Descriptive and prescriptive features of gender stereotyping. Relationships among its components

Descriptive and prescriptive features of gender stereotyping. Relationships among its

components

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Abstract

This paper explores the relation between gender stereotyping in traits and roles and sociodemographic variables, as well as the relation between the descriptive and prescriptive characteristics of such traits and roles. In Study 1, a representative national sample of 1255 participants was used. The results showed that trait stereotyping did not vary among participants, whereas role stereotyping did vary as a function of gender (women stereotyped less) age (young people stereotyped less) and educational level (people with a high level stereotyped less). The relation between trait stereotyping (descriptive) and role stereotyping (prescriptive) is very low. Study 2 was carried out to verify mainly the relation between the prescriptive and descriptive aspects of a single component: traits. The participants were 96 professional women. In this study, a weak relation was found between the descriptive and the prescriptive aspects of trait stereotyping, and a strong relation between the prescriptive aspects of traits and roles. These results are coherent with the assumption that the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of gender stereotyping are independent. In both studies, correlations were observed indicating that people who tend to stereotype in instrumental traits also maintain more stereotyped beliefs about the prescriptive trait and role aspects.

Keywords: Gender stereotyping, gender roles, gender traits, descriptive gender stereotyping, prescriptive gender stereotyping.

Características descriptivas y prescriptitas de la estereotipia de género. Efectos sobre la

relación entre componentes Resumen

Este artículo explora la relación entre estereotipia de género en rasgos y roles y variables sociodemográficas, así como la relación entre las características descriptivas y prescriptivas de esos rasgos y roles. En el estudio 1, se ha utilizado una muestra de 1255 sujetos, representativa de la población española. Los resultados mostraron que la estereotipia de rasgo no variaba entre los participantes, mientras que la estereotipia de rol variaba en función del género (las mujeres estereotipan menos), la edad (los jóvenes estereotipan menos) y el nivel educativo (las personas con nivel alto estereotipan menos). La relación entre estereotipia de rasgo (descriptiva) y de rol (prescriptiva) es muy baja. El estudio 2 se llevó a cabo para comprobar, fundamentalmente, la relación entre los aspectos prescriptivos y descriptivos de un sólo componente:

los rasgos. Participaron 96 mujeres profesionales. En este estudio se encontró una débil relación entre los aspectos descriptivos y prescriptivos de la estereotipia de rasgo y una fuerte relación entre los aspectos prescriptivos de rasgo y de rol. Estos resultados son coherentes con la asunción de que los aspectos descriptivos y prescriptivos de la estereotipia de género son independientes. En ambos estudios se han hallado correlaciones que indican que las personas que tienden a estereotipar más en rasgos instrumentales también mantienen creencias más estereotipadas en los aspectos prescriptivos de rasgos y roles.

Palabras clave: Estereotipia de género, roles de género, rasgos de género; estereotipia de género descriptiva, estereotipia de género prescriptiva.

Acknowledgments: The sample in Study 1 was funded by the Spanish Instituto de la Mujer. The authors wish to thank Dr. José Francisco Morales for his valuable comments and suggestions in this research.

Author’s Address: Mercedes López-Sáez. UNED. Facultad de Psicología. Dpto. de Psicología Social. C/ Juan del Rosal, 10. 28040 Madrid. Tel. 913987956. E-mail: [email protected]

© 2009 by Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje, ISSN: 0213-4748 Revista de Psicología Social, 2009, 24 (3), 363-379

The social changes in women’s roles throughout the 20^thcentury are unquestionable.

Spain, the country where this study was performed, occupies the 17th position (the United States occupies the 27th) in the Gender Gap Index 2008 (Hausmann, Tyson &

Zahidi, 2009). In this country, for over more than a decade, women have made up 53%

of the university students and they represent 40% of the active population. However, the inequalities persist. For example, among university graduates, the number of out- of-work women is twice that of men, and the number of women at the highest level of university professors does not even reach 14%. Moreover, women’s salary is 27.5% less than men’s for the same job, and women who work outside of the home devote more than twice the time to housework than men do. Regarding political power, despite the great advances of the last few years in which Spain has a government with 50% female ministers, only 14.6% of the representation in city halls, 36% in Parliament or 25.1%

Senate are women (Source: Instituto de la Mujer, 2008 [Women’s Institute, 2008]) As seen in recent gender studies, in countries all over the world, there are work- related inequalities between men and women (Alter & Seta, 2005; Glick, Larsen, Johnson, & Branstiter, 2005; Selwyn, 2007; White & White, 2006) or inequalities related to power (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Killen, López-Zafra, & Eagly, 2006; Powell, Butterfield, & Parent, 2002; Sczesny, Bosak, Neff, & Schyns, 2004), and this persistent discrimination can be partially explained by the existence of stereotypes. Recent cross- cultural investigations have shown the relation between stereotyped beliefs and structural inequalities between men and women. For instance, in two studies of sexist attitudes towards women and men, Glick et al. (2000, 2004) verified that the countries that scored high in sexist attitudes had worse indicators of women’s equality, in aspects such as developing a professional career or carrying out power roles. According to Williams and Best (1990), there was high consensus among 30 countries about the content of trait stereotyping, observing that the differences among countries were more closely related to the system of values or religious beliefs than to structural aspects such as women’s education or their rates of activity. According to this study, it seems that stereotyping is not as sensitive to real social changes as to the system of values.

Doubtless, the role of beliefs in maintaining conventional gender differences has been crucial. In a study carried out with a representative sample of the population of Galicia (Spain), Glick, Lameiras, and Rodríguez-Castro (2002) verified the relationship of the educational level and religious beliefs with sexist attitudes. Their results show that more years of education reduced hostile or benevolent sexism, and that Catholic religiosity predicted benevolent sexist attitudes; that is, beliefs that defend a traditional and complementary view of men’s and women’s roles.

