When Courtesy Fails: Gender Roles and Polite Behaviors

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When Courtesy Fails Gender Roles and Polite
Behaviors

• Amanda Douglas
• Tatiana Hughes
• Alex Fernandez

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Reversing Chivalry

• YouTube - The Catch-Up - Reversing Chivalry

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Introduction

• In helping behaviors Men engage in more active
  and intervening behaviors that are labeled as
  chivalrous and heroic. While women are more
  likely to defer to implicit or explicit needs of
  others.
• Therefore, these actions are seen as more
  masculine or feminine and might serve to
  perpetuate gender role expectations.
• Traditional courteous behaviors can be
  interpreted in two ways the desire to help with
  a level of respect for the person OR to establish
  dominance over the other person.

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Hypotheses

• Research Question How males and females react to
  traditional courteous behaviors if performed by a
  man or a role reversal, by a woman.
• Since some courteous behaviors indicate a
  competence and power discrepancy, these gestures
  might be seen as condescending rather than seen
  as courteous.
• Since such behaviors reinforce masculinity and
  femininity, they will be viewed as less courteous
  when directed by a woman to a man rather than
  vice versa.

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Hypotheses

1. Due to womens ability to decipher the status
   differentials these courtesies represent, they
   are more likely to see men resenting these
   behaviors when they are performed by females.
2. If these acts are gender-stereotyped, the person
   with a gender-neutral name who opened the door
   for someone would be assumed to be male, and the
   recipient of this kind act would be assumed to be
   female.
3. If these acts are gender-stereotyped, the person
   with a gender-neutral name who opened the door
   for someone would be assumed to be male, and the
   recipient of this kind act would be assumed to be
   female.

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Methods

• 284 University students, 49 males 51 females
  between the ages of 17-57
• Participants filled out a three page anonymous
  questionnaire. (random assignment involved)
• The questionnaires involved scenarios, and within
  the questionnaire, half of the time they were
  describing males being courteous to females, and
  the other half they described the reverse.

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Methods continued..

• Following the scenarios, the participants were
  asked to answer questions with regard to the
  characters level of courtesy. The answers were
  based on a 5-point scale ranging from not at all,
  1, to very, 5.
• Participants also given a scenario to read in
  which the names were gender-neutral. Following
  this scenario, participants were asked whether
  they viewed the helper and recipient as male or
  female.

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Results

• Sometimes courtesy fails sometimes subjects
  interpret acts of kindness as patronizing and
  condescending.
• Evaluation of courteous behaviors still linked to
  gender as predicted there were tendencies to
  expect females to be more grateful to males than
  males to females.
• Some confirmation that courteous behaviors rated
  more positively when performed by a male.
• Females more likely to receive recent courtesy
  from males, while males more likely to receive
  most recent act of courtesy from another male.
• These findings suggest that courtesy behaviors
  perpetuate traditional gender roles and regulate
  relationships between males and females.

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Critical Review (likes)

• Clearly define objectives of the study.
• All the subjects were randomly assigned to
  conditions by means of randomly ordered
  questionnaires? strong internal validity
• Even amount of males and females also helps with
  internal validity.

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Critical Review (dislikes)

• Due to the questionnaires length, its possible
  that participants randomly chose answers due to
  their loss of interest with the questionnaire.
• Due to the lengthy results, it was hard to sort
  through their findings.
• One variable they could have measured is sexual
  orientation and see if that makes a difference in
  perception of courtesy behaviors.

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Quiz

• T/F A purpose of the study was to determine how
  males and females react to courteous behaviors
  performed by other males and females.
• T/F Women tend to engage in more active and
  intervening behaviors that are labeled as
  chivalrous and heroic.
• T/F Those who visualized the helper as male
  would interpret the behavior more negatively than
  those who imagined the helper to be female.

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Quiz

• Some participants interpret acts of kindness as
• a.) patronizing
• b.) condescending
• c.) courteous
• d.) all of the above
• Which of the following scenarios was NOT
  included?
• a.) man opening car door for a woman
• b.) man giving his seat to a woman carrying a
  lot
• c.) man laying down his jacket over a puddle
  for a woman
• Which of the following was NOT one of the
  findings?
• a.) sometimes courtesy fails
• b.) evaluation of courteous behaviors still
  linked to gender
• c.) women tend to marry courteous males
• d.) females are more likely to receive recent
  courtesy from males