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Poster #185 - Linking Gendered Social Pressure from Childhood to Shame, Anxiety, and Aggression in Adulthood

Sat, March 23, 12:45 to 2:00pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Background. Past research has shown that feeling pressured to conform to gender norms is associated with low self-esteem for children (Egan & Perry, 2001). Additionally, children who experience gendered social pressure act aggressively toward children who they view a gender-nonconforming (Pauletti, Cooper, & Perry, 2014). This pattern continues into adulthood, with men demonstrating aggression in response to threats to their masculinity (Vandello et al., 2008). The present, pre-registered study links the gendered social pressure children experience to the shame, anxiety, and aggression adults exhibit in response to gender threat.

Methods. Young adults (n = 70 male, n = 125 female; M age = 19.9, SD = 1.84) answered two open-ended questions about their experiences with gender growing up. Specifically, participants reflected on how they were socialized by the people around them concerning what it meant to “be a man” and to “be a woman.” Next, participants answered four validated gender identity scales measuring collective gender self-esteem, investment in gender norms, autonomous motivation for gendered behavior, and pressured motivation for gendered behavior (see Good & Sanchez, 2010). Participants then completed a gender knowledge quiz and were randomly assigned to receive pre-programmed fake feedback that was either gender-consistent or gender-inconsistent. Gender-consistent feedback told participants they were “as masculine/feminine as the average man/woman,” while gender-inconsistent feedback told participants they were “much less masculine/feminine than the average man/woman.” Finally, we measured participants’ anxious and aggressive cognition using a previously validated word completion task (Carnagey & Anderson, 2004) as well as their shame, via their willingness to publicly share their gender feedback (Vandello et al., 2008).

Results. Replicating past findings, men were threatened by gender-inconsistent feedback. Men who were told that they were “less masculine than the average man” displayed heightened anxiety and physical aggression compared to men who were told they were “as masculine as the average man” and women in either condition (p = .005). Men’s physical aggression, however, was entirely and uniquely moderated by pressured motivation for gendered behavior (p = .016). The more gendered pressure men felt growing up, the more aggressive they were after receiving emasculating feedback (Fig. 1).

Conversely, women were threatened by gender-consistent feedback. Women who were told that they were “as feminine as the average woman” displayed heightened anxiety and relational aggression over women who were told they were “less feminine than the average woman” (p = .020). Interestingly, women who reported experiencing the least gendered pressure growing up were the most relationally aggressive in response to gender-consistent feedback (p = .065; Fig. 2).

Finally, participants who received gender-inconsistent feedback were less likely to publicly share their feedback than those who received gender-consistent feedback (p = .024). Though this pattern of shame is consistent with men’s reaction to receiving emasculating feedback, it contradicts women’s anxiety and aggression following gender-consistent feedback, thus warranting further exploration. In sum, our findings reveal that gender socialization (in particular, gendered social pressure) is important in determining the unique pathways underlying men and women’s negative responses to gender-related threat.

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