With regard to beliefs about the differences between men and women, all cultures have developed a series of ideologies that support and justify the existing inequalities, by establishing that such differences are desirable. Gender stereotypes are a set of specific beliefs about the characteristics that men and women most probably have (Deaux & LaFrance, 1998). The structure of gender stereotypes is complex and it includes diverse components such as traits, roles, jobs, physical appearance, or ideology (Ashmore, 1990; Deaux & Lewis, 1984; Spence, 1993). In all these components, there is both a merely descriptive dimension and a prescriptive dimension, and they fulfill different functions (Burgess & Borgida, 1999; Eagly, Wood, & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2004; Fiske & Stevens, 1993; Glick & Fiske, 1999). Descriptive stereotypes allude to beliefs about what characteristics are possessed by men and women. Similarly, prescriptive stereotypes refer to beliefs about what characteristics are desirable or appropriate for each sex within the context of a certain culture. Gender stereotypes are characterized by being more prescriptive than other stereotypes (Fiske & Stevens, 1993). Thus, men and women are educated differentially according to these prescriptive norms. The descriptive nature of gender stereotypes is crucial to maintain the status quo (Hoffman & Hurst, 1990; Jost & Banaji, 1994; Prentice & Carranza,

2004; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). It has even been experimentally demonstrated that activation of gender stereotypes contributes to justifying system inequalities in gender roles (Jost & Kay, 2005).

As gender stereotypes tend to focus on what differentiates men and women, it is logical for them to be multidimensional. In fact, the differences between men and women, which are so obvious in their physical appearance, reappear in activities from various settings such as family, work and leisure, preferences and tastes, life projects and, it is assumed, the characteristic personality traits of each sex. Thus, gender stereotypes are manifest in many different forms. Two of these have received special attention from researchers, concretely, the so-called role stereotyping and trait stereotyping.

An important body of research on gender stereotyping has focused on establishing how different components relate to each other, in an attempt to understand the role of various facets of stereotyping in the justification and perpetuation of differences (see Burgess & Borgida, 1999, for a review). In this sense, the social role theory is noteworthy. Its central tenet is the existence of relations between beliefs about personality traits and the maintenance of traditional gender roles (Diekman & Eagly, 2000; Eagly & Steffen, 1984; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000). In other words, trait stereotyping, which reflects the psychological and behavioral characteristics that are more frequently assigned to men or to women, would be closely linked to role stereotyping, which comprises beliefs about the activities considered more appropriate for men and for women. As is well known, classic research about the content of gender stereotypes (Bem, 1974; Spence, 1993; Spence & Buckner, 2000; Spence & Helmreich, 1978) has established a difference between two types of personalities: the expressive personality, associated with women, and the instrumental personality, mostly attributed to men.

Under the assumption that men and women have traditionally been assigned different social roles, the social role theory postulates the allocation of expressive or instrumental traits that are congruent with these roles (Diekman & Eagly, 2000). Thus, it confers a predominant role to descriptive trait stereotypes. The line of reasoning is the following: Initially, perceptors infer correspondence between roles and traits. These initial beliefs about the differential characteristics of men and women promote behaviors that, in fact, confirm expectations in both sexes. Hence the reproduction of differentiated roles according to sex. In other words, through differential socialization, men and women tend to prefer to be and to behave according to gender prescriptions (Eagly, et al., 2000).

The general postulates of the social role theory are exemplified in their application to leadership roles. According to the role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002), prejudice toward female leaders originates in the incongruence that many people perceive in women’s characteristics and the demands of leadership roles. As a result of this incongruence, women’s access to leadership posts is reduced because of the obstacles they must overcome in order to be successful in such roles; at the same time, leadership behavior is evaluated more negatively by others if performed by a woman than by a man.

Killen and colleagues (2006) have verified in student samples from the USA and Spain that it is more difficult for women to imagine themselves in a leader’s post than for men, because they have trouble incorporating this role into their self-concept.

According to Eagly and collaborators, changes in general society and, more specifically, changes in the traditional assignation of roles to men and women should affect the beliefs about men’s and women’s corresponding descriptive personality characteristics. According to these authors, these characteristics should change in the same direction. The available data show that in the last decades, there have been spectacular changes in women’s social roles in many societies, especially those that are considered advanced. Proof of this is that it is no longer anecdotal for women to perform roles that were formerly considered exclusively male domains, such as politics,

the armed forces, or managerial posts. Parallel to this, the role of ideal women has changed and it is feasible that, for many people, this ideal is now closer to their ideal of a leader than to that of a traditional housewife, proposed years ago. The ideal of men has also changed, and men now participate more in family life, their children’s education, and the housework. For example, in a qualitative study carried out with female Engineers (Elejabeitia & López-Sáez, 2003), it was found that this group of women observed important changes in the men, especially the younger ones, with regard to gender equality in family and work roles.

In view of this, one would expect these structural changes to affect the way that people perceive personality traits in themselves (and others) as men and women.

However, this is not what the studies of the descriptive features of men’s and women’s stereotypes reveal: The content of trait stereotypes remains constant over time and seems to drift away from the changes observed in the role stereotype (Auster & Ohm, 2000; López-Sáez, Morales, & Lisbona, 2008; Spence & Buckner, 2000).

The purpose of our first study is to compare gender stereotyping across different groups and contexts in a representative sample of the adult population in Spain. As noted by Biernat and Thompson (2002), stereotypes are flexible and change depending on the contexts. But in a specific context, these stereotypes act as a comparison criterion, that is, women are judged in comparison with women in general, and the same applies to men. In turn, in a specific context, men and women are compared to each other. For example, in the same profession, men and women are compared with those of their profession. Specifically, we wished to analyze how trait stereotyping and role stereotyping are affected by some sociodemographic variables: sex, age, habitat, and educational level. As a function of these variables, the subjects’ contextual reality may affect their gender stereotyping by providing them with a different experience of the roles and characteristics of the men and women from their environment. The experience of gender of a young woman with higher studies and residing in a large city is no doubt very different from that of an older man with no studies and who lives in a town. Taking into account the diversity of models of men and women that the context can provide, the following predictions were elaborated about stereotyping in descriptive personality traits and roles: (a) women will stereotype less than men; (b) stereotyping will increase with age; (c) habitat will affect stereotyping, so that people from large cities will stereotype less; (d) stereotyping will decrease as the level of studies increases. In previous studies with Spanish samples (see Morales & López-Sáez, 1994), these sociodemographic variables have proved to be the most influential in gender stereotyping. More recent studies (de la Fuente, 2007) also reveal that in role stereotyping, these sociodemographic variables are the most important ones to differentiate groups.

