)
• Can work, but need specific conditions
• Equal status contact
• Cooperation
• Common external threats
• Superordinate goals

12
Context-Dependent Nature of Attitudes

• Remind women of their gender identity
• Ask them about their attitudes towards math and
  arts activities
• If stereotypes influence our self-assessments,
  should influence our reported attitudes

13
Study 1 - Attitudes

• Undergraduate women reminded of either
• Gender (co-ed dorms)
• Neutral (telephone service)
• ATTITUDES TOWARDS MATH AND ARTS
• Math and Arts composites

14
Academic Interests Questionnaire

• Rate how pleasant you find these activities to
  be
• 1. Writing an essay (A)
• 2. Doing an algebra problem-set (M)
• 3. Listening to music for a class assignment
  (A)
• 4. Computing compound interest (M)
• 5. Taking a literature exam (A)
• 6. Solving an equation (M)
• 7. Analyzing a poem (A)
• 8. Taking a calculus exam (M)
• 9. Completing an art assignment for a visual
  arts course (A)
• 10. Completing a geometry problem-set (M)

15
Results Womens Attitudes

• Womens attitudes towards math and arts change in
  a stereotype-consistent direction after being
  subtly reminded of their gender identity

16
Implicit Attitudes

• Implicit attitude (Greenwald et al.)
• actions or judgments that are under the control
  of automatically activated evaluation, without
  the performers awareness of that causation
• Explicit attitude (Meyers Spencer)
• a favourable or unfavourable evaluative
  reaction towards something or someone, exhibited
  in ones beliefs, feelings, or intended behaviour

17
Study 2 Implicit Attitudes

• PARTICIPANTS
• Undergraduate Women
• PRIME
• Gender (co-ed dorms)
• Neutral (telephone service)
• IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TASK (IAT)
• Math/Arts vs. Pleasant/Unpleasant

18
IAT 1 Training 1

• Math Arts
• Calculus

L
R
19
IAT 1 Training 2

• Pleasant Unpleasant
• Happy

L
R
20
IAT 1 Critical Trial 1

• Math Arts
• Pleasant Unpleasant
• Literature

L
R
21
IAT 1 Critical Trial 2

• Arts Math
• Pleasant Unpleasant
• Literature

L
R
22
Results Implicit Attitudes

• Womens implicit attitudes towards math and arts
  change in a stereotype-consistent direction after
  being subtly reminded of their gender identity

23
Road Map

• Stereotype Susceptibility (cont.)
• Gender, Cultural, and the Self
• Individualist versus Collectivist
• Gender and Self-Esteem
• Emotional Expression
• Universality of Emotional Expression
• Nonverbal Accents

24
Culture

• The enduring behaviours, ideas, attitudes, and
  traditions shared by a large group of people and
  transmitted from one generation to the next.

25
Independent Self

• Self-schema in which others are
• not represented as part of the self
• Individual traits and goals
• Personal achievement and rights
• Reject Conformity
• The usual orientation in North American
  (Western) cultures (particularly White,
  middle-class) classified as an Individualistic
  Culture

mother
father
Self
friend
sibling
26
Individualist Cultures

• Promote the concept of giving priority to ones
  own goals over group goals and defining ones
  identity in terms of personal attributes rather
  than group identifications.
• i.e., I am a good student, I am smart, I am good
  at basketball

27
Interdependent Self

• Self-schema in which others are
• represented as part of the self
• Connections with others
• Group goals and solidarity
• Reject Egotism
• The usual orientation in Asian, African, and
  South American cultures, which can be classified
  as a Collectivistic Cultures

father
mother
Self
friend
sibling
28
Collectivistic Cultures

• Promote the concept of giving priority to the
  goals of ones group (often ones extended family
  or work group) and defining ones identity
  accordingly.
• i.e., I am a sister, I am a friend

29
North American vs. Japanese Culture

• Japanese
• Self-criticism (Hansei)
• Self-discipline
• Shame and apologies

• North American
• Independence
• Freedom/choice
• Personal expression
• Success
• Ability

Heine et al. (1999)
30
Is Self-Enhancement Universal?

