Expert answer:What negative consequences could result if parents
Solved by verified expert:General InformationYou will be asked to read a set of scholarly articles that will supplement the assigned textbook chapters. This handout describes your discussion question (DQ) assignment for these articles.• Write two DQs per article.• As you read each article, take notes. Underline important points and jot down ideas or questions that come to mind while reading it; this will help you write DQs more easily.• D Qs should neither be too specific (“What does the fourth word on p. 27 mean?”) nor too general (“Was this a good article? Why or why not?”). Try to strike a balance between the specific and general. Try to ask thought-provoking questions that make connections to other areas of study and other realms of life—what you saw on the news, read in the paper or a magazine, etc. Note that questions that could be asked of any article are not good questions (e.g., What were the weaknesses of the methodology?). Your questions should center around content that pertains specifically to the assigned article.• Be sure to point the reader to the specific content of the article that your question addresses.• Avoid questions with “yes/no” or “either/or” answers. Good DQs are open-ended. Also avoid leading questions. See below for examples of good DQs.• Go for controversy! Try to pose questions that would easily engage the class in discussion.Example Discussion Questions1. What negative consequences could result if parents followed Bem’s suggestion to raise androgynous boys and girls? How might peers respond to boys with stereotypically feminine characteristics and girls with stereotypically masculine characteristics? What are the positive consequences of raising androgynous boys and girls? Where does one draw the line between a healthy de-emphasis on gender and a healthy acknowledgment of gender in raising children?2. Josephs, Markus, and Tafarodi argue that individuation (distinguishing the self from others on the basis of talents or accomplishments) does not serve as a significant source of esteem for American women (because of gender-role socialization). How accurately does their argument describe women in the U.S.? Explain your response. How do women in the U.S. compare, in terms of how individualistic they are, to men and women in Asian cultures? How does the pressure that women feel in our society to be appropriately “feminine” interact with the individualistic norms that all Americans experience?
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Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29 (2005), 436–445. Blackwell Publishing. Printed in the USA.
C 2005 Division 35, American Psychological Association. 0361-6843/05
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ATTITUDES TOWARD TRADITIONAL
AND NONTRADITIONAL PARENTS
Victoria L. Brescoll and Eric Luis Uhlmann
Yale University
Three studies investigated attitudes toward traditional parents (stay-at-home mothers and employed fathers) and nontraditional parents (stay-at-home fathers and employed mothers) among adult men and women. Using a between-subjects
design, Study 1 found that nontraditional parents were liked significantly less than traditional parents. Participants
also believed that stay-at-home fathers were not regarded highly by others. Study 2 replicated these results using a
within-subjects design, suggesting that participants felt little compunction about expressing negative attitudes toward
nontraditional parents. Study 3 further found that employed mothers were less disliked when described as working out
of financial necessity rather than for personal fulfillment. Both male and female participants reported negative evaluations of employed mothers and stay-at-home fathers, suggesting that prescriptive gender role stereotypes represent a
consensual ideology shared by men and women.
For the past three decades, conservatives have argued that
feminism has caused society to devalue women’s traditional roles, such as homemaking and caring for children
(Robertson, 2000; Schlafly, 2003). Recently, some have even
asserted that society has stigmatized stay-at-home mothers
because they are not pursuing careers outside the home.
“Stay-at-home moms are used to the silent snubs they receive from mothers who decide to pursue careers—as if
they were nothing but pre-feminist breeders who don’t
lead worthwhile lives” (Miller & Ponnuru, 2001). According
to this perspective, society’s stigmatization of stay-at-home
mothers has discouraged women from staying home to raise
their children and, more generally, has contributed to the
devaluing of the traditional American family.
Psychological theories of gender take a starkly different
position by hypothesizing that people respond negatively
to men and women who do not conform to traditional
gender roles (Deaux & Major, 1987; Eagly & Karau,
2002; Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001; Prentice & Carranza, 2002;
Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 1999; Russo, 1976;
Silverstein, 1996). This is because gender stereotypes do
Victoria L. Brescoll and Eric Luis Uhlmann, Department of Psychology, Yale University.
Both authors were supported by graduate research fellowships
from the National Science Foundation while this research was
conducted.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Victoria
Brescoll, Department of Psychology, Yale University, 2 Hillhouse
Ave., New Haven, CT 06520. E-mail: victoria.brescoll@yale.edu
436
not just describe how men and women behave, but also
prescribe gender appropriate behavior. For example, when
women lead in a masculine manner (e.g., authoritatively)
they are judged more harshly than men who lead in the
same way (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992). Likewise,
women who self-promote and behave agentically are liked
less than women who behave in stereotypically feminine
ways, and agentic women suffer a “backlash effect” as a
result (Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 1999).
