236
See also: Sigmund Freud 92–99 ■ Guy Corneau 155 ■ Eleanor E. Maccoby
284–85 ■ Albert Bandura 286–91 ■ Simon Baron-Cohen 298–99U
ntil the women’s liberation
movement took hold in the
1970s, Janet Taylor Spence’s
research had focused primarily on
anxiety. However, after reading a
study conducted by two of her
colleagues about how competence
in men correlated with likeability,
the American psychologist turned
to issues relating to gender. Noticing
that the study did not consider
the female gender, she decided to
conduct a similar study that focused
entirely on women. The resulting
paper—Who likes competent
women?—was published in 1972.
Working with Robert Helmreich,
Taylor Spence set out to test
whether men and women preferred
competent women to incompetent
ones. The two psychologists
suspected that only people who
believed in sexual equality would
prefer competence. To test their
hypothesis, they designed the
Attitudes Toward Women Scale,
which assesses attitudes toward
the roles and rights of women by
asking questions about education,
marriage, professional life, habits,intellectual leadership, and social
and economic freedom. The results
were surprising. Contrary to the
researchers’ expectations, subjects
not only preferred more competent
to less competent women, but even
awarded the highest ratings to the
women who were competent in
stereotypically masculine ways.
This landmark study was
seminal in launching gender
research as a subcategory within
the field of social psychology. ■WHO LIKES
COMPETENT
WOMEN?
JANET TAYLOR SPENCE (1923– )
Even our conservative
subjects... rated highest
the woman who was
competent in stereotypically
masculine areas.
Janet Taylor SpenceIN CONTEXT
APPROACH
Gender studiesBEFORE
1961 Albert Bandura develops
social learning theory, which
suggests that boys and girls
behave differently because
they are treated differently.1970 Robert Helmreich
and Elliot Aronson publish a
study showing that men find
competent men more likeable
than incompetent ones.AFTER
1992 US psychologist Alice
Eagly finds that women are
evaluated more negatively
when they display leadership in
a traditionally masculine way.2003 Simon Baron-Cohen
suggests the female brain is
predominantly hardwired for
empathy, whereas the male
brain is hardwired for
understanding systems.