Gender Stereotypes And Prosocial Behavior

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact abiding by gender norms has on the amount of prosocial behavior that is shown towards an individual or group. This is important because in society, many people do not strictly adhere to dressing in gender norms. Specifically, girls do not always dress in a feminine manner (i.e. long hair, make up, form accentuating nkvariable in this study is helping behavior shown towards people who overtly exemplify gender norms in their clothing compared to when they are dressed more androgynously. The conceptual dependent variable is the frequency those involved in the study are willing to engage in helping behavior. The hypothesis of this study is that most people will agree to help, as the task is not difficult nor time consuming, however, it is hypothesized that when the confederates of the study are dressed in more androgynous clothing, people will be more hesitant to help than when they are dressed in a more feminine way. As shown in the study by Tarrant, Dazeley and Cottom (2009), people are more inclined to show helping behavior towards someone in their in-group compared to someone in the out-group. This study also shows that if it is seen positively by the in-group to show empathy towards people in the out-group, this will increase the amount of empathy shown. For this experiment, the experimenters made themselves appear to be part of the out-group by appearing careless and not dressing by gender norms, however, it is often seen in a negative light to not take someone’s picture, which is why only hesitation, not complete rejection was anticipated.

Method

This study took place on a Sunday afternoon on the Harvard quad. The general population involved in the experiment seemed to be a...

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...rimenters would like to discover. If the experimenters are wanting to focus on gender norms, a more decisive way would be to tease this apart would be to have the confederates cross-dress, but be dressed up while cross-dressing. If the experimenters want to learn more about presentation of self and response of the world, but not taking into account gender norms or expectations, a study taking place in various settings, requiring different types of helping behavior would be best to see the external validity of this idea. Depending on the helping behavior that is required in the cross-dressing experiment, one would again expect more hesitation compared to those complying with gender norms. If the experiment focused on one’s presentation, one would expect that to an extent, the more effort and care it seems that one has put into themselves, others will respond in kind.