Likewise, our purpose was to explore the relation between descriptive gender trait and role stereotyping. If beliefs about differences in personality characteristics underlie role differences, trait stereotyping and role stereotyping can be expected to have a positive correlation. The second study was planned in view of the results obtained in the first one. Specifically, in this second study, the goal was to determine whether there was any relation between the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of gender stereotyping when these two aspects are measured in a single component: traits.

STUDY 1 Method Participants

Data were gathered from a representative sample (n = 1255) of the population of Spain, over 18 years of age (51% women and 49% men). Type of sampling: multi-stage

cluster with stratification by habitat of the units of first stage and habitat in the second stage. In the last stage, the people from each home were selected to obtain the sampling quotas of sex, age, and occupation corresponding to each sample section. Table I presents the number of participants in each of the levels of the sociodemographic variables considered. The data were collected at the end of 2001.

Measures

The trait and role stereotyping questionnaire, validated by López-Sáez and colleagues (2008), was used. This included, in addition to the measures of stereotyping, other indicators and participants’ sociodemographic characteristics.

T^ABLEI

Frequency of the levels of the sociodemographic variables

Age Range (years) Habitat (inhabitants) Educational Level

M F A1 A2 A3 A4 H1 H2 H3 H4 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5

N 640 615 267 319 437 227 283 223 416 333 170 290 323 256 203

% 51 49 21.4 25.5 35.0 18.2 22.5 17.8 33.1 26.5 13.7 23.3 37.0 63.0 83.7 Note. Age: A1 = 18-29, A2 = 30-44, A3= 45-64, A4 = > 64; Habitat: H1 = < 10.000 Habitat: H1 = <

10.000 inhabitants, H2 = 10.000-50.000 inhabitants, H3 = 50.000-500.000 inhabitants, H4 = >

500.000 inhabitants; Educational level: E1 = can only read, E2 = primary graduate, E3 = medium studies, E4 = High-school/professional training, E5 = university students.

Personality traits. The questionnaire comprises 17 traits (Table I), 8 instrumental ones (male traits) and 9 expressive ones (female traits). The measure of trait stereotyping was obtained according to the procedure developed by McCauley and colleagues to measure stereotypes (McCauley & Stitt, 1978; McCauley, Stitt, & Segal, 1980). In two sections of the questionnaire, participants were asked to indicate the percentage of men and women in general who possess each one of the 17 traits. For each trait and each participant, a diagnostic ratio (DR) was calculated. For the instrumental items, the DR was calculated by dividing the percentage of men to whom the trait was attributed by the percentage of women to whom it was attributed. For the expressive items, the DR was calculated by dividing the percentage of women to whom the trait was attributed by the percentage of men to whom it was attributed. Thus, high scores indicate the proportion of stereotyped beliefs about the characteristics of men and women for each trait.

From the DRs of each trait, two measures were obtained: male trait stereotyping (MTS) and female trait stereotyping (FTS), by adding the DR of the instrumental or expressive items, respectively, and weighting them as a function of the number of items. High scores in MTS and in FTS indicate that the participants stereotype traditionally. The individual global trait stereotyping indicator (GTS) was calculated by obtaining the means of MTS and FTS. High scores in this measure indicate more stereotyped responses in both kinds of traits.

Roles. The role questionnaire had 9 items, with two dimensions: family role (6 items, for example, “If a boy or girl is sick and both parents work, generally the mother should ask for a day off to take care of the child”) and work role (3 items, for example, “A woman who restricts herself to her profession tends to adopt male traits and behaviors”). This measure reflects prescriptive stereotypes (how women versus men should behave). Participants were asked to rate their degree of agreement on a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree). High scores indicated more stereotyping.

Procedure

Data were collected in the interviewees’ homes, by professionals from a company who were duly trained for this purpose. The participants completed the trait and role questionnaires along with other questionnaires that are not a part of this work. The procedure and sample are the same as in López-Sáez et al. (2008).

Results Trait stereotyping

Firstly, we verified whether gender trait stereotyping occurred, that is, whether participants assigned more instrumental traits to men than to women, and vice versa for expressive traits. A within-subject one factor ANOVA showed that the difference was significant and in the expected direction for all traits (see Table II).

T^ABLEII

Mean Percentage and Standard Deviation (in Brackets) of Traits Assigned to Males and to Females, Within-subject Factor and Mean Diagnostic Ratio

Traits Males Females

M (SD) M (SD) F(1, 1254) _η² Mean DR

Instrumental Traits

Acts like a leader 65.37 (20.1) 45.21 (21.1) 736.2* .38 3.64 (3.6)

Adventurous 57.44 (24.5) 37.84 (22) 293.6* .40 5.71 (5.7)

Egoist 60.20 (20.3) 52.33 (20.9) 126.1* .10 4.67 (4.7)

Individualist 60.02 (19.9) 50.23 (20.4) 189.8* .14 5.33 (5.3) Hard-hearted 63.09 (19.1) 47.41 (21.1) 448.5* .27 3.95 (3.9)

Aggressive 61.19 (21) 39.20 (19.9) 917.6* .44 7.38 (7.4)

Strong personality 60.81 (18.7) 53.10 (20) 122.9* .09 2.83 (2.8)

