Consensus about the differing characteristics of men and women exists across groups differing in sex, age, marital status, and education. Masculine characteristics are positively valued more often than feminine characteristics. Positively‐valued masculine traits form a cluster entailing competence; positively‐valued feminine traits reflect warmth‐expressiveness. Sex‐role definitions are incorporated into the self‐concepts of both men and women; moreover, these sex‐role differences are considered desirable by college students and healthy by mental health professionals. Individual differences in sex related self‐concepts are related to sex‐role relevant behaviors such as achieved and ideal family size. Sex‐role perceptions also vary as a function of maternal employment.

A sex-role Stereotype Questionnaire consisting of 122 bipolar items was given to actively functioning clinicians with one of three sets of instructions: To describe a healthy, mature, socially competent (a) adult, sex unspecified, (6) a man, or (c) a woman. It was hypothesized that clinical judgments about the characteristics of healthy individuals would differ as a function of sex of person judged, and furthermore, that these differences in clinical judgments would parallel stereotypic sex-role differences. A second hypothesis predicted that behaviors and characteristics judged healthy for an adult, sex unspecified, which are presumed to reflect an ideal standard of health, will resemble behaviors judged healthy for men, but differ from behaviors judged healthy for women. Both hypotheses were confirmed. Possible reasons for and the effects of this double standard of health are discussed.

The relationship of self-concept to differentially valued sex-role stereotypes was examined. On a questionnaire consisting of 122 bipolar items, 14 male and 80 female college students indicated what typical adult males, adult females, and they, themselves, were like. Results indicated: (a) strong agreement between sexes about differences between men and women, (b) similar differences between the self-concepts of the sexes, and (c) more frequent high valuation of stereotypically masculine than feminine characteristics in both sexes. Contrary to expectation, differentiations between self-concepts and stereotypic concepts of masculinity and femininity, as a function of social desirability, were not found.The existence of sex-role stereotypes, that is, consensual beliefs about the differing characteristics of men and women in our society, is well documented (

In a pioneenng expernnent, DeSoto (i960) mvestigated the effects of social expectations upon the leammg of social structures Different structures were created by varymg (a) the pattern of relations that was attnbuted to members of four-person groups, and( b) the kmds of relabonships that were said to hold among members of the groups Subjects then leamed these structures by the panred-associates procedure, the stimuh bemg pairs of people, the correct responses bemg the relationship between the first and second person m a pair Some subjects leamed each structural pattern with the relation influences, others learned the same pattern vnth the relation likes, and still others leamed the pattern with the relation confides in There was a strong, consistent tendency for leammg to proceed most effectively when the structure "matched" the subjects' expectations for a relationship For example, expectmg a social structure based on influences to be a complete order, subjects leamed most rapidly the structure which matched their expectation, and were greatly inhibited m leammg influence stmctures which violated that expectation His conclusion from this and a later experiment (DeSoto, 1961) was that mdividuals m our culture learn a welldefined ordenng schema which they apply, often without con-1 The research reported in this paper was supported in full by research grant MH12370 from the National Institute of Mental Health This paper is based on a diesis submitted by the senior author to the Department of Psychology in 1967 m partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master's degree, a less extensive version was presented at the 1967 meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association We are greatly indebted to Professor Robert B Zajonc for his conunents on the theoretical questions that are raised m this paper We are also indebted to Father Bedard of Holy Name High School, Worcester, Massachusetts, for his assistance m obtainmg subjects for this experiment 2 Now at the Umversity of Kansas

The assimilation of disparate information into a unified impression of another person was studied by varying S factors: cognitive complexity, sex, order of presentation, presenting the information in univalent blocks or with alternating valence, and requiring or not requiring S to write an impression after receiving i of the information. The presentation of information in univalent blocks and with an intervening impression led to univalent impressions which showed recency effects. Among male Ss, those high in complexity showed less univalence than lows in their final impressions; among female Ss this relation did not hold, and was sometimes reversed. An explanation of these sex differences is advanced in terms of a possible contradiction between the Ss' values and the stimulus material.