• Japanese and Canadian participants
• Asked to take the Integrative Cognitive Capacity
  (ICC) test of intelligence
• Use mathematical feedback to assess whether they
  had done better than the average student

31
Is Self-Enhancement Universal?

• Canadian Students viewed more trials in the
  failure condition (took more trials for them to
  believe)
• Japanese Students viewed more trials in the
  success condition (suggesting self-enhancement is
  not universal)

32
Road Map

• Stereotype Susceptibility (cont.)
• Gender, Cultural, and the Self
• Individualist versus Collectivist
• Gender and Self-Esteem
• Emotional Expression
• Universality of Emotional Expression
• Nonverbal Accents

33
Gender and Self-Esteem

• Defined as a persons overall self-evaluation
  or sense of self-worth
• Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
• No gender differences in self-esteem
• But, might derive SE from different sources

34
Josephs and colleagues (1992)

• Men and women may develop different types of
  self-concepts.
• Men are more likely to develop an individual,
  independent, or autonomous self-schema
• Women are more likely to develop a collectivist,
  ensembled, or connected self-schema

35
Study 1 False Uniqueness

• tendency to overestimate the uniqueness of ones
  abilities and ones desirable or successful
  behaviours
• Participants asked to list best skills in a
  variety of domains
• Estimate the number of other students who are
  very good at that skill
• The lower the estimate, the more false uniqueness

36
Study 1 False Uniqueness

• High SE men showed more false uniqueness in each
  of the attributes than any of the other groups.

37
Study 2 Self-referent memory

• People tend to remember more words when they have
  thought about them relative to the self
• If womens self-concept is interdependent, the
  self should include others.
• High and Low SE men and women were presented with
  words and asked to create sentences using these
  words
• Self-sentences (I) and one group you feel most
  highly affiliated with.

38
Study 2 Self-referent memory

• High SE women remembered self and other words
  equally. Other groups did not.

39
Bem Gender-Role Inventory

• 1 (almost never true) to 7 (almost always true)
• Masculinity Femininity
• acts as a leader affectionate
• aggressive tender
• independent warm
• analytical compassionate
• self-reliant sympathetic

40
Bem Gender-Role Inventory

• High Low
• Feminine Feminine
• High Androgynous Masculine
• Masculine
• Low Feminine Undifferentiated
• Masculine

41
Potential benefits of Androgyny?

• Compared to gender-typed individuals,
  androgynous individuals are
• Better liked
• Better adjusted
• More adaptable to situational demands
• More flexible in coping with stress
• More comfortable with their sexuality
• More satisfied interpersonally

42
Road Map

• Stereotype Susceptibility (cont.)
• Gender, Cultural, and the Self
• Gender and Self-Esteem
• Individualist versus Collectivist
• Emotional Expression
• Universality of Emotional Expression
• Nonverbal Accents

43
Nonverbal Communication

• the way in which people communicate,
  intentionally or unintentionally, without words
• Encode to express or emit nonverbal behaviour
• Decode to interpret the meaning of the nonverbal
  behaviour other people express

44
Primary Uses

1. Expressing emotions
2. Conveying attitudes
3. Communicating personality traits
4. Facilitating verbal communication

45
Nonverbal leakage

• Definition the unintentional transmission of
  information through nonverbal channels of
  communication.
• Might occur because
• dont think to control nonverbals
• arent able to control nonverbals
• try too hard to control
• Voice leaks more easily
• Women pick up on leaks more than men

46
Facial Expressions

• Happy

47
Facial Expressions

• Anger

48
Facial Expressions

• Sad

49
Facial Expressions

• Disgust

50
Facial Expressions

• Surprise

51
Facial Expressions

• Fear

52
Universality of Facial Expression

• Paul Ekman emotions are universally expressed
• Six basic emotions
• happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, anger, fear

53
Nonverbal Accents

• Marsh, Elfenbein, Ambady (2003)
• Presented American participants with photographs
  of Japanese or Japanese-Americans
• Saw either neutral faces or faces expressing
  basic emotions
• Asked to guess the nationality (Japan or US)
• Better at guessing for faces with emotional
  expressions than for neutral faces

54
Questions?