Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: social comparison processes and levels of analysis
- Part 1 Cognition: comparison processes within and between individuals
- Part 2 Intergroup relations: comparison processes within and between groups
- Part 3 Culture: comparison processes within and across cultures
- 11 Stereotype content across cultures as a function of group status
- 12 The cultural norm of individualism and group status: implications for social comparisons
- 13 Ambivalent sexism, power distance, and gender inequality across cultures
- 14 Social comparisons across cultures I: Gender stereotypes in high and low power distance cultures
- 15 Social comparisons across cultures II: Change and stability in self-views – experimental evidence
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
14 - Social comparisons across cultures I: Gender stereotypes in high and low power distance cultures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2009
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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: social comparison processes and levels of analysis
- Part 1 Cognition: comparison processes within and between individuals
- Part 2 Intergroup relations: comparison processes within and between groups
- Part 3 Culture: comparison processes within and across cultures
- 11 Stereotype content across cultures as a function of group status
- 12 The cultural norm of individualism and group status: implications for social comparisons
- 13 Ambivalent sexism, power distance, and gender inequality across cultures
- 14 Social comparisons across cultures I: Gender stereotypes in high and low power distance cultures
- 15 Social comparisons across cultures II: Change and stability in self-views – experimental evidence
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
Summary
Very different social roles are generally assigned to women and men (Eagly, 1987). These roles are translated into stereotypical beliefs about typically female attributes and typically male attributes (Williams and Best, 1986, 1990). Women, for instance, are supposed to be sweet and nurturing. These characteristics are even considered desirable for them. By contrast, men are viewed as cold, domineering, and egotistic. These stereotypes overlap with self-perceptions of women and men (Bem, 1974), and they are not restricted to western countries. Similar data about the self-perceptions of female and male dimensions have been obtained from both men and women in Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Spain, etc. (Lenney, 1991; Lorenzi-Cioldi, 1993; Moya, 1993). Despite some disparities, men from all these cultures see themselves as having more male attributes than do women and the reverse is true for women concerning female attributes. Such a consensus led some authors (Bakan, 1966; Gabriel and Gardner, 1999) to think that it reflects sexual differences that are genetically determined.
Costa, Terracciano, and McCrae (2001), however, made an intriguing finding. In their cross-cultural research based on the five-factor model of personality, they found that differences in personality traits between men and women were greater in western countries than in African and Asian ones. First, these data do not conform to the genetic explanation for the differences between genders.
- Type
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- Information
- Social Comparison and Social PsychologyUnderstanding Cognition, Intergroup Relations, and Culture, pp. 303 - 317Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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