Book reviewIn the shadow of the past: Psychology portrays the sexes: edited by Miriam Lewin. Columbia University Press, New York. 1984. Price $30.00

Linking Individual Development and Social Changes

One consistent element of Western sex stereotypes is that women are emotional, whereas men are rational. This is also widely spread in psychology and defended by feminist authors who equate women's relationality with their emotionality. In this article the concept of `emotionality' is criticized and the assumption that women are generally more emotional than men is questioned. A large amount of empirical research on sex differences in emotions is reviewed, leading to the conclusion that the general idea that women are more emotional than men tells us more about Western sex stereotypes than about women's actual emotions.

Sex Differences in Emotionality: Fact or Stereotype?:

Freud once asked, What do women want? Long before Freud, and continuing to the present day, many men have wondered, Why do they (women) behave as they do? Similarly, many women ask, Why do they (men) behave as they do? In a widely read nonacademic volume, Gray (1992) suggested a simple answer with the title of his book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: Women and men are from “different planets” and are “supposed to be different” (p. 10). From the very beginnings of their discipline in the late 1800s, psychologists have addressed the issue of why women and men think, feel, and behave as they do. At times, the prevailing answers were almost as simple as Gray's suggestion that the sexes come from different planets. At other times, and increasingly so today, the answers concerning the why of men's and women's experiences and actions have involved complex multifaceted frameworks.

Sex/gender and the individual.

This study explores the relations among perceived self-efficacy, social support, children's behaviors, and maternal parenting in a sample of 188 single Black mothers of a preschoolage child, employed and nonemployed, who also were current and former welfare recipients in New York City. Using multiple regression techniques, a positive relationship was found between child behavior problems and parenting stress; being nonemployed, lower self-efficacy, and less social support from friends were marginally significant predictors. Fewer child behavior problems and higher maternal educational attainment were significant predictors of more supportive, involved parenting. A marginally significant positive interaction between self-efficacy and child behavior problems indicated that self-efficacy buffered the effect of behavior problems on maternal parenting behavior.

Book reviewIn the shadow of the past: Psychology portrays the sexes: edited by Miriam Lewin. Columbia University Press, New York. 1984. Price $30.00

Citations

Linking Individual Development and Social Changes

Sex Differences in Emotionality: Fact or Stereotype?:

Sex/gender and the individual.

Maternal Self-Efficacy and Children's Influence on Stress and Parenting Among Single Black Mothers in Poverty

On the politics of psychological constructs: Stop the bandwagon, I want to get off.

Related Papers (5)

Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists

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