In the Eye of the Beholder

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Abstract
This study investigated the perceptions of sex role sterotypes held by young adult television viewers. College students (N = 677) rated four sets of male and female characters who were similar in age, marital status, and job responsibilities and who shared the lead in four prime-time crime detection dramas. Subjects used a validated psychological measure of sex role attributes to rate the characters and themselves. Results indicated that viewers readily perceive differences between characters who have surface similarities. In addition, subjects rated three of the four female characters higher in work competence and work seriousness than their male partners, indicating that the role the actor plays is more important to viewer perceptions than the sex of the actor. Comparisons by subjects of self-ratings with television character ratings indicate that viewers perceive significant differences between themselves and television characters. Correlations between these ratings were significant but low to moderate, indicating that the viewer perceptions of sex role sterotypes are based on factors other than the viewer's own sex role attributes.

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