Athletic 57.18 (21.9) 37.79 (20.6) 974.1* .45 5.53 (5.5)

Expressive Traits

Submissive 40.49 (21.3) 54.85 (21.4) 359.5* .23 7.42 (7.4)

Loves children 61.43 (21) 77.68 (17.4) 817* .41 2.89 (2.9

Soft-hearted 51.81 (18.7) 67.47 (17.9) 626.8* .35 5.32 (5.3) Understanding 53.77 (17.8) 65.26 (17.6) 377.6* .24 1.95 (1.9) Compassionate 52.31 (18.2) 65.55 (17.9) 485.2* .29 2.52 (2.5)

Sensitive 52.54 (19) 64.31 (19.1) 378.2* .24 1.04 (1)

Cries easily 37.72 (19.9) 71.76 (19.2) 2150* .64 10.53 (10.5)

Warm 53.55 (19.1) 69.10 (17) 661.3* .36 3.23 (3.2)

Affectionate 54.72 (18.3) 67.44 (17.2) 518* .30 4.33 (4.3)

*p < .0001

To verify whether there were differences between instrumental and expressive trait stereotyping, we performed a within-subject one factor ANOVA (MTS vs. FTS), finding no statistically significant differences, F(1, 1133) = 1.93, p = .17 between stereotyping traditionally male traits, (mean MTS = 2.07, SD = 2.30) and traditionally female traits (mean FTS = 1.96, SD = 2.33).

The relation between the demographic variables and trait stereotyping was determined by a four-factor 2(Sex) × 4(Age) × 4(Habitat) × 5(Educational level) ANOVA, with general trait stereotyping (GTS), male trait stereotyping (MTS), and female trait stereotyping (FTS) as dependent variables. No main effect or significant interactions in any of the three dependent variables was observed (Fs < 2.4, ps > .05, in all cases). Therefore, in trait stereotyping, our predictions were not fulfilled: The intensity of stereotyping was similar in the groups analyzed, and no statistically significant differences were observed in the experience of the group members that could

be attributed to different socialization conditions, according to their sex, age, habitat, or level of studies (see Table III).

T^ABLEIII

Means and Standard Deviations (in Brackets) of the Trait Scales

Sex Age Range (years) Habitat (inhabitants) Educational Level

Total M F A1 A2 A3 A4 H1 H2 H3 H4 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5

MTS 2.06 (2.3) 2.11 2.01 2.02 1.95 2.22 1.97 1.98 1.91 2.17 2.08 2.44 1.89 2.09 2.07 1.96 (2.5) (2) (1.7) (2) (3.1) (1.4) (2.7) (1.6) (2.3) (2.3) (3.8) (1.7) (2.4) (2.19 (1.6) FTS 1.95 (2.3) 1.77 2.11 1.98 1.85 1.96 2.08 1.85 1.82 2.12 1.93 2.01 1.77 2.09 2.11 1.77 (1.7) (2.7) (2.2) (2.2) (2.4) (2.4) (2.4) (1.6) (2.8) (1.9) (2.5) (1.6) (2.7) (2.9) (1.4) GTS 2.01 (1.9) 1.95 2.07 2.01 1.90 2.11 2.01 1.91 1.87 2.16 2.02 2.25 1.83 2.10 2.10 1.87 (1.7) (2.1) 1.6) (1.7) (2.4) (1.5) (2.2) (1.3) (2.1) (1.8) (2.9) (1.3) (2) (2.2) (1.3) Note. MTS = male trait stereotyping, FTS = female trait stereotyping, GTS = global trait stereotyping;

Age: A1 = 18-29, A2 = 30-44, A3= 45-64, A4 = > 64; Habitat: H1 = < 10.000 inhabitants, H2 = 10.000-50.000 inhabitants, H3 = 50.000-500.000 inhabitants, H4 = > 500.000 inhabitants;

Educational level: E1 = can only read, E2 = primary graduate, E3 = medium studies, E4 = High- school/professional training, E5 = university students.

Role Stereotyping

We examined the influence of the sociodemographic variables on the measures of role stereotyping (Sex × Age × Habitat × Educational level ANOVA), with the following results: (a) A main effect of sex on the total scale, F(1, 195) = 6.40, p <

.012, η² = .006; and on the family role, F(1, 1204) = 6.23, p < .013, η² = .006; and work role subscales, F(1, 1218) = 4.13, p < .042. In the three variables, men’s stereotyping was higher than that of women. (b) A main effect of age on the total scale, F(3. 1195) = 16.31, p < .001, η² = .04; the family role subscale, F(3, 1204)

= 20.51, p < .001, η² = .05; and the work role subscale, F(3, 1218) = 4.23, p <

.007, η² = .01. In all the scales, the older the participant, the more stereotyping there was. The post hoc analysis (various Bonferroni comparisons) showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups of younger people (less then 44 years old) but there were significant differences among the rest of the age groups (p > .05 in all cases). (c) A main effect of educational level on the total scale, F(4, 1195) = 9, p < .001, η² = .03; family role, F(4, 1204) = 9.74, p < .001, η² = .01; and work role subscales, F(4, 1218) = 2.75, p < .027, η² = .01. In all the scales, the post hoc analyses showed that stereotyping decreased as educational level increased. (d) No significant main effect of habitat was found on the total scale, F(3, 1195) = 0.7, p=.58; the family role, F( 3, 1204)

= 1.5, p=.21; or the work role subscales, F(3, 1218) = 0.75, p=.52. The interactions among the four factors in the dependent variables ( Fs < 2.3, p > .07) were not significant (see Table IV).

To sum up, the results of role stereotyping, as expected, show that women, younger people, and people with a higher educational level stereotype less, both in family roles and work roles. Regarding habitat, our predictions were not fulfilled.

