male and female nurturing: perceptions of style and competence

Sex Roles, Vol. 18, Nos. 7/8, 1988

Male and Female Nurturing: Perceptions of Style and Competence 1

Judith E. Owen Blakemore 2 Indiana University--Purdue University at Fort Wayne

Steve R. Baumgardner and Allen H. Keniston University o f Wisconsin-Eau Claire

College men and women evaluated male and female characters in f ive stories about babysitters. The characters: (1) refused to babysit, (2) babysat with minimal caretaking activities, (3) babysat with an active play style, (4) babysat with a quiet play style, or (5) babysat with a combined style. The "refuser" was considered most masculine but was consistently devalued. The quiet play, the active play, and combined caretakers were evaluated most positively. Evaluations o f babysitters were more dependent on the behaviors they engaged in than on their gender. Nurturing men and women were both valued.

The care of infants and young children has traditionally fallen to women. Child care is considered a basic aspect of female gender role behavior in many cultures (Ember, 1981; Williams & Best, 1982). In Western societies, despite an apparent increase in single fathers and "house husbands," men do not care for either their own children (Rossi, 1985) or those of others (Gordon & Draper, 1982) in any significant numbers. Descriptive studies show that fathers may interact with their newborns, during the hospital stay, in much the same way as mothers. Fathers are capable of being involved and sensi- tive caretakers (Parke & O'Leary, 1976). However, it is clear that they rarely behave like mothers in the infant's day-to-day life in the home (Belsky, Gil- strap & Rovine, 1984; Clarke-Stewart, 1978). Men are even less involved in

1An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psycho- logical Association, Los Angeles, August 1985.

2To whom reprint requests should be addressed at Department of Psychological Sciences, Indi- ana University--Purdue University, Fort Wayne, IN 46805.

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03604)025/88/04(04)449506.00/0 © 1988 Plenum Publishing Corporation

450 Blakemore, Baumgardner, and Keniston

the care of others' children. Child care professions, such as day care workers and elementary school teachers, are largely made up of women (Gor- don & Draper, 1982). When men do work in these areas, they typically leave after a short time. The historically low pay and status of child care jobs is not a complete explanation for men's underrepresentation, since men do work at other jobs with equally low compensation and prestige.

Ten years ago, psychology might have provided a ready explanation for differences in male and female nurturing. Early socialization or biologi- cal tendencies create gender specific behaviors. Recent critical reviews, however, show this type of explanation to be both oversimplified and incon- sistent with research findings. As Deaux (1984) has noted research on sex and gender has found few stable and consistent behavioral differences between men and women, particularly in social behaviors.

Even for the few behaviors that show consistent gender differences, the differences are small and gender accounts for very little of the total variance (Hyde, 1981, 1984). Yet in apparent contradiction to these findings, as in the case of male and female nurturing, gender differences in behavior abound in the "real" world.

Deaux (1984) suggests that the apparent contradiction between psychol- ogists' research showing few gender differences and the easily observed differences of real life can only be explained by examining gender role perceptions, choices, and expectancies. Gender should be regarded as an important factor in the process of social cognition through which beliefs about gender differences (rather than real differences) influence how people act. Gender creates expectancies that shape social interaction and alter the choices that males and females make. The net result of these processes is often a confirmation of gender beliefs and a social construction of apparent gender differences. The social construction reflects ongoing social processes rather than endur- ing dispositional differences between males and females (Wittig, 1985).

Deaux's view on the nature of gender role stereotypes and the influence these stereotypes may have on choices and expectancies may provide one explanation for the underrepresentation of men in child care professions. Deaux argues that gender stereotypes have four components. These are traits, role behaviors, physical characteristics, and occupational preferences. When subjects are given information about the existence of any one of these components in experimental "stimulus persons," they tend to make gender-stereotyped judgments about the other components. For example, stimulus persons said to have feminine physical characteristics are likely to be estimated to have feminine traits and occupational preferences, and to exhibit feminine role behaviors (Deaux & Lewis, 1984).

Male and Female Nurturing 451

Jackson and Cash (1985) have extended Deaux's findings to show that subjects also make correlated judgments about nongender-stereotyped characteristics of stimulus persons. Specifically, male stimulus persons who exhibited feminine role behaviors were rated as less well adjusted than males showing male role behaviors and females showing either male or female role behaviors. This finding suggests that men may avoid child-nurturing professionals because they believe men who chose them are less well adjusted than men seek- ing more male-typical professions.