Mothers who are employed full-time outside the home
and fathers who stay home to care for children occupy nontraditional gender roles. Contemporary psychological theories predict that they would be stigmatized, as are agentic, “masculine” women (Eagly et al., 1992; Rudman, 1998;
Rudman & Glick, 1999), because these nontraditional parents are violating prescriptive gender stereotypes.
Previous research has examined people’s beliefs about
and perceptions of mothers but has not directly addressed
whether certain types of parents, such as stay-at-home
mothers and fathers, are disliked or stigmatized (Bridges &
Etaugh, 1995; Bridges & Orza, 1993; Etaugh & Poertner,
1992; Etaugh & Nekolny, 1990; Etaugh & Folger, 1998;
Etaugh & Moss, 2001; Etaugh & Petroski, 1985). This research has varied women’s marital status (divorced vs. single vs. married), work status (full-time vs. part-time; continuously employed vs. interrupted employment), prestige
of job (moderate vs. low), and parental status (children
vs. no children) and has revealed a number of interesting findings. For example, married women are seen as
better adjusted and more nurturant than divorced women
(Etaugh & Nekolny, 1990; Etaugh & Poertner, 1992, 1991)
Attitudes Toward Parents
and mothers are seen as more nurturant but less competent than nonmothers (Etaugh & Poertner, 1991, 1992).
Furthermore, continuously employed mothers are evaluated more negatively than mothers who interrupted their
employment to care for their children because people view
continuously employed mothers as less committed to their
maternal role (Bridges & Etaugh, 1995). These findings
suggest that people’s evaluations of mothers depend on their
perceived level of commitment to their children.
The present research builds upon and extends this previous work in six major ways. First, past studies have focused
primarily on documenting people’s stereotypes and beliefs
about parents, rather than their attitudes toward them. This
emphasis on cognition at the expense of affect is unfortunate given that attitudes predict discriminatory judgments
and behavior more effectively than do stereotypes (Fiske,
1998; Stangor, Sullivan, & Ford, 1991; for a meta-analytic
review, see Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson, & Gaertner, 1996).
Accordingly, the present studies explored people’s affective
reactions to mothers and fathers who occupy traditional and
nontraditional roles. We expected that individuals who violate prescriptive gender stereotypes (i.e., employed mothers and stay-at-home fathers) would elicit negative affective
reactions.
Second, we examined reactions to stay-at-home and employed fathers. Prior research was primarily concerned with
how responses to mothers vary based on their employment
status (see Bridges, Etaugh, & Barnes-Farrell, 2002, for
an exception). To some extent, this emphasis is reasonable because there are far more employed mothers than
there are stay-at-home fathers (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002).
However, the number of fathers who stay at home to care
for the children while their wife works outside the home
is steadily increasing, rising 18% since 1994 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). Moreover, personal and social prejudices against stay-at-home fathers are directly relevant to
women’s options because they may make fathers unwilling
to assume a homemaker role while their wife works outside
the home. Indeed, the stigma against stay-at-home fathers
may contribute to some fathers’ unwillingness to stay home
full-time with their children out of fear that they may encounter problems when trying to re-enter the workplace
(Duindam, 1999; “Stay-at-home dads,” 2003).
Third, we assessed people’s beliefs about society’s reaction to nontraditional parents. Perceived cultural norms
have been shown to predict behavior above and beyond
personal attitudes (Ajzen, 1996), moderate the expression
of personally endorsed attitudes (Sechrist & Stangor, 2001),
and strongly influence automatic judgments and behaviors
(Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002; Devine, 1989;
Livingston, 2002). To the extent that it is perceived as culturally normative to lack respect for stay-at-home fathers
and/or employed mothers, sexist individuals should be more
likely to express their attitudes, nonsexist individuals should
be more likely to “go along” with sexist social norms, and automatic “gut” responses are likely to be gender biased. Thus,
it is important to know not only people’s personal reactions
437
to nontraditional parents but also their beliefs about how
most other people regard such individuals.
Fourth, we investigated the extent to which people feel
a sense of compunction about expressing negative attitudes toward nontraditional parents. Previous work has
shown that people feel strong internal and external pressures not to express racial prejudice or endorse racial stereotypes (Devine, Monteith, Zuwerink, & Elliot, 1991; Dunton
& Fazio, 1997; Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986; Monteith,
Ashburn-Nardo, Voils, & Czopp, 2002; Plant & Devine,
1998). In fact, discrimination based on race occurs mainly
under ambiguous circumstances when racial biases are easiest to rationalize and justify (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986;
Hodson, Dovidio, & Gaertner, 2002). However, there is reason to believe that such pressures are considerably weaker
when it comes to gender role stereotypes. Because many
men are dependent on women for child rearing and sexual companionship, stereotypes regarding women’s behavior are often more prescriptive than stereotypes of racial
groups (Fiske & Stevens, 1993; Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001).