Relation among the Components of Trait and Role

The correlations among the dimensions of the two stereotyping components, traits and roles, were low (r < .14 in all cases). However, the correlations among the various dimensions of each component were much higher. In role stereotyping, the correlation

between the family and work dimensions (r = .50) indicates that people who tend to stereotype in one of the dimensions also do so in the other. Likewise, in trait stereotyping, people who tend to stereotype in expressive traits also do so in instrumental traits (r = .40).

T^ABLEV

Intercorrelations among Features of Traits and Roles

MTS FTS GTS Total Role Family Role Work Role

MTS — .40** .83** .12** .10** ,12**

FTS — .84** .08* .05 ,09**

GTS — .12** .09** .13**

Total Role — .95** .74**

Family Role — .50**

Work Role —

Note. MTS = male trait stereotyping, FTS = female trait stereotyping, GTS = global trait stereotyping.

* p < .05. ** p < .01.

To sum up, our results indicate that the association between trait and role stereotypes is very low, so it cannot be stated that beliefs about role differences are the cause of beliefs about trait differences. These results are in accordance with those found by other authors (Burgess & Borgida, 1999, for a review), and support the multifactor gender model, which states that the diverse components of gender stereotyping are independent (Ashmore, 1990; Deaux & Lewis, 1984; Spence, 1985, 1993; Spence &

Buckner, 2000).

Discussion

Except for habitat, our expectations about the influence of sociodemographic variables on gender stereotyping were fulfilled for the role component, but not for the trait component. In role stereotyping (total and subscales), the results show that: (a) men stereotyped significantly more than did women; (b) stereotyping increases with age; (c) the higher the educational level, the less stereotyping. Therefore, these results seem to indicate that role stereotyping has been sensitive to the social changes of women, because the groups that were socialized more conservatively in matters of gender equality–older people, with a low educational level, or men–stereotype more.

TABLEIV

Means and Standard Deviations (in Brackets) of the Role Scales

Sex Age Range (years) Habitat (inhabitants) Educational Level

Total M F A1 A2 A3 A4 H1 H2 H3 H4 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5

Family 3.04 (1.0) 3.11 2.97 2.5 2.68 3.22 3.85 3.27 3 3 2.9 3.67 3.45 3 2.58 2.5 (1) (1.1) (0.9) (1) (1) (0.8) (1) (1) (1.1) (1) (0.9) (1) (0.9) (1) (1) Work 1.85 (1) 1.94 1.77 1.65 1.57 1.96 2.27 1.85 1.68 1.88 1.93 2.21 2 1.83 1.65 1.61

(1) (0.9) (0.9) (0.8) (1) (1.1) (0.9) (0.9) (1.1) (1) (0.9) (1.1) (1) (0.9) (0.8) Total 2.64 (0.9) 2.71 2.57 2.21 2.31 2.81 3.33 2.79 2.56 2.63 2.58 3.19 2.98 2.61 2.26 2.19

(.9) (0.9) (0.8) (0.8) (0.8) (0.8) (0.8) (0.9) (0.9) (0.9) (0.7) (0.9) (0.8) (0.8) (0.8) Note. Age: A1 = 18-29, A2 = 30-44, A3= 45-64, A4 = > 64; Habitat: H1 = < 10.000 inhabitants, H2

= 10.000-50.000 inhabitants, H3 = 50.000-500.000 inhabitants, H4 = > 500.000 inhabitants;

Educational level: E1 = can only read, E2 = primary graduate, E3 = medium studies, E4 = High- school/professional training, E5 = university students.

However, different socialization processes do not seem to affect descriptive traits.

Surprisingly, we found no statistically significant effects of the sociodemographic variables on this component. That is, in the description of traits, the intensity of stereotyping is similar in the different groups of sex, age, habitat, or educational level.

As the data were obtained in a representative sample of the adult population, the relations among the various components of the stereotypes are quite reliable. The correlations between trait stereotypes and role stereotype were low, possibly because they are different facets of the gender stereotype. Along this line, our results coincide with those of Deaux and Lewis (1984) about the independence of the diverse components of stereotypes (physical traits, personality traits, roles, or occupations).

However, our results do not corroborate the theoretical proposal of Eagly and collaborators, because their postulates lead to the conclusion that there is a high relation between gender stereotype, trait stereotype, and role stereotype (Diekman &

Eagly, 2000; Eagly & Steffen, 1984; Eagly & Wood, 1982; Eagly et al., 2000).

A possible interpretation of the results obtained is that the descriptive and prescriptive features of stereotypes constitute different processes (Fiske & Stevens, 1993) and they fulfill different functions (Burgess & Borgida, 1999, Tajfel, 1981).

According to Fiske and Stevens (1993), there are differences between the descriptive and prescriptive features of stereotypes (including gender stereotypes), insofar as regards the way they are learned and modified. Due to their cognitive nature, descriptive aspects reflect the tendency of human beings to categorize objects and persons, they are socially shared, transmitted by communication, and they can even be learned without needing to interact with the people from the category to which the stereotype is applied. In contrast, the prescriptive aspects, which indicate the way people should be and behave, are acquired during socialization and through experience with people belonging to the corresponding categories. The authors’ prediction is that repeated exposure to behaviors that do not match the stereotypes is an important source of modification of these prescriptive features. In the case of gender stereotypes, they predict that people with broad experience in dealing with men and women who contradict the stereotypes will tend to modify their stereotyped beliefs until these agree with a more egalitarian view of the behavior that is desirable for each sex. However, this does not guarantee an automatic change of the descriptive aspects, because, although role stereotyping may decrease a lot in these people, they will still need to classify men and women as belonging to two social groups, and for that purpose, they will be forced to resort to differentiating descriptive traits. From Tajfel’s (1981) viewpoint, the descriptive and prescriptive components of stereotypes fulfill different functions, so it cannot be expected that changing one of them will lead to changing the other in the same direction. According to this author, the descriptive component performs the stereotype’s function of categorization, whereas the prescriptive component fulfills an expressive function of values. For Burgess and Borgida (1999), the descriptive and prescriptive components of gender stereotypes lead to different ways of discrimination and sexual harassment of women.

