When Social Role Salience Leads to Social Role Rejection: Modest Self-Presentation among Women and Men in Two Cultures

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Abstract
Resistance to the traditional gender role expectation for modest self-presentation among women was examined in a pair of studies. In the first-which included U. S. and Polish college students of both sexes-making traditional gender role expectations explicitly salient led to a significant reversal of traditional modest responding only among American women. A second study supported a role rejection account of this finding by demonstrating that (a) U.S. women reacted much more negatively to the traditional gender role expectations for modesty than did comparable men, and (b) those women who reacted most negatively also evidenced the greatest role-inconsistent intentions. The possibility is discussed that seemingly ambivalent role behavior may not be a result of role conflict but instead to the presence or absence of salient role-related stimuli.