Relationships between sex, sex role, and social influence

A study (N = 60) was conducted to investigate the relationship between sex, the Bern Sex-Role Inventory, and measures of social influence. These influence measures involved self-reports of influence strategies, peer evalua-tions after group discussions, the Marlowe-Crowne Social-Desirability Scale, and a conformity paradigm. It was found that regardless of the subject’s sex, masculine and androgynous persons received more positive peer evalua-tions than feminine persons. Feminine people regardless of sex were more likely than masculine or androgynous people (p <.05) to report using tears, emotional alteration, and subtlety in efforts to influence others. It was also found that sex-typed and androgynous persons had higher need for approval scores than cross-sex-typed individuals. Television programs, comic strips, and other purveyors of cul-tural wisdom constantly remind us that men and women “get their way ” with remarkably different methods. Men are supposed to use physical force and give commands; women are supposed to appear appealingly helpless and drop hints. Likewise, popular stereotypes portray men and women differently i n terms of their susceptibility to influence. Men are expected to be independent and individualistic; women are expected to be gullible and yielding. The purpose of this study is to test empirically these popular assumptions about sex-related differences. Furthermore, this study is designed to test an alternative hypothesis that sex-role typing i s more important than sex i n accounting for these assumed sex differences i n social influence