The descriptive component of stereotypes would involve culture beliefs, uniformly shared by people from the same culture, whereas the prescriptive component would reflect more or less prejudiced personal beliefs about gender differences (Devine, 1986).

Therefore, descriptive stereotypes would be more automatic and prescriptive ones would reflect more deliberate processes. The studies of implicit measures have revealed the independence of the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of gender stereotypes (Banaji & Greenwald, 1995; Banaji & Hardin, 1996). But various authors have related the prescriptive aspects of gender stereotypes to maintaining the inequalities between men and women and to discrimination (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Jost & Banaji, 1994;

Prentice & Carranza, 2004; Rudman & Glick, 1999), and they would depend on differential processes of socialization.

The trait stereotypes employed in our investigation clearly fulfill the descriptive and categorization function, whereas the role scale is of a more prescriptive nature, as it measures beliefs about the roles women should adopt. Our scale is very similar in its content to the measure of the Attitudes toward Women Scale (Spence & Helmreich, 1978), a scale of role prescriptions widely used in gender studies (Burgess & Borgida, 1999; Spence & Hahn, 1997; Twenge, 1997).

In the first study, we measured two types of different gender stereotyping: roles and traits. Therefore, it cannot be concluded from our data whether the lack of relation between these two measures is due to their being different components, along the lines of the studies of Deaux and Lewis (1984), or different processes related to the descriptive and prescriptive characteristics of gender stereotypes, according to the proposals of Tajfel (1981), Devine (1986), or Fiske and Stevens (1993). Our second study was planned to clarify this issue. Previous studies (Spence & Buckner, 2000) analyzed the relation between descriptive and prescriptive features of gender stereotyping, but always measuring different components, and these two processes have not been analyzed within the same component.

STUDY 2

The purpose is to verify whether there is a relation between the descriptive aspects (what men and women are like) and the prescriptive ones (what they should be like) in one of the components: personality traits. Moreover, we wished to establish the relation between the prescriptive features of traits and roles. If the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of stereotyping correspond to different processes and functions, the following hypotheses can be predicted: a) there will be no correlation of the descriptive aspects of traits with the prescriptive ones, or with role stereotyping, but b) the prescriptive features of traits will correlate with role stereotyping.

Method Participants

We sought a sample with the same profile as that of the people who had stereotyped less in the representative samples of adults of Study 1: women, living in large cities, with medium or higher studies, less than 50 years old, and professionals. The reason we chose this sample is that, if this group of women tends to stereotype, in other groups, stereotyping would be even higher. This convenience sample comprised 96 women, 45% aged between 30 and 44, 27% between 25 and 29, and 26% between 45 and 50. Of them, 91% worked outside their home (3 were jobless and 3 unoccupied). They all had medium or higher studies, and 54.2% were mothers. The data were collected at the end of 2004.

Measures

To measure descriptive trait stereotyping and role stereotyping, we used the same instruments and procedure as in Study 1. The scale of prescriptive traits for this Study was designed from the questionnaire of descriptive traits. Participants were asked to rate the desirability of 17 traits for boys’ and girls’ education, on a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (very important). In the questionnaire about girls, the scale began with the sentence, “Considering a girl’s education, how important do you think it is to instill the following principles?” – followed by characteristics such as, for example, “To be brave and face dangers” (“Adventurous” trait) or “To be understanding.”

In the boys’ version, the same scale was administered referring to boys’ education. The questionnaires about boys’ and girls’ education were counterbalanced (one half of the sample responded to the girls’ scale first and the other half to the boys’ scale first). All the

items were worded so as to reflect positive characteristics. For example, “egoist,” a negative trait, was worded as “Thinking of oneself first.” No differences regarding the order in which the questionnaires were administered were found, so this factor was not taken into account in subsequent analyses.

Procedure

The questionnaires were handed out to the participants at their work places or educational centers by 3 psychology students who explained that they were doing a survey on the values that should be instilled in education. The participants completed the questionnaires individually and anonymously and handed them back to the surveyors. Response anonymity was guaranteed.

Results

Descriptive Trait Stereotyping

Firstly, we determined whether there was any trait stereotyping in the sample and whether more expressive traits were assigned to women and more instrumental traits to men, according to the traditional model of gender stereotyping. As in Study 1, a one-factor within-subject ANOVA revealed a significant effect in all traits, in the sense that more instrumental traits were assigned to men and more expressive traits to women. The magnitude of the effect, measured by η²was fairly high (see Table VI).

TABLEVI

Descriptive Traits. Mean Percentage Attributed to Men and Women, Standard Deviation (in Brackets), and Within-Subject Factor

Males Females F(1, 95) η²

M (SD) M (SD)

Instrumental Traits

Acts like a leader 67.4 (21) 29.7 (17) 172* .65

Adventurous 62.4 (21) 24.8 (15) 222* .70

Egoist 64.9 (21) 33.1(17) 136* .50

Individualist 59.8 (25) 34.2 (20) 58* .38

Hard-hearted 59.7 (20) 29.1 (16) 138* .59

Aggressive 63.2 (22) 27.2 (15) 213* .69

Strong personality 47.3 (21) 43.8 (21) 18* .16

Athletic 52.7 (22) 25.6 (16) 135* .59

Expressive Traits

Submissive 20.9 (14) 49.5 (20) 105* .53

Loves children 41.5 (17) 73.5 (17) 219* .70

Soft-hearted 38.2 (19) 68.4 (17) 125* .57

Understanding 36 (18) 67.3 (18) 137* .59

Compassionate 37.2 (16) 65.8 (20) 121* .56

Sensitive 36.1 (16) 66.5 (17) 199* .68

Cries easily 22.1 (14) 66.5 (21) 299* .76

Warm 40.5 (18) 71.7 (15) 186* .66

Affectionate 40.6 (17) 67.7 (16) 151* .62

* p < .0001

Therefore, we determined whether there was marked stereotyping of descriptive traits in this sample of women. Once verified, we calculated the DR of each trait for each participant, using the same procedure as in Study 1, and the same measures of stereotyping for descriptive traits: male (MTS: M = 3.4, SD = 3.7), female (FTS: M = 3.4, SD = 3.3), as well as global trait stereotyping (GTS: M = 3.4, SD = 2.7).