There is limited support for this explanation. Although their study was done to find support for the male "fear of nurturing" explanation for male noninvolvement in professional child care, Draper and Gordon (1983) found that hypothetical males who were nurturant when they babysat were viewed as maladjusted compared to nonnurturant male babysitters. Unfortunately, Draper and Gordon's study was flawed in a number of ways: their samples were not representative of men in general (they included a sample of Mor- mon men and men in vocational technical classes in the mountains of Vir- ginia), and they failed to include either women stimulus persons or female subjects. The first problem moots generalization of findings, the second leaves doubts about whether it is the actor or the behavior that motivates judgments of maladjustment. Furthermore, the specific ways that the stimulus- person babysitters were said to be nurturant leaves open the possibility that their behavior was perceived as suspect: nurturant babysitters were said to hug and give back rubs, behaviors that could be seen as potentially sexually abusive.

The present study replicates some aspects of the Draper and Gordon study, but uses a much wider and more realistic array of interactions between babysitters and children to evaluate how different styles of nurturing behavior are perceived. Babysitting stories were constructed to systematical- ly vary both the sex of the babysitter and a variety of different styles of nurturing. Participants' perceptions and evaluations of these styles could then be related to both the sex of the babysitter and to specific nurturing behaviors. Recent research (Deaux, 1984) suggest that this is an important assessment. People may have stereotypic beliefs about differences between males and females. However, when specific behaviors of males and females are evaluated, it is often these behaviors rather than beliefs about gender differences that determine the evaluations. The present study permits assessment of the relative importance of sex of nurturer vs. style of nurturing. The present study addresses four questions: (1) Are there consistent perceptions of different nurturing styles as being masculine or feminine? (2) Are perceptions of nurturing style dependent on the sex of the nurturing individual or or the con-

452 Biakemore, Baumgardner, and Keniston

tent of the nurturing behavior? (3) How are these styles evaluated (e.g., competence, goodness, etc.)? (4) Are nurturing males evaluated negatively?

METHOD

Subjects

Participants (78 male, 84 female) were students from several sections of an introductory psychology course at a Midwestern university. They were offered extra credit in their course for their help. All were white; most had small-town or rural and somewhat conservative backgrounds.

Procedure

During class meetings students were invited to donate about 15 minutes of their time to contribute to a study of people's attitudes toward babysitting. Volunteers then signed up for one of several sessions, during which they would be asked to complete a questionnaire and then be told in a more de- tail about the project.

At the sessions each participant received a booklet that first described one of ten different babysitting scenarios. These stories varied according to (1) sex of babysitter (sex of children was not indicated), and (2) type of care the babysitter provided. Each participant read and rated only one of the ten stories. The number of people of each gender rating a story ranged from 6 to 12, with most stories rated by 7 or 8 men and 8 or 9 women. In Story 1,

John (or Mary), age 20, is asked to babysit his neighbor's preschoolers. Because he doesn't like to look after children, John refuses.

Story 2 outlines minimal caretaking:

John, age 20, is asked to babysit his neighbor's preschoolers. John agrees to babysit. The following is a list of things John does with the children:

- feeds them - w a t c h e s them play - p u t s them to bed

Stories 3-5 all used the same stem as Story 2, but added different information about styles of caretaking. In story 3, the active play story, the babysitter:

- feeds them --watches them play - p l a y s soccer and baseball with them


-rough-houses with them (wrestling, tickling, etc.) -takes them fishing -puts them to bed

In Story 4, the quiet play story, the babysitter

- feeds them -holds them in his lap and hugs them -watches them play -reads to them -sings to them -puts them to bed

Story 5, the combined story, combined all nine of the items f rom Stories 2-4:

-- feeds them -holds them in his lap and hugs them -watches them play -plays soccer and baseball with them -rough-houses with them -takes them fishing -reads to them -sings to them -puts them to bed

Booklets that began with one of these stories were randomly distribut- ed to participants. After reading a story, each subject evaluated the babysitter using two questionnaires bound into the booklet following the story page. Questionnaires were in the same order in all booklets.

The first measure was the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ), a measure of instrumental and expressive traits (Spence & Helmreich, 1978). The PAQ is also considered a measure of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny to the extent that instrumentality and expressiveness are measures of gender role categories. Responses to the PAQ indicated both how instrumental (or masculine) and how expressive (or feminine) participants be- lieved the story characters to be.

