Methods and History of Gender Research 45assertiveness, you could examine self-reports
of assertiveness, you could set up an experi-
ment to elicit assertive behavior, and you
could obtain other people’s reports of par-
ticipants’ assertive behavior. In studies of
aggression among children, a frequently
used measure of other people’s reports is
peer nomination. All the children in the class
nominate the most aggressive child, the child
most difficult to get along with, or the child
who makes them afraid. When one person is
named by the majority of the children, we can
have a great deal of confidence that the child is
exhibiting some kind of behavioral problem.The Setting: Laboratory Versus Field
Much of our research on gender is conducted
in the laboratory rather than the field, or the
real world. A number of problems emerge in
applying the conclusions from research on
gender conducted in the laboratory to our
everyday lives, specifically problems with ex-
ternal validity. In the laboratory, everything
is held constant except the independent vari-
able, which is usually participant’s sex. Thus
men and women come into the laboratory and
face equal treatment and equal conditions.
The problem is that women and men do not
face equal conditions in the real world. Thus
we might be more likely to find similar behav-
ior in the laboratory than in the real world. If
that is the case, the differences in behavior ob-
served in the real world might be due to the
different situations in which women and men
find themselves.
For example, if you bring men and
women into the laboratory and provoke
them, they may display similar levels of
anger. However, in the real world, women
are more likely than men to hold low-status
positions where displays of anger are inap-
propriate and often punished. In addition,that define those concepts. That is, regard-
less of whether a man rates himself as inde-
pendent or self-confident (traits we ascribe
to masculinity), most men rate themselves
as masculine. Thus, participants may behave
in ways that fit their gender role, especially
if they realize the purpose of the experiment.
If I asked the students in my class for a
show of hands as to who is emotional, more
women than men would raise their hands. If
I asked the students for a show of hands as
to who is aggressive, more men than women
would raise their hands. Does this mean men
are more aggressive than women and women
more emotional than men? Certainly not—on
the basis of that showing of hands. It is socially
desirable for men to say they are aggressive
and women to say they are emotional. The
design of the study is poor because the public
behavior increases the chance of introducing
a social desirability response bias.
An example of demand characteristics
occurred in a study of sexual behavior. Col-
lege men reported more sexual partners when
the experimenter was a female than a male
(Fisher, 2007). One precaution that you can
take to guard against demand characteristics is
to have responses be private—anonymous and
confidential—rather than public. However, the
students in the previous experimenter were led
to believe just that. Another precaution is to
disguise the purpose of the experiment.
In a review of the literature on parents’
treatment of children, the review concluded
that parents treat sons and daughters the same
(Lytton & Romney, 1991). However, a closer
inspection of the studies revealed that parents
saidthey treated sons and daughters the same,
but observational studies showed differences.
One remedy to the problem of partici-
pant effects is to have multiple measures of a
behavior. For example, if you want to know
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