Prescriptive Trait Stereotyping

To verify whether there was stereotyping of prescriptive traits, we used a one-factor within-subject ANOVA: desirable trait in education applied to girls or applied to boys.

All the traits showed stereotyping except for “Submissive” (tendency toward significance) and “Egoist” (see Table VI). That is, the women of our sample thought it was desirable for girls and boys to be differentially educated in accordance with the inequalities of traditional personality characteristics. According to our results, they considered it more desirable for boys than for girls to be educated to develop instrumental characteristics, typical of “masculinity.” Likewise, they considered it more adequate to educate girls so that they will acquire expressive qualities that characterize

“femininity.” However, although stereotyping was clearly seen in this prescriptive dimension of the stereotypes, if we compare the value of η², the intensity is lower than that of the descriptive aspects of these same traits, which can be seen in table VII.

TABLEVII

Prescriptive Traits. Mean Desirability and Standard Deviation (in Brackets) for Girls and Boys.

Within-Subject Factor

Boys Girls

M (SD) M (SD) F(1, 95) _η²

Instrumental Traits

Acts like a leader 3.5 (1) 3.1 (1) 15.6*** .15

Adventurous 4.5 (.6) 3.9 (1.1) 28.4*** .23

Egoist 3.2 (1.1) 3 (1.2) 2.5 .02

Individualist 4 (.9) 3.5 (1.1) 20.9*** .18

Hard-hearted 4.1 (1) .6 (1) 12.7*** .12

Aggressive 2.9 (1) 2.5 (1) 7.6*** .08

Strong personality 4.1 (.9) 3.6 (1) 8.7*** .08

Athletic 4.1 (.8) 3.3 (1) 57*** .38

Expressive Traits

Submissive 2.3 (1) 2.5 (1) 3* .03

Loves children 3.5 (1) 4.1 (.8) 30.6*** .24

Soft-hearted 3.4 (.9) 3.8 (.9) 10.8*** .10

Understanding 3.9 (.9) 4.4 (.6) 24.4*** .21

Compassionate 3.7 (.7) 4.1 (.8) 14.1*** .13

Sensitive 3.6 (1) 4 (.8) 9.7*** .09

Cries easily 2.9 (1) 3.4 (1) 10.4*** .10

Warm 3.7 (1) 4 (.7) 5.3** .05

Affectionate 3.5 (1) 4 (.8) 25.2*** .21

*p < .09. ** p < .05. *** p < .001.

To obtain the measure of prescriptive trait stereotyping, for each instrumental trait (stereotypically masculine), the score of the girls’ questionnaire was subtracted from the score of that trait in the questionnaire about boys’ education. If the trait was expressive (stereotypically feminine), the boys’ questionnaire score was subtracted from the girl’s questionnaire. Thus, for each trait, a higher score represented more agreement about educating boys and girls differentially, in accordance with the traditional stereotypes.

The weighted mean score in the 8 prescriptive male traits was 0.44 (SD = 0.86) and in the 9 female prescriptive traits was 0.44 (SD = 0.83).

Relation among the Components of Stereotyping

Once we had verified the existence of descriptive and prescriptive trait stereotyping in the sample of professional women, we calculated the correlations among the diverse stereotyping components: descriptive traits, prescriptive traits, and roles.

The results partially confirmed our predictions. There was no significant correlation between the total component of descriptive traits and the total of prescriptive traits (r

= .13, p > .05); nor was there any relation between stereotyping female descriptive and prescriptive traits. An unexpected but particularly interesting result is the correlation between stereotyping descriptive masculine traits and prescriptive stereotyping (both in feminine traits: r = .29, and in total traits: r = .26) That is, the women who tend to perceive women as less instrumental than men also maintain less egalitarian positions about how boys and girls should be educated.

The relation between descriptive traits and roles yielded very similar results to the above-mentioned ones. Stereotyping female traits did not correlate with the roles. But stereotyping male traits had a significant correlation with the roles (family role: r = .31, work role: r =.30, and total: r = .35).That is, the women who tend to perceive women as less instrumental than men also maintain more stereotyped beliefs about family and work roles of men and women (see Table VIII).

This result coincides with the findings of Study 1 (see Table V). In the representative sample, masculine trait stereotyping also correlated more closely with roles than feminine trait stereotyping. Therefore, it seems that people who consider women to be less instrumental than men also tend to stereotype roles and education-related prescriptive aspects. In the dimension of feminine traits, this relation is not maintained.

In accordance with our hypothesis, a high correlation between the total measure of prescriptive traits and that of roles was found (r = .73, p < .001). All the components of the prescriptive trait stereotype had a high relation with the role components, with correlations ranging between .50 and .73 (see Table VIII).

T^ABLEVIII

Intercorrelations among Descriptive and Prescriptive Features of Traits and Roles

MPT FPT TPT MDT FDT TDT Family Work Total

Role Role Role

Male — .92** .98** .22* -.03 .12 .70** .51** .72**

prescriptive traits

Female — .98** .29* -.04 .16 .67** .50** .51**

prescriptive traits

Total — .26* -.04 .13 .71** .51** .73**

prescriptive traits

Male — .23* .79** .31** .30** .35**

descriptive traits

Female — .78** -.06 .10 -.01

descriptive traits

Total — .16 .26* .21*

descriptive traits

Family Role — .49** .94**

Work Role — .75**

Total Role —

Note. MPT = male prescriptive traits, FPT = female prescriptive traits, TPT = total prescriptive traits, MDT = male descriptive traits, FDT = female descriptive traits, TDT = total descriptive traits.