The second measure had participants evaluate story characters using the semantic differential. The 19 bipolar adjectives used by Draper and Gor- don (1983) were used. These included pleasant-unpleasant, weak-strong, tense-relaxed, hard-soft, well-adjusted-maladjusted, active-passive, tough- tender, good-bad, polite-impolite, feminine-masculine, wise-foolish, worthless-valuable, quiet-restless, honest-dishonest, rugged-delicate, disobedient-obedient, fast-slow, competent-incompetent, and clean-dirty. Although Draper and Gordon (1983) designated a priori which of these pairs measured the standard semantic factors of evaluation, potency, and activity, as well as two additional dimensions of masculine-feminine and rule following, we factor analyzed the responses in order to identify the dimensions underlying subjects' evaluations of character in the present study.


R E S U L T S

Personal Attributes Questionnaire

A 5 (story) x 2 (sex of character in the story) x 2 (sex of participant) between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done on each of three scales derived from PAQ: Masculinity (M), Femininity (F), and a bipolar scale (M-F). All post hoc tests were Student-Newman-Keuls tests (SNK).

The analysis of the F scale produced a main effect for story [/7(4,161) = 69.9, p < .001]. Post hoc tests indicated Story 4, the quiet play story, was seen as the most expressive or feminine. Stories 3 and 5 (active play and combined) were ranked next, then Story 2 (minimal caretaking), and finally Story 1 (refuses). There was also a significant three-way interaction IF(4,161) = 3.33, p < .02]. The major reason for this interaction was that Story 3, the active play story, was very much influenced by who rated whom. People rated babysitters who were not their own sex as more expressive than babysitters who were their own sex on this story. Men rated men similarly to women's ratings of women and these were seen as less expressive than the rating of opposite-sex babysitters.

The ANOVA of the M scale also produced a main effect for story [F(4,161) = 6.62, p < .001]. Story 2, the minimal caretaking story, was seen as less instrumental than the others. There was a three-way interaction here also [F(4,161) = 3.22, p < .02]. Women rated men as equally masculine or instrumental in all stories. Men's ratings of the Story 1 female character were lower than both men's and women's ratings of any other character. That is, men apparently think that a woman who refuses to babysit has few positive instrumental characteristics. Finally, men saw Story 4, the quiet play story, as more instrumental than the minimal caretaking story, Story 2, while women rated characters in these stories similarly.

The M-F scale also produced a main effect for story [F(4,161) -- 22.09, p < .001], and a significant three-way interaction [F(4,161) = 2.38, p < .05]. The main effect indicated that Story 1, about the person who refused to babysit, was seen as the most masculine, and Story 3, the active play story, as the next most masculine. Story 4, the quiet play story, was the most feminine, with Stories 2 and 5 intermediate. The interaction indicated that the deviations from the main effect were again concerned with the evaluation of the opposite-sex characters. Women rated men in Story 3, the active play story, as more expressive than other characters. Men rated women as more instrumental in Story 4, the quiet play story, and more instrumental in Story 5, the combined story.

These results are obviously complicated and deserve some clarification. Overall, Story 1, about the person who refused to babysit, was seen as most


masculine, with Story 3, the active play story, as next most. Story 4, the quiet play story, was seen as the most feminine. The interactions revealed complex relationships between the sex of the story character and that of the person evaluating the story, which differed from story to story and varied from scale to scale. An interesting observation was that women often rated women in the way that men rated men, but the opposite-sex characters were rated differently.

Semantic Differentkll

The story characters were rated using 19 adjective pairs on a 7-point scale. The ratings of these adjective pairs were factor analyzed using the prin- cipal factoring method and varimax rotation. The factor analysis revealed three factors. On the first factor the highest loadings adjectives were hard- soft, tough-tender, and disobedient-obedient. On the second factor the highest loading adjectives were polite-impolite, wise-foolish, clean-dry, and good-bad. The adjectives loading on both factors were pleasant-unpleasant, good-bad, and polite-impolite. These patterns indicate that both factors are evaluative, but that they represent different types of evaluation. The first factor accounted for 68.2% of the variance, and the second factor accounted for 23.6% of the variance. Clearly, much of the variance is accounted for by these two factors. There was a third quite different factor that accounted for 8.2% of the variance. This factor seemed to encompass such attributes as strength, ruggedness, and activity. One could also argue that it represents one way of viewing masculinity, although not instrumentality necessarily. In fact, the adjective pair masculine-feminine loaded on this factor. The adjective and their factor loadings can be seen in Table I.

