ABSTRACT
Gender Role Conflict (GRC) yields intensive psychological discomfort due to restrictive gender roles. However, there is no visual stimuli database portraying GRC contexts/domains. The goal of this pilot study is to assemble stimuli (a) reflecting GRC contexts and (b) rate them on emotional dimensions (valence, arousal, uneasiness), for norming purposes. Initially, 53 photos were included from the Nencki Affective Picture System and the internet. Based on the four GRC domain definitions, we divided the photos into four categories. Straight and gay men (n = 22) rated each photo on (i) the extent to which it depicted a GRC domain, (ii) the three emotional dimensions. Photos rated above scale midpoint as depicting a GRC domain were classified accordingly and comprised the "Gender Role Affective Stimuli Pool" (GRASP) with 31 photos. Straight participants rated Restricted Emotionality (RE) and Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men (RABBM) photos as less pleasant (low valence) than gay men. High GRC participants rated RE photos as more pleasant and arousing and RABBM ones as more uneasiness-inducing than low GRC participants. Men seem to differentiate their affective reaction to photos illustrating GRC domains; hence, GRASP may be useful to future experimental research examining cognitive and affective consequences of men's adherence to gender roles.
Subject(s)
Gender Role , Sexual and Gender Minorities , Male , Humans , Pilot Projects , Role Conflict , Gender IdentityABSTRACT
Gender Role Conflict (GRC) is manifested through certain behavioral patterns when the person adopts unquestionably restrictive gender roles with negative consequences both at intrapersonal and interpersonal level. There is evidence that socially desired masculine behavior is in transition in modern Greek society boosting GRC among Greek men. In this study, GRC patterns have been assessed experimentally using the imagery technique in 1051 Greek men. Emotionally elicited vignettes were created, each demonstrating a different context (Men's gender role conflict: Psychological costs, consequences, and an agenda for change. American Psychological Association): (1) developmental, (2) family - friends' relations and (3) conformity to masculinity ideology, homonegativity and violent behaviour. A mixed ANOVA revealed a significant three-way interaction between GRC patterns scoring, GRC vignettes and time (before and after reading the GRC vignettes). Further investigation of the three-way interaction revealed that vignettes reflecting social pressure to conform to masculinity ideology in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as well as vignettes reflecting outright bullying to conform to such stereotypic roles had a significant impact on GRC patterns scoring, mostly decreasing conflict. The construction and testing of the GRC vignettes can update the existing tools for assessing GRC. Moreover, the vignettes could be employed to shed light on the possible causes of GRC.
ABSTRACT
Selective attention plays a prominent role in prioritizing information in working memory (WM), improving performance for attended representations. However, it remains unclear whether unattended WM representations suffer from information loss. Here we tested the hypothesis that within WM, selectively attending to an item and stopping storing other items are independent mechanisms. We recorded EEG while participants performed a WM recall task in which the item most likely to be tested was cued retrospectively during retention. By manipulating retro-cue reliability (i.e., the ratio of valid to invalid cue trials), we varied the incentive to retain non-cued items. Storage and selective attention in WM were measured during the retention interval by contralateral delay activity (CDA) and contralateral alpha power suppression, respectively. Soon after highly reliable cues, the cued item was attended, and non-cued items suffered information loss. However, for less reliable cues, initially the cued item was attended, but unattended items were kept in WM. Later during the delay, previously unattended items suffered information loss despite now attention being reallocated to their locations, presumably to strengthen their weakening traces. These results show that storage and attention in WM are distinct processes that can behave differently depending on the relative importance of representations.