Notably, one recent study found that while people anticipate feeling guilty at having judged a Black person in a
stereotypical manner, they react with amusement at having
stereotyped a woman (Czopp & Monteith, 2003). Thus, in
Study 2 we employed a within-subjects design, presenting
participants with side-by-side descriptions of employed and
stay-at-home mothers and fathers and asking them to provide their attitudes toward each target. We were particularly
interested in whether participants would express negative
attitudes toward nontraditional parents when such a bias
would be blatant and obvious.
Fifth, we examined the effects of motivations for working outside the home on attitudes toward both mothers and
fathers (Study 3). Extensive work in the field of moral judgment indicates that people receive less blame for socially
undesirable acts when the behavior is externally compelled
(Weiner, 1995, 1996). Because women who work out of
financial necessity are violating prescriptive gender stereotypes for situational (i.e., external) reasons, we hypothesized
that they would provoke less negative reactions than women
who seek employment for reasons of personal fulfillment. In
contrast, motivation should have little impact on attitudes
toward employed fathers because, whatever their reason
for employment, they are fulfilling their traditional role.
Although earlier work has shown that mothers who work
outside the home out of financial necessity are perceived
as more communal than employed mothers whose motive
is personal fulfillment (Bridges & Orza, 1992), the present
research is the first to look at attitudes and to use fathers as
well as mothers as targets.
Finally, the present research fills an important gap in the
literature because we used a racially diverse adult sample
(average age = 38 years) rather than college students. Our
participants thus had considerable experience with parenting and working. Moreover, because prejudice varies greatly
across different cohorts (Judd, Park, Ryan, Brauer, & Kraus,
1995; Sears, 1986), adult samples may be necessary to obtain
438
BRESCOLL AND UHLMANN
a complete picture of attitudes toward parents (cf. Bridges
et al., 2002). Although a few other studies have examined
adult women’s attitudes toward parents, to our knowledge
the present studies are the first to assess those of adult men.
In summary, three studies examined adult men’s and
women’s affective reactions to traditional parents (employed fathers and stay-at-home mothers) and nontraditional parents (employed mothers and stay-at-home
fathers). Also investigated were: perceptions of other people’s responses to nontraditional parents (Study 1), the extent to which people feel a sense of compunction about
reporting negative attitudes toward stay-at-home fathers
and employed mothers (Study 2), and the effects of mothers’ and fathers’ motivations for working (Study 3). Taken
together, these studies were designed to investigate prejudices against nontraditional parents and explore some of
the potential parameters of such biases.
While in part an effort to build upon and extend prior
work on prescriptive gender stereotyping and perceptions
of parents, the present studies also make important novel
contributions. First, the present work is the first to empirically investigate attitudes toward stay-at-home fathers, a
stigmatized category that has received no attention in the
stereotyping and prejudice literature. Second, the present
research points to a double-standard regarding women’s and
men’s reasons for working. Specifically, in Study 3, we investigate whether mothers are evaluated more negatively for
choosing to work out of personal fulfillment than fathers
who do the same.
STUDY 1
Study 1 presented participants with a description of either
an employed mother, an employed father, a stay-at-home
mother, or a stay-at-home father. Each paragraph described
either a man’s or a woman’s decision to either stay home to
care for his or her children or to work outside the home. The
target individual was described as being married with two
children who recently had another baby. Participants answered a series of questions about these individuals, including an assessment of their affective reaction to the person.
We hypothesized an interaction between gender of target
and decision to work versus stay at home. That is, those who
violated traditional gender roles (i.e., stay-at-home fathers
and employed mothers) were expected to be more negatively evaluated than those who conformed to traditional
gender roles (i.e., stay-at-home mothers and employed
fathers).
In addition to assessing participants’ personal attitudes
toward the target persons, we were interested in measuring
participants’ beliefs about other people’s reactions to employed and stay-at-home mothers and fathers. Perceived social norms are powerful influences on judgment and behavior (Ajzen, 1996; Correll et al., 2002; Devine, 1989; Sechrist
& Stangor, 2001). For example, a man who believes that
stay-at-home fathers are not respected may be reluctant
to assume a homemaker role, even though his personal attitudes toward staying at home while his wife works are
positive.
In fact, there are reasons to expect stay-at-home fathers
to be held in lower social regard than employed mothers.