We devised simple subscale scores (sums of ratings) for each factor. For ease of interpretation we reversed the direction of Factor 2 so that high scores on this factor represented a positive evaluation of the story character. The three scores were then each analyzed with a 5 × 2 x 2 ANOVA. SNK tests were conducted as needed.

The ANOVA of Factor l's scores produced a main effect for story [F(4,161) = 44.11, p < .001]. The character in Story 4, the quiet play story, was evaluated most positively on this factor. The character in Story 5 (combined style) was ranked next, then the active play (Story 3) and minimally caretaking characters (Story 2), and finally the character who refused to babysit (Story 1). Neither the character's nor the participant's sex affected these ratings and there were no interactions.

The ANOVA of Factor 2's score also produced a main effect for story [F(4,161) = 20.73, p < .001]. The characters in Stories 3-5 were evaluated


Table I. Rotated Factor Loadings of the Semantic Differen- tial Adjective Pairs

Factor

Adjective pair 1 2 3 Pleasant-unpleasant - .59 a .57 a .00 Weak-strong .12 -.23 .65 a Tense-relaxed .68 a - .25 .32 Hard-soft .85 ~ -.23 - .10 Well-adjusted-maladjusted -.31 .48" -.41 ~ Active-passive - .05 .44 a - .63 a Tough-tender .73" - .29 - .29 Good-bad - .49 ~ .64" .03 Polite-impolite - .50 a .69 a .15 Feminine-masculine - .04 .26 .54 ~ Wise-foolish -.27 .68 ~ -.13 Worthless-valuable .51 ~ -.35 .25 Quiet-restless -.40" .07 .47 ~ Honest-dishonest .37 .61" .16 Rugged-delicate .45" -.15 - .56 ~ Disobedient-obedient .70" - .30 - .09 Fast-slow .06 .50" -.31 Competent-incompetent -.33 .60 a -.08 Clean-dirty - .36 .64" .18

aThis adjective pair loaded on this factor.

equally positively. The min ima l caretaker in Story 2 was rated less positively

and the one who refused to babysi t was rated the least positively. The A N O V A of the scores derived f rom Factor 3 also produced a ma in

effect for story [F(4,161) = 15.33, p < .001]. The characters in Stories 1,

3, and 5 (refused, active play, and combined , respectively) were rated higher on this factor (active, strong, rugged) than those in Stories 2 and 4.

D I S C U S S I O N

In this study college students evaluated male and female story characters who either refused a request to babysit , or who babysat with one of four different styles: min ima l caretaking, active play, quiet play, or a style com- b in ing active and quiet play. The characters were evaluated with the P A Q and the semantic differential .

The first evaluat ion of the story characters, the P A Q , is a measure of

ins t rumenta l and expressive traits, and is usual ly considered a measure of androgyny. This measure produced the most complex results with three-way interact ions occurr ing on all scales (M, F, and M-F) of the P A Q . Evalua- t ions of the ins t rumenta l i ty (masculinity) and expressiveness (feminini ty) of story characters were of ten affected by the gender of bo th the evaluator and


the character. In general, however, the character in Story 1, who refused to babysit, was seen as the most instrumental or masculine, especially if male. The character in the story we labeled active play, (Story 3), was seen as next most masculine. Story 4, the story we labeled quiet play, was seen as most feminine. As a rule, the combined and minimal caretaking story characters were ranked in the middle with respect to masculinity and femininity. One can conclude two things from these results. First, these data suggest that certain styles of babysitting are seen as masculine or feminine, or at least as expressive and instrumental. However, one must also conclude that while these perceptions exist, they are very complex. The perception of a caretaking style as masculine or feminine seems to depend on the behaviors involved, the gender of the caretaker, and the gender of the evaluator. This is certain- ly an intriguing finding. We believe it deserves further study, especially with other descriptions of nurturing, and using parents or teacher nurturers, for example.

