Gender, gender roles and attitudes towards violence: Are viewpoints changing?

Social Behavior and Personality, 2001 by Smith, Stephen C, Ellis, Jon B, Benson, Trisha A

PROCEDURE

Subjects were recruited during classes and received experimental credit for participating. Subjects were told the survey was about "relationships towards violence". All subjects completed a demographic survey, a BSRI-short form (Bem, 1974), and a violence questionnaire. The total amount of time for which subjects participated in the study was approximately 30 minutes.

RESULTS

A four (gender role) x two (gender) analysis of variance (ANOVA) provided a significant main effect for gender, F(1,144) = 16.34, p

The results show a mean difference in the violence scores between men and women. However, the hypothesis that there would be significant differences between androgynous and non-androgynous individuals and their relationships to violence was not supported. This is surprising, because androgyny has been shown to be an adaptive lifestyle. It may be that more people, regardless of their interpersonal style, are moving towards a view that does not condone violence in any reasonable sense. Even the gender differences in this study, although significant, may not be clinically significant. Both men's scores and women's scores were significantly below what might be considered a positive attitude towards violence. The possible range of scores was one to five, with both mean scores at-or around-- two. Further, it may be that attitudes of younger people such as the individuals in this study are becoming less tolerant of positive attitudes towards violence. The finding that women were significantly less tolerant of violence, and thus revealed more adaptive attitudes, supports previous research which has shown women to possess more adaptive reasons for living than do men. Future studies may wish to examine various age groups in order to determine if these attitudinal changes towards violence are occurring throughout society, or solely among a younger population.

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