Gender Roles: An Examination of Intra- and Interpersonal Outcomes Across Cultural Groups

Event Center A & B

The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of gender roles on intra- and interpersonal outcomes across cultural groups. We were especially interested in how androgyny functions across groups because of its demonstrated positive effects among Euro/white individuals. Following from previous research, we expect that: 1) For men, instrumentality will be positively associated with loneliness (unless they are in a relationship) and self-esteem, and negatively associated relationship satisfaction, and supportive communication; 2) For women, expressiveness will be negatively associated with loneliness and self-esteem and positively associated with relationship satisfaction, and supportive communication; 3) Androgyny will be negatively associated with loneliness and positively associated with self-esteem, relationship satisfaction, and supportive communication. We will examine ethnic differences to identify whether the positive effects of androgyny hold across cultural groups. Participants (N = 280) were recruited using a university participant management system, social media sites (e.g., Facebook) and Craigslist.org (volunteer sections). The survey was hosted on Qualtrics.com and took approximately 30 minutes to complete. Our hypotheses were largely supported. Androgyny demonstrated greater positive effects for women than men. Androgyny did not demonstrate positive intra or interpersonal effects for Latino participants. We believe this finding is due to the traditional gender role norms within the Latin culture. Men and women who violate their expected gender role norms could potentially experience negative judgments, which could impact their intra- and interpersonal outcomes.