Sex-Related Comparisons: Theory 165
than men—smiling, laughing, gazing, and
nodding—may reflect women’s desire to fos-
ter the development of relationships. Finally,
women’s tendency to be more agreeable in
small groups can be construed as behavior that
aims to enhance group relations.
Social role theory does not specify
that women must be communal and men
must be agentic. It simply states that the
roles women and men hold in society are
responsible for the sex differences in behav-
ior. However, most societies have organized
women’s and men’s roles in a way so that
women develop communal characteristics
and men develop agentic characteristics. As
men’s and women’s roles have become more
similar in Western cultures, sex differences
have decreased (Larson & Wilson, 2004).
When males and females are provided with
equal access to education, males and fe-
males take on more similar roles in society—
females delay marriage and parenthood and
take on the work role. Similar levels of edu-
cation in females and males, however, do
not always mean equal, especially if women
are educated and oriented toward domestic
roles and men are educated for paid employ-
ment roles.
One way to determine the contribu-
tion of society to gender roles is to examine
practices across cultures. One of the most ex-
tensive cross-cultural studies of gender roles
was conducted by Whiting and Edwards
(1988). They observed the way that children
ranging in age from a few months to 10 years
from 12 different communities interacted
with other children and adults. The inves-
tigators’ main hypothesis was that the envi-
ronments of women and men differ and that
these different environments contribute to
sex differences in behavior. In general, their
hypothesis was supported.
Social Role Theory
According to social role theory, differ-
ences in women’s and men’s behavior are a
function of the different roles women and
men hold in our society (Eagly, Wood, &
Diekman, 2000; Wood & Eagly, 2002). This
is a variant of gender-role socialization
theory. Whereas gender-role socialization
theory focuses on the individual and the en-
vironmental forces that shape the individual,
social role theory focuses on society and how
societal role structures shape behavior across
groups of people. That is, social role theory
focuses on the more abstract social condi-
tions of society rather than on the concrete
ways that individuals behave toward women
and men. According to social role theory,
the way labor is divided between women
and men in society accounts for why women
become communal and men become agen-
tic. Men are primarily responsible for work
outside the home, which leads to an agentic
orientation. Women, even when employed,
are primarily responsible for domestic labor
and taking care of children, which leads to a
communal orientation. When the roles that
women and men hold are similar, sex dif-
ferences are minimized. Is there a role for
biology? Yes, of course. Social role theory ar-
gues that the biological differences between
women and men (i.e., women bearing chil-
dren, men being larger) lead to the assign-
ment of these different roles (Wood & Eagly,
2002).
Social role theory has been used to ex-
plain a variety of social behaviors (Eagly, 1987).
According to social role theory, women may
be more easily influenced or more conforming
than men because they want to appear agree-
able and maintain group harmony. The non-
verbal behaviors in which women engage more
