What is the relationship between sex differences in gendered self-views and the gender equality of a given culture? Provide a concrete example of what is meant by this relationship. How do Guimond and colleagues (2007) propose we interpret this relationship?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Sex differences in young adults’ gendered self-views are larger in cultures that have more gender equality. For example, although women score higher than men on warmth, and men score higher than women on assertiveness, these sex differences are larger in European and North American cultures than they are in African and Asian cultures. Serge Guimond and his colleagues propose that people learn about their standing on traits by comparing themselves to different groups of people. In cultures characterized by greater gender equality, women and men are more likely to compare themselves to peers of all sexes. Conversely, in cultures that are lower in gender equality, people tend to live more sex-segregated lives and cross-sex social comparisons are relatively rare. For example, since women are less aggressive than men, on average, a woman who determines her own aggressiveness by comparing to women and men may conclude that she is low on aggression. In more traditional cultures, a woman who compares herself only to other women may end up concluding that she is average on aggression