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Getting along or ahead: Effects of gender identity threat on communal and agentic self‐presentations
Author(s) -
Sinclair Samantha,
Carlsson Rickard,
Björklund Fredrik
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/sjop.12310
Subject(s) - psychology , identity (music) , social psychology , gender identity , developmental psychology , acoustics , physics
When faced with a threat to gender identity, people may try to restore their gender status by acting in a more gender‐typical manner. The present research investigated effects of gender identity threat on self‐presentations of agentic and communal traits in a Swedish and an Argentine sample ( N = 242). Under threat (vs. affirmation), Swedish women deemphasized agentic traits ( d [95% CI ] = −0.41 [−0.93, 0.11]), Argentine women increased their emphasis on communal traits ( d = 0.44 [−0.08, 0.97]), and Argentine men increased their emphasis on agentic traits ( d = 0.49 [−0.03, 1.01]). However, Swedish men did not appear to be affected by the threat regarding agentic ( d = 0.04 [−0.47, 0.55]) or communal traits ( d = 0.23 [−0.29, 0.74]). The findings are to be considered tentative. Implications for identity threat research are discussed.