The second evaluation was the semantic differential. The findings here were quite straightforward and not affected by the gender of either the participant or the story character. A factor analysis identified three factors. The first two factors were evaluative but represented somewhat different types of evaluation. Factor 1 reflected such attributes as softness, tenderness, and obedience. The character in the quiet play story, whether male or female, was ranked highest on this factor. The combined play character was ranked next, then the active play and minimally caretaking characters, and finally one who refused to babysit. The refuser was also ranked lowest on Factor 2. Factor 2's most highly loading adjective were polite, wise, good, and clean. The three caretakers who did the most with the ch i ld r en - the quiet play, active play, and combined play care takers -were all rated equally positively on Factor 2 and more positively than the other two. What is most important about these results is that the babysitters in our stories who did the most with the children were evaluated positively whether they were male or female.

The analysis of Factor 3 (strong, active, rugged, masculine) showed the refuser, active play, and combined play caretakers to be rated higher on the factor than the quiet play and minimal caretakers. This third factor can be seen as a type of masculinity, although not instrumentality as in the PAQ. This finding again supports the idea that certain styles of child care may well be seen as more typically masculine than others. It is important to reiterate, however, that the evaluation (on Factors 1 and 2) of the caretakers was not affected by whether the styles were seen as masculine or feminine, but rather by the specific activities engaged in. Stories rated high on Factor 3 were evaluated both positively (active play) and negatively (refuses) on Factors 1 and 2, as were stories rated low on Factor 3.

We had wondered, for example, whether males would be valued more if they cared for children with an active play or masculine style rather than


a quiet p lay or feminine style. However , this was not the case. The evalua- t ion o f the babys i t t e r s on the semant ic d i f fe ren t ia l was no t dependen t on the gender o f the babys i t t e r . The i m p o r t a n t th ing seemed to be do ing some- th ing with the chi ldren ra ther than jus t watch ing them or refusing to care for them. It is clear tha t the person who refused to babys i t was devalued . The f indings show tha t the behav io r o f the care takers , no t their gender , de- t e rmined their eva lua t ion . They also demons t r a t e tha t nur tu r ing men were not devalued.

Overal l , these results suppor t Deaux 's (1984) cr i t icisms o f the gender role l i tera ture ' s con t inued emphas is on pe r sona l i ty and t ra i t fac tors to ex- p la in behav ior . W e f o u n d no suppor t for the male fear o f nur tu r ing expla- na t ion suggested by D r a p e r and G o r d o n (1983). Our results show tha t when individuals are given more complete descriptions o f nurtur ing behaviors, their evaluative judgments are not gender correlated, but depend on the behaviors . The present results seem to reflect a ch i ld-centered ethic in which a will ingness to nur ture chi ldren is va lued and an unwil l ingness deva lued regardless o f the ca re taker ' s sex.

R E F E R E N C E S

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Clarke-Stewart, K. A. And daddy makes three: The father's impact on mother and young child. Child Development, 1978, 44, 466-478.

Deaux, K. From individual differences to social categories: Analysis of a decade's research on gender. American Psychologist, 1984, 39, 105-116.

Deaux, K., & Lewis, L. (1974). The structure of gender stereotypes: Interrelationship among components and gender labels. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 1974, 46, 991-1004.

Draper, T. W., & Gordon, I. Male "fear of nurturing": A research note. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Anaheim, CA, August 1983.

Ember, C. R. A cross-cultural perspective on sex differences. In R. H. Munroe, R. L. Munroe, & B. B. Whiting (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural human development. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1981.

Gordon, T., & Draper, T. W. Sex bias against male day care workers. Child Care Quarterly, 1982, 10, 15-17.

Hyde, J. S. How large are cognitive gender differences? A meta-analysis using w and d. Ameri- can Psychologist, 1981, 36, 892-901.

Hyde, J. S. How large are gender differences in aggression? A developmental meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology, 1984, 20, 697-706.

Jackson, L. A., & Cash, T. F. Components of gender stereotypes: Their implications for infer- ences on stereotypic and nonstereotypic dimensions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1985, 11, 326-344.

Parke, R. D., & O'Leary, S. Family interaction in the newborn period: Some findings, some observations and some unresolved issues. In K. Reigel & J. Meacham (Eds.), The de- veloping individual in a changing world. (Vol. 2): Social and environmental issues. The Hague: Mouton, 1976.


Rossi, A. S. Gender and parenthood. In A. S. Rossi (Ed.), Gender and the life course. Haw- thorne, NY: Aldine Publishing Company, 1985.

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male and female nurturing: perceptions of style and competence

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