* p < .05. ** p < .01.

The correlation between the diverse dimensions of the prescriptive trait stereotypes–female (FPT) and male (MPT) –was high (r = .92), and the same can be said about the correlation between family role stereotyping and work role stereotyping (r = .49). The correlation among the dimensions of the descriptive traits was much weaker (r = .23). These results seem to indicate that women who stereotype traditionally male traits may not stereotype traditionally female traits (see Table VIII).

Discussion

In this second study, we verified the existence of trait stereotyping, both descriptive and prescriptive. But these two measures have a weak association. In this sample of professional women, descriptive trait stereotyping was observed to be stronger than prescriptive trait stereotyping. Relating these results with those of Study 1, one can deduce that descriptive stereotyping is strong and does not depend on one’s experience with other people but on culturally shared and generalized social beliefs.

When analyzing the relations among the diverse components of stereotyping, a high association between the prescriptive features of traits and of roles was observed. In the descriptive aspects, we found that stereotyping female traits, that is, assigning more expressive characteristics to women than to men, did not correlate with prescriptive trait and role stereotyping. However, stereotyping male traits, that is, assigning more instrumental characteristics to men than to women, correlated with prescriptive ways of stereotyping. Therefore, the women who stereotype traditionally in the instrumental dimension are the ones most prejudiced. This result may be due to the fact that, generally, changes in descriptive stereotyping are more notable in the instrumental dimension, because women have incorporated these instrumental characteristics to a greater extent than men have the expressive aspects (Echebarría & González, 1999). In our study, the women who did not recognize these changes were also the most conservative in the prescriptive aspects linked to gender stereotyping.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The influence of a series of contextual variables in trait and role stereotyping was explored in a representative sample of adult Spaniards. We verified that there is a descriptive trait stereotyping, according to the traditional dimensions of gender differences, so that proportionately more instrumental characteristics are assigned to men and more expressive ones to women. Our results suggest that the influence of the specific context in which people were socialized does not have influence on descriptive trait stereotyping, as we found no differences by sex, age, habitat, or educational level.

In contrast, in the role dimension, except for habitat, we found the expected differences as a function of the social reality in which the participants were socialized.

The women, the younger people, and those who had a higher educational level stereotyped less in this component of gender stereotyping. Our results are in agreement with those of other studies that also found that the descriptive aspects of gender stereotypes are more difficult to change than the prescriptive aspects (de la Fuente, 2007; Spence & Buckner, 2000; Twenge, 1997).

In our study, stereotyping descriptive female traits correlates with stereotyping descriptive male traits, indicating that people who attribute more expressive characteristics to women than to men also attribute more instrumental characteristics to men than to women. The relation among the dimensions of role stereotyping is also high: family and job. That is, people who have traditional beliefs about women’s role in the family also have traditional beliefs about women’s professional role. However, the relations between the two components, descriptive

traits and roles, are low or inexistent. The data obtained in the representative sample validate the assumption that the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of stereotypes are relatively independent, coinciding with those found by recent studies of other authors (Spence & Buckner, 2000). These results support the view that suggests that the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of stereotypes respond to different processes and functions (Burgess & Borgida, 1999; Fiske & Stevens, 1993; Tajfel, 1981). Trait stereotyping fulfills a cognitive categorization function and its content is broadly shared by the members of the same culture (Devine, 1986). The prescriptive aspects of stereotyping are an indicator of sexist prejudices and serve to regulate society and assign to each member his or her role, punishing those who do not fulfill it, thus contributing to maintain the status quo and power relations (Burgess & Borgida, 1999; Jost & Kay, 2005).

However, these results do not clarify the issue of whether the lack of correlation of traits and roles is because they are different processes that are associated with the descriptive and prescriptive function of stereotypes, or because they are different components, according to the multifactor gender models (Ashmore, 1990; Deaux

& Lewis, 1984; Spence, 1993). Previous studies have not analyzed whether or not there is some relation between the descriptive and prescriptive processes of a single component. The second study provides empirical evidence that the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of one of the components, personality traits, are not related.

The only relation between these two facets of trait stereotyping is weak, and it indicates that the women who stereotype traditionally in the instrumental dimension are the ones with the highest gender prejudices about educating boys and girls. Also, in the first study, the correlation of masculine trait stereotyping with roles was found to be higher than the correlation with feminine trait stereotyping. This coincides with the observed tendency of equaling men and women in the instrumental dimension, because women have changed a lot in this dimension, whereas the changes of men in the expressive dimension have been much smaller (Diekman & Eagly, 2000; Eagly & Steffen, 1984, 1986). Therefore, it is not surprising that the women who do not recognize this change are also the most conservative in the prescriptive aspects of educating boys and girls, according to our results. But, a high relation was found among the prescriptive aspects of trait and role, that is, between the two facets related with stereotyping which respond to more deliberate processes and that reflect personal beliefs to a greater extent (Devine, 1986).

Summing up, our results are consistent with the assumption that the descriptive aspects of stereotypes are independent of the prescriptive aspects, except for a low correlation in masculine trait stereotyping. The personality characteristics attributed to men and women do not vary, as a function of the people’s social contexts, so they would reflect broadly shared and very rigid cultural aspects. In contrast, the prescriptive trait prejudices and those linked to roles do vary depending on the social groups analyzed, so that the groups from contexts in which women’s social changes have been more notable have less prejudices. We verified the independence of the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of traits and the relation among the prescriptive trait and role aspects, in a sample of professional women. In future investigations, it would be interesting to analyze whether in other components of gender stereotyping (roles, occupations, or physical traits) such independence between descriptive and prescriptive aspects is found. One of the limitations of our second study is that only professional women participated. This sample was selected because it comprised the people in whom the least stereotyping was observed. It would be very important to verify whether the results found are also replicated in men and in samples with different sociodemographic characteristics.