title: Gender and Intergroup Helping: Forms of Prosocial Behavior as Differential Social Control Mechanisms for Women and Men.
abstract: The present research, drawing on the Intergroup Helping as Power Relations Model (Nadler, 2002), investigated the ways in which different forms of helping behavior can strategically affect responses to women and men who display socially valued or devalued characteristics. Participants read scenarios about concrete problems faced by a woman or man in need, who displayed positive (i.e., prosocial) or negative (i.e., antisocial) characteristics, and indicated the extent to which they would be willing to support small tax increases if that money were used to help address the target's issues. The predicted Target Gender × Target History × Type of Support interaction, controlling for political orientation, was obtained, F(1, 149) = 6.49, p = .012, η p 2 = .04. Participants tended to give less autonomy-oriented (i.e., empowering) help to a man displaying antisocial (vs. prosocial) characteristics, F(1, 36) = 3.39, p = .074, η p 2 = .09.; they also tended to off more dependency-oriented (i.e., disempowering) help to a woman women exhibiting prosocial (vs. antisocial) qualities, F(1, 38) = 3.42, p = .072, η p 2 = .08. The role of seemingly positive forms of social behavior as a mechanism for social control and the relation of helping to processes of group-hierarchy and system-justifying processes are considered.
authors.affiliation: Yale University(USA).
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abad-Merino
authors.affiliation: Yale University(USA).
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Dovidio
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Cordoba(Spain).
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tabernero
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Cordoba(Spain).
authors.forename: Ignacio
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: González
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: gender roles; intergroup helping; power relations; prosocial behavior