Biological essentialism, gender ideologies, and the division of housework and childcare: comparing male carer/female breadwinner and traditional families.

The present study examined the role of individuals' social psychological characteristics in the division of housework and childcare responsibilities, comparing parents in role-reversed arrangements with parents in a more traditional division of roles. A sample of 353 parents with young children completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesized, participants in role-reversed arrangements expressed more egalitarian gender ideologies and had a lower tendency to endorse biological essentialist beliefs compared to participants in a traditional division of roles. The findings further showed that parents' gender ideologies and biological essentialism were interrelated and predicted their involvement in childcare and housework. Finally, maternal gatekeeping mediated the effect of mothers' gender ideologies and biological essentialism on their involvement in housework and childcare. The findings shed light on the underlying mechanisms by which parents' ideologies shape the division of family work and can lead to more equality in the home.

Couple similarity and marital satisfaction: are similar spouses happier?

This study examined the role of couple similarity in spouses' marital satisfaction and affect. The associations between spousal similarity and relationship measures were examined in a sample of 248 married couples. As hypothesized, greater similarity between partners was associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction and lower levels of negative affect. In particular, similarity on the gendered personality and values domains was more strongly associated with relationship measures, whereas similarity on the attitudes and religiosity domains showed weaker and inconsistent patterns of associations. Finally, profile-based similarity tended to be a stronger and more consistent correlate of relationship measures than difference score-based similarity. The implications of these findings for processes underlying intimate relationships are discussed.

Intergroup relations in soccer finals: people's forecasts of the duration of emotional reactions of in-group and out-group soccer fans.

The authors examined the hypothesis that people forecast a longer duration of uniquely human secondary emotions for their in-group than for an out-group. The authors conducted a field experiment in the setting of the European soccer championship. They asked Belgian participants to forecast the intensity with which their in-group Belgian fans or the out-group Turkish fans would experience various primary and secondary emotions in response to their team's victory or loss immediately after the Turkey-Belgium match and three days later. The results support the hypothesis. Moreover, and as the authors expected, they found no differences in the participants' forecasts of primary emotions. The authors discussed the implications of these findings for intergroup relations in general and for soccer fans' behavior in particular.