Among the most powerful prescriptive stereotypes directed
at men are those that emphasize avoiding “effeminate” behaviors (e.g., playing with dolls for young boys, failing to
defend one’s honor for adult men; Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle,
& Schwarz, 1996; Muller & Goldberg, 1980). Stay-at-home
fathers, by adopting a traditionally feminine role, may thus
incur a steep drop in perceived social regard. In contrast,
while an employed woman might be disliked for violating
prescriptive stereotypes, her adoption of the high-status,
traditionally male role of breadwinner may win her some of
the social respect and regard associated with that role (for
a discussion of the distinction between perceived warmth
and perceived competence, see Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu,
2002).
Method
Participants
Seventy-three adults (44 males and 29 females) between the
ages of 17 and 79 years (M = 31.33, SD = 16.64) were recruited from a public park in Connecticut. Seventy-seven
percent of the sample was European American. The remaining 23% were African American, Asian, and Hispanic.
Participants were largely middle class (the median income
level was $40,000 per year). Participants were given a lottery ticket, a drink, or paid $1.00 in exchange for participation in the study. Data from two participants were excluded
because they were not sufficiently fluent in English to complete the survey.
Procedure and Measures
Participants were randomly assigned to read one of four
paragraph-long descriptions. Each paragraph described either a man’s or a woman’s decision to either stay home
to care for his or her children (including an infant) or to
work outside the home. A situation in which parents have
an infant to care for was chosen as particularly relevant
to prescriptive stereotypes regarding maternal care of children (Russo, 1976). We used two names, John and Jennifer,
which were pretested for comparability. The four paragraphs were identical in every way except for the decision
made and whether it was a man or a woman making the
decision, yielding a 2 (stay home vs. work outside home) ×
2 (male target vs. female target) design. With this design, it
was possible to compare participants’ reactions to stay-athome mothers, employed mothers, stay-at-home fathers,
and employed fathers in a between-subjects manner.
Participants answered seven questions assessing their attitudes and beliefs about the person described in the paragraph. These seven items fell into two groups: personal
439
Attitudes Toward Parents
affective evaluations of the target and beliefs about others’
opinions of the target.
Affective evaluations. Five items assessed participants’
affective evaluations of the target. Two items pertained to
whether participants thought the target was a good parent (“John [Jennifer] is a good parent”) and whether the
target was contributing equally to the family’s well-being
(“John [Jennifer] is contributing equally to the family’s wellbeing”). Two items assessed beliefs that were especially relevant to employed mothers and stay-at-home fathers. In
particular, it is frequently suggested that employed mothers
are more selfish than stay-at-home mothers (Russo, 1976).
Therefore we included an item assessing this particular belief (“John [Jennifer] is selfish”). Another item focused on
participants’ attitudes toward the target’s decision (“John’s
[Jennifer’s] decision to work was a good one”). These four
items were assessed with 9-point Likert-type scales (1 =
completely disagree, 9 = completely agree). The final item
in this set consisted of a feeling thermometer for the target
person (“On a scale from 0–100, how warmly or coldly do
you feel toward this person? [0 = extremely cold, 50 = neutral, 100 = extremely warm]). Feeling thermometers have
been widely used as a measure of affective evaluation (e.g.,
Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1991; Haddock & Zanna, 1994).
Others’ opinions. Using 9-point Likert-type scales
(1 = completely disagree, 9 = completely agree), two items
were included to assess participants’ perceptions of whether
these roles are stigmatized differently by gender (“John
[Jennifer] is the type of person that others see as successful” and “John’s [Jennifer’s] coworkers will respect his [her]
decision to stay at home with his [her] children”). We refer
to these items throughout as measures of perceived social
regard.
Last, participants completed demographic information,
including gender, race/ethnicity, and age. Participants were
then thanked and debriefed.
Results
We performed a factor analysis on the items so as to describe the variables more parsimoniously. Visual inspection
of the scree plot and varimax factor analysis revealed two
distinct factors. All of the items had factor loadings over .41
and were therefore retained for further analysis. The first
factor contained the Affective Evaluations items while the
second factor contained the Others’ Opinions items. The
two subscales had moderate internal reliability. Cronbach’s
alpha was .70 for the Affective Evaluation items and .46 for
the two Others’ Opinions items. Taken together, these two
factors accounted for 55% of the total variance. The reason
the Others’ Opinions alpha was low was at least partially
because there were only two items in this measure. It is
common for measures with few items to have reliabilities
in this range (e.g., Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Moreover, the
relatively low reliability of this measure, while certainly not
desirable, does provide a conservative test of our hypothesis that scores would differ significantly by condition. At
the s …
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