Psychology 320: Gender Psychology Lecture 49

1. Psychology 320: Gender PsychologyLecture 49

2. Announcement In order to attend a conference related to our class (Sex and Labour Trafficking in Canada) on Friday, March 4th, I will have to move my office hours this week to Wednesday, March 2nd. My office hours will be held at the same times: 11:30-12:30 and 3:30-4:30. If you would like to see me this week but are unable to attend at either of these times, please e-mail me.

3. Invitational Office Hour Invitations, by Student Number for for Wednesday, March 2nd11:30-12:30, 3:30-4:30 Kenny 2517 10104073 13945084 60659083 61440087 74222068

4. Paper Topic due date: March 11 (Option A or B, 2-3 sentence summary; send to David at dbking11@psych.ubc.ca). Paper due date: April 1. Option A: Application of gender psychology, conduct a psychobiography. Option B: Appraise theory and research in gender psychology, discuss an area of ongoing debate regarding gender and/or sexuality.

5. Achievement: 1. Are there sex differences in responsiveness to evaluative feedback?

6. By the end of today’s class, you should be able to: 1. review research regarding sex differences in responsiveness to evaluative feedback. 2. distinguish between an independent and an interdependent self-construal. 3. discuss the relationship between self-construals and responsiveness to evaluative feedback.

7. Are there sex differences in responsiveness to evaluative feedback? • A number of studies suggest that females are more strongly influenced by evaluative feedback than males.

8. Roberts and Nolen-Hoeksema, 1989, 1994 • Study 1: Asked participants to complete a series of “challenging” cognitive tasks. After completion of half of the tasks, participants received positive or negative feedback.

9. Before and after feedback, asked participants to: • (a) estimate their productivity (i.e., how many cognitive tasks they had solved accurately). • (b) indicate how confident they were in their ability to solve the cognitive tasks. • (c) indicate how satisfied they were with their performance.

10. Found that: • Females’ self-efficacy and satisfaction ratings were more strongly influenced by feedback than males’ self-efficacy and satisfaction ratings. • Negative feedback had a greater influence on females’ self-efficacy ratings than positive feedback. • Males were more likely than females to exhibit a “self-promotional” tendency (e.g., overestimating their productivity).

11. Changes in Self-Efficacy by Sex as a Function of Type of Feedback(Roberts & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1989) Change in Self-Efficacy

12. Changes in Satisfaction by Sex as a Function of Type of Feedback(Roberts & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1989) Males reported an increase of 7 points in their satisfaction after receiving negative feedback Change in Satisfaction

13. Study 2: Asked participants to give a speech to a group of three other students who were confederates. One of the confederates provided positive or negative feedback. • Before feedback, asked participants to evaluate their expected performance on the speech. After feedback, asked participants to evaluate their actual performance on the speech.

14. Found that: • females’ self-evaluations were more strongly influenced by feedback than males’ self-evaluations. • negative feedback had a greater influence on females’ self-evaluations than positive feedback.

15. Changes in Self-Evaluations by Sex as a Function of Type of Feedback (Roberts & Nolen-Hoekema, 1994)

16. Johnson and Helgeson, 2002 • Assessed the self-esteem of bank employees before and after they received their annual performance review from their supervisor.

17. Found that: • females’ self-esteem was more strongly influenced by feedback than males’ self-esteem. • negative feedback had a greater influence on females’ self-esteem than positive feedback.

18. Self-Esteem by Sex as a Function of Type of Feedback (Johnson & Helgeson, 2002)

19. Explanation for greater susceptibility of females than males to evaluative feedback: Sex differences in self- construals. Self-construal (self-concept): A cognitive schema (i.e., organized knowledge structure) that contains beliefs about the self and controls the processing of self-relevant information.

20. Research has demonstrated that males are more likely than females to have an independent self-construal, whereas females are more likely than males to have an interdependent self-construal (Cross & Madson, 1997; Cross & Morris, 2003; Guimond et al., 2006)

21. The Independent Self-Construal MOTHER FATHER Out-Group X X X X X X X STRANGER X XX X SELFX X X X X SIBLING X X X FRIEND X X X X X CO-WORKER X STRANGER FRIEND In-Group

22. The Interdependent Self-Construal Out-Group FATHER MOTHER X X STRANGER X X X X X X SELF X X X SIBLING X X FRIEND X X X X X X X CO-WORKER X STRANGER FRIEND In-Group

23. Independent Versus Interdependent Self-Construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991)

24. Theorists maintain that social norms (i.e., gender role expectations) cultivate the independent self-construal among males and the interdependent self-construal among females.

25. Because relationships and collective goals are central to the interdependent self-construal, individuals with this self-construal are more responsive to evaluative feedback from others than are those with an independent self-construal.

26. Achievement: 1. Are there sex differences in responsiveness to evaluative feedback?